Wednesday, March 14, 2007

We are in Chamela today, just a little further up the coast from the last spot. We had quite the struggle when we tried to pull our anchor up when we left Careyes. We had a stern anchor out and it did not hold, we knew that in the middle of the night but since we were in the anchorage by ourselves, it didn't seem like a problem and we just let it be. Well hindsight is a wondrous thing, we should have pulled it in, or gone and reset it. It got wrapped around the main anchor chain and became ensnared in a 3 and 1/2 foot long piece of re-bar that was shaped like an L that was covered in cement and barnacles. Barry attached the stern anchor line to a winch and hauled everything up, at this point we had no clue what was going on so it was a bit of a shock to see this ugly piece of stuff emerge from the water with all the chain in a huge mess around it. Barry unscrewed the shackle to release the stern anchor from it chain and then took about 30 minutes to untangle all the chain. Barry was quite worried at this point that the main anchor might have snagged some other piece of junk. The anchor chain gods were smiling down on us once again and we didn't have any problems. We were happy to see the last of that anchorage, lovely spot but really bad anchorage.
Chamela is a fairly protected spot although the surf is rolling in from the southwest and we are rolling pretty good. The flopper stopper is doing it's stuff and we learned a new trick yesterday about how to get your boat faced into the swell so may try it again. Yesterday the surf was just too huge to attempt going ashore but we made it in this morning without any problems so managed to buy a few things we needed and do some exploring. We were going to go north to P.V. today but heard it was going to 20-25 knots on the nose around the big cape just south of PV so decided to stay put another day. We had two other couple on board last night for dinner and that was a nice way to get to know them better. We had "Pears Elegante" for dessert, fresh pears with melted chocolate mixed with Kaluha drizzled on them, quite yummy!!!
I had e-mailed Trish to ask if she could try and book us flights using airmiles as you efforts had proved fruitless. She came through with flying colours and we will be land in Victoria on May 11. I don't know the particulars yet as have not had access to the internet to receive the e-mail from the air miles folks. We now have to make plans to get the boat out of the water and figure out our planned route to get there. It is really nice to have the flights booked, WHEW!!!