Saturday, November-16-13

Well departed Marina Mazatlán without fanfare of a hitch. The last couple of days had been partly overcast so we got a bit of respite from the heat which made both Jan and I happy. We quickly sailed over to a pair of tiny islands just a few miles away to anchor off a beautiful sand beach, right next to some cruising friend, Mark and Kathy from Salem Oregon and there boat, Sweet Chariot. It had been a tough two weeks of cleaning the boat and making sure all systems were operating normally. I was very surprised that Maiatla, not only survived hurricane season with its high winds and torrential downpours but everything seemed to be in working order… or most anyway as we were destined to find out at the worst possible moment.

After anchoring in 15 feet of water over a beautiful sand bottom I wasted no time in stripping off and leaping for a swim. As I swam about the boat in the buff Jan ducked down below for a nap. It was an early dinner and we were looking forward to a quiet night blissfully at anchor, an that’s how’s it started out but it was destined to change. When we turned in just before midnight, the sea was like glass with only a gentle swell wrapping around the corner of the island to help rock us to sleep. And sleep we did, like the dead until I awoke as I felt like my feet were getting wet. It took me several hard seconds of reasoning to comprehend what was happening. I bolted upright as I realised that the boat was raising and falling as what felt like large waves lifted then dropped her bow. It was about the same moment that I discovered why my feet were getting wet. The hatch over our bed was wide open and instead of snatching the gentle tropical breeze and forcing into our cabin it was channeling a pounding rain propelled by what was a small gale.  I crawled over top of a still sleeping Janet, trying not to wake her to bolted topside to see what was going on.  When I reached the cockpit I was surprised to see the harbour all torn up by the high winds with steep breaking waves racing about and amidst it all was Maiatla bucking and pulling on her anchor chain like a wild stallion on acid. 

I left the cockpit to run first forward to remove the wind sock from the forward hatch then the aft, closing them each in turn. By the time I returned to the protection of the cockpit Jan was topside asking me what was going on. But before I could relay all that I knew (which wasn’t much at that point,) I noticed the lights of our companion boat, Sweet Chariot which looked frightfully close, actually way too close. I ran forward again to get a better look. Apparently our friends were dragging their anchor across the bottom and they were heading for us and very quickly and being only a couple of boat lengths away we had to do something and fast.

I called out hoping that my friends would hear me and get out of bed but I got no response to my call. I ran aft back to the cockpit and grabbed the radio and began calling them, all the while starting Maiatla’s engine. My plan was simple, I did not have time to pull our own anchor and motor out of the way so the next best thing was to drive us off to one side dragging our anchor and chain with us and hopefully out of the way of this runaway boat. All 10 tons of her.

Fortunately I didn’t have to do anything as just when I was about to engage Maiatla’s engine, I saw Sweet Chariots  lights come on and I could smell the acrid odor of diesel exhaust. Make and Kathy had awoken about the same time as I, the rain brought them topside as well. Well we were ok for the moment but our friends were not so. Kathy took the helm and began to slowly motor up wind which averted a collision with us. As she did so, Mark went forward to retrieve their anchor but as fate likes to trick us, the anchor winch refused to cooperate. Sweet Chariot electric anchor winch failed forcing mark to retrieve a 35LBS anchor and 100 feet of chain on the slick heaving deck while Kathy kept the boat moving forward without driving over top of their anchor and pulling Mark off the deck . After a grueling half hour Mark finally managed to get the anchor up get clear of us. I squinted into the dark to watch as they circled around downwind, searching for a new anchoring spot. He called me on the radio and asked my advice. I made a suggestion but I could tell from the tone of his voice that her wisent to happy with my suggestion anchoring a bit further out from the island. I think he thought he would be too far out into the harbour and in traffic channels. Anyway he re-anchored just off on my stern and when he tried to shut down the engine by pushing the kill switch, the engine refused to die. So it was down into the engine room for Mark where he manually shut the engine down.  All now seemed well so we went back to bed. But as it was all wisent well aboard Sweet Chariot. Once anchored and with the engine off Mark went to see an answer as to why his anchor winch did not work and just to play out a hunch, he tried to restart the engine which now refused to turn over. And to make matters worse they had anchored in only 10 feet of water and with a 7 foot draft and the boat bouncing up and down and obviously coming very near the bottom they decided to move once again but with no windless to haul the anchor and no engine and shallow water underfoot they had quite a dilemma. Fortunately they were no longer dragging anchor and the wind and seas were dyeing down. Mark spend a couple of seat soaked hours tracing wiring until he found the short. A quick fix in the end without serious consequences, but there could have been.

The following day it was back to fun in the sun and a swim  and hike up the mountain to take pics of the boats at anchor, all as if had just been a normal night, and from a cruising standpoint, it pretty much was.