Hurricane Hilary

It all starts with a disturbance that shows up on the weather report.  So far, the disturbances that became named storms have headed west and spared the Sea of Cortez.  This was not the case for Hurricane Hilary.  In the early stages of a storm, the prediction models can vary by a large degree which leaves room for uncertainty and a lot of guessing.  Things will begin to align a few days out from the storm which allows for last minute decision making and planning.  You may be wondering, what things we need to decide on?  First and foremost is where do we go?  Secondly, what do we need to do to prepare the boat for the storm?  Should things change, what are the backup plans?  Then we spring to action.

When we first started cruising and spending the summers in the northern sea, there was only one place to consider to ride out a storm, Puerto Don Juan.  Don Juan provides nearly 360 degrees of coverage but does have its own set of undesired worries. Overcrowding, funneling winds, swell rolling into the anchorage, areas of bad holding or being anchored in deeper water which offers less scope.  Now that technology has improved and Starlink is available, we have access to more current and frequent information.  While choosing a place to hunker down, we take into consideration the direction of the predominant winds and their expected intensity.   Hilary was expected to show up with a strong E and SE wind direction which left us feeling really confident about choosing a place outside of Don Juan. Coincidentally it was the same wind direction that we had for Hurricane Kay, once again we chose the La Mona anchorage to hunker down.

Now that we had chosen a spot to go, we went into full preparation mode.  This meant last minute shopping trips for groceries.  It is common for roads and access to the town to be hindered after a storm so stocking up is the prudent thing to do.  Brad lugged our jerry cans of gas to the station in the sweltering heat so we could run our auxiliary generator if necessary.  Then began the prep of Perspective.  One of the main things we try to do when expecting high winds is reduce all unnecessary windage.  Down came our headsail which can be an easy job but due to a little breeze, it became a literal wrestling match as we dropped the sail and then folded it up on deck.  Having that task done, we motored to our intended hunkering spot.  It was a quick 6nm hop taking just over an hour to complete.  Upon arrival we made sure to give the anchor a really good set! This is when things begin to feel real. This was no longer an imaginary, what if situation. There is a storm coming.   Including us, there were 5 boats that chose to anchor in La Mona.  There is plenty of space for the boats to line up and be out of each others way.  3 of us coordinated and we were able to gather coordinates of where the anchors were dropped.  This is important because we could plot where each boat was during the storm, and see if they were dragging or staying put.

With our anchor set and with a little bit of time on our hands we continued preparing the boat for weather.  We took down our bimini canvas, flexible solar panels, stowed the dinghy on deck, lashed down the mainsail and strapped down our paddle boards.  Brad made sure to tie down anything and everything!

At this time Hilary was ramping up and became a Cat 4 Hurricane on the outside of Baja.  Remember I mentioned that having Starlink is really nice?  Well sometimes it is not healthy.  This is when the emotional side of the hurricane begins messing with my mind.  I had access to all types of weather, Facebook groups, opinions and doom scrolling.  Opinions were posted that we should be expecting the absolute worst case scenario and the northern sea was not going to be a safe place to be.  At this point it was too late to safely go anywhere else! These posts led me down various rabbit holes of “where the heck are they seeing this info?!”  Our phones were blowing up with other cruisers asking “What are your plans and where are you going?”  There was no mental escape!  We had friends stripping their boats entirely while others chose not to do much at all.  Of course I worried for those that chose to take the “eh it is fine” approach.  It is fine until it isn’t.  And that is when injuries can occur, handling the things that start misbehaving in the high winds.    You are probably thinking, sheesh Sarah, you’re so dramatic.  And yes, yes I am!

We were expecting the storm to show up the evening of August 19th.  We began getting reports from our cruiser friends that were down south in the Loreto area.  Reports varied from a high gust of 37kts to 71kts.  They were dealing with a higher strength storm, but the eye was further west than it would be when it arrived to our area.  We would be seeing tropical storm conditions with the eye closer to our area.  The closer the eye, means the wind can get a little stronger as it whips around.  The day was super calm and then finally we begin to see a little wind and a lot of rain.  Boy did it rain!  We ran around the boat checking port lights and hatches for leaks.  Our bunk ended up getting soaked with fresh water as the hatch above it leaked something fierce.  Out came the trash bags and dive weights to cover the hatch.  We are a class act, don’t ya know?!

The wind began around 8PM and it was coming from an unfavorable direction for our location.  We were experiencing a lumpy/bumpy ride with our stern pointed at shore.  Not ideal!  We knew to expect wind from the North, as the storm was sucking energy towards itself, but when the wind switched to West…well, that was very unexpected!  Our anchor tripped due to the wind shift and intensity but quickly reset and dug in. The anchor alarm was set and did its job letting us know that we had drug slightly and changed position. Brad started the motor and went to the helm while I watched our position on the instruments below. It was also around this time that our bilge pump went off.  I immediately opened up the floorboard to check if water was flowing into the bilge but was happy to confirm it was just the rain water that accumulated from running down our mast.  Whew!!! 

Here is where things got really scary…Our radio picked up a call from our neighbor boat asking what our depth was.  We let them know that we had about 8ft under our keel and they mentioned they had 6ft.  Minutes later we heard another call to the fleet that the boat was now bouncing on the rocks and that their engine was disabled!  Their starter battery had died leaving them dead in the water.  This is every cruisers nightmare!  None of us could do anything to help which was the worst feeling in the world.  The only thing the fleet could do is to talk to them on the radio and make a plan to get them off those rocks.  We all knew the tide would begin rising soon and the wind was due to switch directions at any moment.  After bouncing on the rocks for nearly an hour, they were able to pull themselves forward by hauling in 50-100ft of chain with their windlass.  We all took a deep breath and hoped the damage wasn’t too bad.  At least they were safe!

Sure enough, the wind did switch direction and all was well as our boats swung around into deeper water.  The sea state and lumpiness disappeared and the anchor was once again dug in and doing its job!  We stayed up for awhile and then Brad asked if I wanted to see if I could get some sleep.  Amazingly I was able to!  The stress of the night had exhausted me.  Eventually Brad joined me and we both woke up to the largest gust that we would see that night, only 46kts.  All of the preparation that we did to our boat paid off, especially Brad’s lashing and tying everything down.  Nothing budged!  I never thought I would be able to sleep during a storm but rest was had between gusts.  It was very civilized!  

The next morning was a cloudy day, the rain had stopped and the wind was less gusty and more sustained.  The rain had washed Perspective from the top down and left our decks feeling squeaky clean.  If only it could stay that way forever!  But hey, we are cruising in the desert.  We stayed on board the entire day, enjoying the cooler temperatures, breeze and snuck in a nap.  We caught up with family and friends and were so grateful that Hilary had weakened to a tropical storm before coming our way.  The lead up to the storm was much worse than the storm itself.  I’ll be sure to try and remember that for the next one, but hopefully it won’t be this summer season! ;).

So there you have it. Our personal experience with Hilary was very civilized and left us with a very clean boat and a maybe a couple extra gray hairs. I know we have quite a few friends up in California, so please tell us what your experience was with Hilary.