Feb. 2, 2013  Isla Espiritu Santo to Bahia de los Muertos

The best laid plans....
This was the day we were finally going to to be able to leave the island and start across to Mazitlan.  We plotted a course, listened to the weather report and checked the tides and moon.  Since we were expecting winds in the 20s, we reefed the main sail the night before. We had about 200 feet of anchor chain out so it took a while to get it all in.  Thank heavens for the electric windlass with remote. 

We were finally out of the bay around 9:00 and headed south in  brisk north wind.  Alan decided to leave the motor on because the batteries were very low but we were actually sailing down the bay and out through the channel into the Sea.  Course set for 120 to take us down along the inside coast of Baja to Bahia de los Muertos.  We had it all timed out perfectly.  We reached the head of the passage between the Isla Cerralvo and the mainland right at noon, just as the tied turned to carry us down.  And then Alan picked up a distress call on the radio.  (pan pan)

There was a sailboat named Circe, drifting with a broken rudder about 10 miles ahead of us.  No one else responded to his emergency call, so it was up to us to help.  So now we had an exercise in navigation.  Here is where you are, there is where he is.  What course do you set and how long will it take you to get to him.  Of course as always the wind is not blowing in the right direction and in fact is getting lighter and lighter.  I am afraid that we did not do too well plotting a course, even with radar, ipad and paper charts, but eventually we found him about 2 miles off the shore. 

When we arrived it was not clear what we could do.  First thing was he wanted was for us to stand by while he jumped overboard to see if he could figure out what was wrong.  That water is cold but over he went.  He hopped that it was just something jammed or wrapped around the prop but when he went down, he discovered that it was actually bent.  He tried several times with a crowbar but could not get it to budge.  Once he was back out of the water, no one had any idea what to do next.  We could not pull him, especially not with a jammed rudder.  Our only idea was to wait until 6:00 when there would be a radio net and put the word out for help.  It was shortly after 3:00 at this point.

Eventually I could not stand just drifting and doing nothing.  I got on the radio and started calling for help in english and spanish on any channel I could think of.  VHF radio reception was weak, so Alan got on the SSB radio and started calling on it.  Eventually we started getting answers.  Boats in La Paz and also in Los Muertos got on radios and on cell phones.  People called the port captain in La Paz and eventually someone talked to the mexican navy.  The community came together to help one of their own and the mexican navy said they would send an inflatable.  Since it seemed like help was on the way and it was already late in the day, we eventually headed on our way south.  We had lost several hours and also the help from the tide.  And of course, the wind had died.   We were gong to be anchoring in Los Muertos after dark and the moon would not come up until midnight.

Unfortunately, the navy did not get their act together.  There was lots of radio traffic, in spanish.  If you think it is hard to hear and understand on a radio try doing it in spanish underway with the noise of wind and waves added to the radio static.   For a long time the navy thought Rhapsody was the boat with the problem and kept asking us where we were and what the problem was.  Then someone said that the capitan said that there was too much wind in La Paz and the navy would not be able to respond until the wind dropped, but we should keep calm.  At one point the captain of one of the Mazitlan ferry boats got into the conversation.  And there were still a number of other boats trying to arrange help.  At least there was not much wind where Circe was and she did not seem to be drifting onto shore.  In fact, once the tide turned, she was being pushed off shore and further north.

Alan finally brought Rhapsody into the Bahia de los Muertos about 10:00pm and dropped the anchor perfectly.  As far as we could tell, Circe had given up for the night and hopefully was getting some rest, too.  The one good thing was that I finally had some real life experience on what to do in an emergency.  I have long had the question of what I would do if I needed to get help.  The answer is, get on the radio and start calling and keep calling on lots of different frequencies until you get an answer.