SANTA ANA WIND at Coches Anchorage

HIGH WIND DANGER!!

Late in the afternoon I decided to check the weather. Lucky I did because there was a high wind warning being broadcast for my area. This is basically a big storm without the rain. The little cove where I was was just borderline as to whether or not it would be afffected. If it did get hit it would be 40 to 60 mph winds trying to blow me onto the rocks!! It was a chance I wasn't willing to take. Thankfully there was an achorage on the other side of the point. I packed up all my gear and motored over. Now even if the winds came up they would blow me away from the cliff. Out to the ocean. Not a great thing but definately better than bashing against rocks.

Now I wait for the storm.....


THE DAY AFTER

Wow! That really sucked!! I thought I had a pretty good spot but I was off by just enough to make it a REALLY unpleasant experience.. So let's back up a bit. Whern I picked my spot I set my rear anchor as close as I could to the beach so it would be in as shallow water as possible. In "anchor land" this is a good thing. shallow water makes it less likely the anchor will pull out. My front anchor was out in the bay in front of me. Well one thing I didn't account for was SURGE. This is the back and forth motion of water near the surf zone. Well in a storm the surge gets pretty intense. I was well anchored but I was being thrown forward and then pulled back with sudden jerks. This started around midnight and lasted till about 3pm today. Eventually it all calmed down and all I wanted to do was get out of there. All I had tio do was pull up the anchors and leave..

If only it could be so easy!! I took the dingy over to get the anchor out. I got right above it and pulled. It didn't budge. I pulled harder. It still didn't budge. I went past it to the beach and pulled REALLY hard, It STILL didn't budge. CRAP! ok back to the boat pull out the snorkel and swim over and look at the anchor. the chain just disappeared into the sand.. Back to the boat. Get the SCUBA gear. I thought I could just dive down and pull it up. nope.

It took almost an hour and I dug almost 3 feet down into the sand in 15 feet of water but I finally got it back!!

By now it's too late to go anywhere so i drop a single anchor a little farther out and spend a much more comfortable night...