Sans Souci has successfully arrived at Puerto Los Cabos, near Cabo San Lucas.
I’m currently in Seattle, but my son DJ, who lives in Cabo, met the boat, and dropped a car for the crew to use. I asked DJ how the boat looked, and it said it still looked as good as ever, but that inside the boat had to have been at least 120 degrees.
As the boat moves farther north air conditioning will be less important, but for now, it would certainly be nice to get it working. Nordhavn is being very helpful and agreed to send one of their technicians to Cabo, with parts. Yesterday, the crew relaxed, but today, begins a couple of days of hard work. The boat has run nearly two thousand miles over the past couple of weeks. Aside from the work on the a/c system, the oil needs changed in both main engines, and both generators.
Here’s an excerpt from today’s email from the weather router:
“…Until Hurricane Norbert moves inland, we do suggest you remain in port. As of now, landfall should occur late Sat/night or early Sun/am, north of your area and in the current warning area. Hurricane conditions could reach the coast of Mexico in 24hrs.
Once Norbert moves inland it should weaken rapidly and conditions along the Baja coast will remain on the rough side through Sunday/morning. Conditions should gradually improve during Sun/pm and Monday as a broad area of high pressure over the eastern Pacific tends to weaken and cool/air moves south across the Rocky Mountains. This cool air will force the winds to veer to a more NNE-NE direction along the Baja coast northward to southern CA through Mon/13 and Tue/am.
At this point, you should stay in Cabo San Lucas to complete the work you have to complete. This will give the wind/sea conditions time to subside. Since the pattern will continue to improve during the coming week, there is no reason to rush to move northward. Leaving on Mon/13th would be a good date to leave since the further north you travel, the overall wind/sea and swell pattern along the coast will continue to ease. ….”
In short, the boat cannot leave port until Monday.
Although the hurricane will hit tomorrow, I’m not expecting it to be a major problem. Perhaps I should be more worried, especially after having seen all the pictures of the havoc caused recently in the US by hurricanes, but the boat is safely into port, in a well-protected marina, and the hurricane is slated to miss Cabo by over 100 miles. At this point, the boat is in the safest possible place, and the crew is at a hotel (and, my son is at my house with the hurricane shutters bolted on). I’ll certainly continue to track the hurricane, but do not foresee trouble.
Meanwhile, here in Seattle, I worked a bit yesterday on trip planning for next summer’s cruise to Japan. I started by making a long list of all the places we are going to visit, and all the pre-planning that should take place. For our Atlantic crossing in 2004, with the Nordhavn rally, the final rally manual was several hundred pages thick. After thinking about all the work to be done, I sent off a note to the other three boats suggesting we divide up the work. My thought is that each of us could grab a territory and become the project leader for that territory. Much of our run is off the beaten track, so there are no cruising guides, and most information will need to be chased down one piece at a time.
-Ken W
PS I received yesterday by mail a 2009 calendar from Nordhavn. I’m not sure why I was sent it, or what it is for, but it was very cool. Some great pictures of Nordhavns around the world, including a picture of our N62 and our N68. Roberta and I were looking at it in the car, and kept flipping back and forth between the picture of our N62 and the N68, to decide which look we liked better. The N68 won, but it was a close competition…
And… An UPDATE (as of 9:30am PST)… I just spoke with Jeff, who is on the boat. The winds are starting to rise, even though the hurricane isn’t expected until tomorrow. The winds are currently at 25 knots. Sans Souci is on an end-cap, and tied to the dock, and directly to the pilings, with thick 1″ lines. The marina is filling with boats who are moving from the Cabo San Lucas marina, 20 miles further south west, implying that others agree that Puerto Los Cabos has better protection. The marinas in the area are full, because of the fishing tournament that starts in a few days. Cabo has a huge fishing tournament (the Bisbee) that seems poorly timed, because it brings in hundreds of boats during hurricane season.