We cheated death again

As you can see by the photo (if I'm able to post it) the anchorage here has been extremely rough. We've had southwest winds for days and about a 6-9 foot swell. The photo is 50' Ocean Lady, at anchor next to us. There is a large swell event predicted to occur in a few days so this morning we decided to move to deeper water. That's when everything went wrong.

First I took the pressure off the snubber line (a 20 foot piece of line that takes the shock loads off of the anchor chain) and tried to untie it. But the rope had slightly unraveled and was impossible to undo, so I had to cut off about a foot of my line. Then I raised the anchor to find a large chunk of discarded fishing net entangled in the chain near the anchor. While I'm struggling to get this off, Sherrell is trying to drive away from the pounding surf and into the deeper part of the bay. I noticed she was having some difficultly in maneuvering the boat when she screamed for help, because the boat isn't responding.

I dumped the anchor and chain back out along with the mess of net and raced back. I grabbed the gear shift and felt the transmission engage, but when I floored it there was little response. Looking over the side I could see the prop spinning and pushing water, but we had no steerage. While messing with it, the transmission cable came loose, which I quickly fixed, and when we tried flooring the engine again there was some black carbon in the exhaust water (which Sherrell thought was oil) that caused more panic.

Luckily our anchor caught and held us from getting swept into the breaking waves about 500 feet behind us. I grabbed my mask and fins and dove into the water to see what was happening with the prop. There was a solid covering of barnacles that had grown in the past 10 days that was destroying the hydrodynamics of the prop. While I frantically scrapped the prop (in heavy waves this is difficult and I cut up my hands on the sharp barnacles), Ocean Lady was getting ready to come over to assist us. In record time I scraped it clean, and soon we discovered we could steer the boat.

While Sherrell motored us away from the beach to deeper water I hung upside-down off the bow sprit (getting dunked underwater occasionally) and tried to hack my way through the net that was on the anchor. It took a huge effort with my bloody hands and I was covered in nasty goo that was in the net. Finally I got the net off the anchor and on deck. Exhausted, I rested for a few minutes while Sherrell motored back into the bay so we could anchor again.

Now we are safely anchored in deeper water in case the large swells show up in the next couple of days. But we're both shaken.

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CAT OVERBOARD!

It's not your average 6am alarm clock that meows desperately and sends you flying out of bed trying to stuff both feet into one pant leg while running up on deck. But that is what happened this morning. Except that alarm clock was Jordan clinging to our bobstay at the bow of the boat. I leapt into the water and grabbed her exhausted and terrified body and swam to the side of the boat. She was so scared she went limp as I swam with her and I tried to get her to climb the "cat ladder" but she was too beat to do anything. Sherrell reached down and grabbed her by the scruff and pulled her to safety.

We've never heard that cat purr so loudly. Our only guess is she slipped on the deck after last nights rain left everything wet. She normally doesn't chase anything on deck and she's very scared of the water. Now that she's all dried off and rested she has no desire to go up on deck -- wonder how long that will last. Good thing we were here to help her!

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SJdS

San Juan del Sur has been a blast. We've been surfing and swimming in some great waves. Batwing and Ocean Lady showed up a couple days after my Birthday and we had another party, followed by a day of surfing. Everything seemed right with the world. But then 5 days after my birthday I woke up with a strange pain.

That's when it all changed. The pain was a familiar one; this type of pain you never forget. I knew right away it was a kidney stone because I had one 6 years ago. So after convincing Sherrell that I was about to suffer an incredible bout of pain and that I needed to get to Rivas or Managua for an x-ray and some pain meds, we packed up and hired a taxi. Rivas is only 40 minutes away, but the road is rough and bumpy. I writhed in agony the entire way to Rivas. The pain was so intense that I almost passed out walking into the clinic. I could barely write my name and they rushed me to one of the beds as I stumbled through the explanation in Spanish of my problem. They shot me up with some good stuff and in about 15 minutes I was passed out. When I woke up the pain was gone and I felt like a new person. They did an ultrasound and found the 7.2mm stone lodged in my kidney.

So it seems we're on a mission to survey medical facilities around the world. We went to Managua with the test results to consult with a specialist and now we get to go back in a week. The typical treatment is to monitor the stone and see if it leaves the kidney without complications for about 30 days, but if trouble persists they might have to look at other options. Fortunately they have all the same modern equipment in Managua as in Seattle where I had the first stone.

What a pain in the kidney.

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San Juan del Sur

We had hoped to day-hop down the coast to San Juan del Sur in the southern end of Nicaragua. All of the anchorages are poorly charted and there are no guide books for suggestions or help. We had heard El Transito would be a good spot to stop and it was within reach before sunset. However the swell was exploding in El Transito like some scene in a movie. The waves were pounding so hard they refracted back into the bay making it a washing machine. Anchoring and sleeping in that mess would have been impossible.

There a few other poorly charted spots to stop, but we ran out of daylight and there's no way you want to approach these shores in the dark. That left us with only one option, keep trucking to San Juan del Sur. It's only about 100 miles, but it is also in an area with strong Easterlies (oh, and thunderstorms at night). We encountered strong winds about 50 miles out and we were getting pasted. The boat was covered with salt spray and only going about 3 knots. A little voice from other sailors' warnings reminded me to stick close to the shore. So we moved from 6 miles out to 3. The wind shifted magically to be less of a headwind and turned to be more off the shore providing us some relief from the pounding waves. After that we hugged the coast as close as we dared in the dark and kept an eye out for thunder squalls.

As luck had it, we trucked along with some brisk winds and no storms! We are anchored happily in the bay with the typical brisk Easterly wind blowing a nice breeze through the boat.

{GMST}11|15.377|N|85|52.627|W|Looks like a cool town.|San Juan del Sur{GEND}

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