s/v Hotel California: Puerto Escondido – Hurricane Paul Oct. 14

Listening to the nets in the morning, we knew another hurricane was threatening to come up into the sea. We decided to head into Puerto Escondido, which is a natural hurricane hole. We grabbed a ball and backed down on it. It held, so we felt it was safe. For the next few days, we listened to the weather reports and started getting the boat ready for a blow. The news said Hurricane Paul was coming up the outside of the Baja, but should head east as it hit land in Mag Bay. It may come right over the top of us!

Sailboat 'Jake' before Paul.

We put chafe protection on all the lines, put everything inside that we could and closed everything up. It rained for 3 days & nights for a total of about 12 inches.

Rick getting the boat ready in the rain.

On Tuesday, Oct. 16 Paul made it to Mag Bay on the outside of the Baja. We were expecting it to come across land and have winds up to 70 kts. In the morning we had a lot of wind from the north. Maybe 30 kts. By 10 o’clock the winds shifted and blew from the south. As the wind shifted, our mooring line wrapped around our keel and we were being blown over on our side. A boat load of workers were out in the anchorage so I called them over to see if they could help get us untangled. One of the guys who had a plastic garbage bag over himself, grabbed a snorkel mask and dove into the water. The captain threw us a line to pull the boat around. They finally had to untie the boat from the mooring. In that strong wind, we weren’t sure how we would get hooked back up to the ball. They helped us and after about half an hour set and ready for the storm. About half an hour later, the same thing happened to Jake and Sharon’s boat. Peder jumped in, swam over and helped them out.