Further North - Punta Trinidad

We finally left Santa Rosalia. Actually we left twice. The first time we got about 10 miles away, under sail, when the wind died. Since we had a long leg to Punta Trinidad, we fired up the engine to keep the boat moving. When we swiched the engine to our new starting battery and turned the key all we heard was a CLICK and all the instruments went out. Not a good sign.

So we looked around for the problem, checked the meters, and found nothing. Ok, so try again. CLICK CLICK CLICK in rapid succession as the solenoid flipped on and off and the instruments went out again. Wow, maybe our new starting battery was crap, or the starter or solenoid was dieing. We were slowly drifting towards the rocky beach and with no wind, we quickly decided to try starting on our house bank. VROOM! It started like normal.

Well, we returned to Santa Rosalia to work out the problem, and it turned out to just be a loose battery cable. Stupid me, the bolt on the clamp had jammed, but the clamp wasn’t tight enough. Problem solved, so we left the following morning.

What a good sail! We were able to sail about 6 out of 10 hours in 4 to 6 foot swells. We rolled all over the place and everything that could come loose, did. But by the time we arrived at Punta Trinidad, we were ready for a break. But the swells kept rolling right into the open bay. We tried to tuck up behind the point some, which helped, but it was still rough. A boat that had left Santa Rosalia about an hour behind us, Crystal Wind was already anchored with Solemate who had arrived the day before.

A large commercial fishing boat with 5 pangas in tow, anchored a ways out by the point, with Solemate closer in by the beach but not behind the point which was reducing the swells and Crystal Wind who was way inside the point out of most of the waves. We were in between the two boats, somewhat protected by the point. The anchorage was rough with swells running 2 to 4 feet after the point broke them down some. Solemate was less protected than us, and we watched them roll like a crazed demon on fire all night. Crystal Wind left shortly after arriving, opting to arrive at the next bay in the early morning hours, rather than ride it out. The large fishing boat drug about a quarter of a mile towards a rocky shoal, before they finally pulled up their anchor and moved in closer to us out of the worst of the swells.

We couldn’t sleep. The Elephante winds blew in from the west for about 3 hours at about 30-35, then it switched to SE and blew at 35 or more, helping build up the swell. By morning, we were beat. We left the anchorage at 8am with a strong SE wind and 4-6 foot swells.

Punta Trinidad was a bust because of the SE waves. Had we arrived the day we planned, things would have been perfect, but the battery probably set us back a day and that made all the difference from good to evil.