Satanic Winds Part 2

We heard from our friend on PAPAGAYO in San Juan del Sur and it sounds like we missed all the fun. With wind gusts clocking to 80 knots, boats broke moorings and drug anchor. The wind pushed these boats out to sea where the waves were tremendous!

One boat had the roller furling sail open and shred, then the mooring broke and this 68 foot boat tried to power its way back against the wind and waves but could not even get their bow pointed into the wind. The navy offered to take them off the boat, but they refused to abandon the boat. A large fishing boat came to the rescue, but it took them almost all day to tow them against the weather back into the anchorage.

The following photo was taken two days AFTER the worst winds had calmed down enough that our friend could get his camera on deck. These two boats are fighting to stay tied to the large white sea buoy (in front of the Ketch with shreded sails). This buoy is about 3/4 mile from the beach but look at how the waves have built up! It is also a buoy normally used by ships, but both of these boats drug and were desperately tieing to anything that wasn´t moving.

Looks like we made it out just in time, eventhough our passage was rough we got north fast enough to avoid the brunt of the hurricane force winds!