Day After Tropical Storm Blanca

Morning after Blanca at Marina Palmira

Just a quickie to let everyone know that all is well in La Paz. We expected to feel strong winds yesterday afternoon as Blanca passed west of us. But other than a short period when the winds were in the high 20's - low 30's, things seemed to calm down. Temporarily. After I went to bed the wind started raging and Tom had to get up and close the windows due to dust swirling through the cabin. This morning the wind was still howling, again in the high 20's - low 30's, and we expect it to continue until around 5:00 p.m. (Although I think it is starting to abate already.)

There is dust everywhere inside the boat, and if I hadn't put a napkin over my morning cup of tea I would have gotten a bit of grit in every sip. Outside, Cinnabar is covered in a not-so-fine layer of dust, with little drifts of dust banked up in various areas. 

The electricity and water have been out on our dock since early a.m., and we had to run our generator to top up the batteries.

This morning was a good time to tighten up our dock lines and a few rattling halyards. I noticed during my morning stroll that numerous other people were checking their boats, and boats of absent-owner friends, to make sure everything was looking secure and ship-shape.

In the anchorage near downtown, the boat that went aground (which I mentioned in the previous post) was pulled off the sand by other cruisers in their dinghies and safely delivered to a boatyard for repairs. One of the red channel markers broke loose and drifted through the anchorage without hitting any boats. Two unmanned sailboats broke free from their mooring/anchors and ended up on the beach. 

We just got a report that the high wind speed was 47.6 knots at 02:59, and the lowest barometric pressure reading was 1001.2 mb (millibars) at midnight. (Low barometric pressure is usually associated with bad weather. It was up to 1015 mb during our idyllic anchorage in the island.) 

And our electricity and water just came back on!!

Cinnabar needs a bath!! But not until the wind stops.

Oh, and Armando Martinez, he of the campaign sticker plastered on our Tundra...he was elected the new mayor of La Paz! 


UPDATE NOTE: Amanda's comment prompts me to mention that our friends, the Teomans' (featured in last year's Bahia Concepcion pictures) oldest daughter Caitlin was in Cabo during Blanca. Yes, with her girlfriends enjoying their first hurricane! What a conclusion to their Cabo trip. I was emailing updates to mom Lissa about the storm and what the girls could expect. Lissa wisely rescheduled their return flights from yesterday to today (6/9/15), giving the storm ample time to leave the area. Lissa said the girls provisioned at Walmart and hunkered down in their hotel room with plenty of snacks and drinks. Smart girls!!