The Wet Edge: Big Bag of Luck

We finished restocking our dwindled supplies in Escondido and were about to head out again, when Jon's mom called from Ojai.

She and her good friend Cynthia, were having lunch (and maybe a Margarita or two) when the urge to visit Mexico had suddenly seized them.
"We want to come see you guys!" ...
They were calling from the restaurant.

We had been dying for Sara to visit and had somewhat (relentlessly) manipulated her by sending very cute pictures of the kids looking pathetically into camera.
We may] have also said something about wanting a new kind of anchor from LA so we "would't be shipwrecked during the hurricane season here".
I think that may have been the tipping point...
In any event, we had our window. Jon jumped on the internet to check the flights before their tequila buzz could wear off.
The God of Agave must've smiled on Earth that day, because the prices were down by 400 dollars and there were two spots open on the usually booked, twice-weekly, flight that landed in Loreto.
Jon rang them back. They were shopping the thrift stores in Ventura.
"Your plane leaves in 36 hours". He said.
They both had huge lists of valid reasons why they couldn't possibly manage a trip to Mexico the next day but they ignored reason and followed their sturdy hearts and booked their flights anyway .
Cynthia had to work the whole next day and Sara had a party in Ojai that night and somehow had to get back to LA to pack and figure out shopping for us-There was a long list of 'must have's " from stateside that we gave her. At the midnight hour they even managed to wrangle together entire scuba outfits - always a great deal of snorkeling aboard Pura Vida.
Of course, this mountain of stuff also had to be squashed into a soft bag no bigger than a pillowcase because we live on a boat and have no room.
By some mad force of determination they did it all and caught their flight to Loreto.

The crew of Pura Vida scrubbed and cleaned and polished and filled the tanks and the kids could not sleep for excitement because Grandam Sara was coming.
We had visited our new friend Tony on the way home from a sweltering hike in the beautiful canyon above Escondido. The kids swam in the pool at his super groovy trailer park and Tony kindly offered to lend Jon his truck so he could go to the airport to pick everyone up. Jon and the kids gathered our guests from the airport and took them to Loreto for lunch and I stayed on board organizing things and enjoyed a rare afternoon of solitude.
The boat was sparkling clean, I lay in the sun and savored this brief moment of perfection, not immediately destroyed by swarming, salty children and piles of toys and fish tackle.
Tony swung by on his boat with a freshly caught Cabrillo for our guests.
The ladies arrived and we all had a grand reunion and after a late night, all tumbled, exhausted, into bunks or lee cloths and got some shut-eye before setting out the next morning for Jaunico.

Juanico is forty miles away. We had the wind was on our nose, so there was no sailing but the weather was calm and clear.
Cynthia spotted a dwarf Sperm whale ( we identified it with our whale book) , as it lolled about in the glassy water.
Spotted eagle rays glided beneath our bow wave and Brown Boobies, Pelicans and Ospery's whirled in the skies around us.
We trawled our new lures behind the boat but out luck was poor and I was thankful Tony had given me a beautiful fish the day before.
I made Ceviche for lunch and we drank cold cervesas and enjoyed another perfect Baja day on the seven hour trip.

We also came perilously close to putting our boat on the rocks.

It is said, that novice sailors starts out with two sacks;
One is EXPERIENCE- and it is empty.
The other is LUCK-which is full.
The idea, is to fill up the empty bag of EXPERIENCE, before you run out of your bag of LUCK.

Our bag of Luck...is a little lighter now.

Jaunico is an absolutely stunning anchorage, with aquamarine waters filled with rocky pinnacles and submerged reefs and shelves extending from them.
It's heaven for snorkeling and hiking but it's not a place you want to enter casually, if you haven't been there before.

We had both read the cruising guides and studied the charts and were aware of the dangers but our energy was somewhat more distracted as we entered the bay.

For a variety of reasons (which we analyzed, over and over as we lay together in our bunk that night, sweating at the memory of just how close we came to a major-full-blown-fuck-up), we were simply not as focused.

Being fairly new to all of this, we are normally uber-serious and very much on the cautious end of things when anchoring in new spots, checking our depths, laying out extra scope just in case- but this time, the energy was different.
We've been cruising for four months, things have has become a bit more familiar and this was the first time we had guests aboard in a long, long time.

It looked fairly crowded in the main anchorage, so we thought we might poke around the cove and look for a less packed spot...

Normally, we wouldn't do something like this without some thoughtful consideration.
One of us would have checked the chart again. One of us would have noticed the geography of the landscape, wondering if something tricky was lurking below the surface.
We would have consulted each other about our thoughts. We might of considered WHY everyone was clearly anchored somewhere else.

We were casually laughing and talking and catching up as we entered the bay...

BIG, EMPTY BAG OF EXPERIENCE.

I was on the bow spotting for depth changes and possible rocks when the water suddenly went from 12 feet to 8 feet and a reef rose out of nowhere, fifteen feet ahead of us.
We still had forward way. I frantically signaled for Jon to stop.
I pointed to the rock and signaled for Reverse. Rocks appeared on all sides. Rocks appeared below us.
Right below us.
The setting sun on the water had cast shadows where the rocks were but now I could see clearly, we were surrounded.
My blood froze. I broke into a cold sweat.
"We're in the reef" I shouted to Jon at the helm.
" 'Just point at the rock, honey" He said very calmly.
Our normal procedure for spotting, is, that the person on the bow simply points at the object in the water so the one at the helm can focus on avoiding it.
There were rocks, literally, everywhere.
I couldn't point at all of them. I didn't have enough arms.
'Uh... we have to get out of here, babe." I said.
I thought I was going to faint.
Jon looked to Starboard, a great submerged pinnacle loomed up beside the boat.
I braced myself for the impact. I had once run aground, in my own small fiberglass racing dingy and I remembered exactly what fiberglass sounds like as it is crushed against an immovable object.
As time slowed to a stop, in that frozen moment of panic, I also noticed that there was a house on the beach near us... and it's occupants were watching us through binoculars.
I could clearly make out that they were shaking their heads.
I waited, breath held, heart pounding in my ears.
Pura Vida's transmission roared and her prop growled as Jon smoothly worked her around, spinning her on a dime. I saw rocks not two feet from our bow, on either side.
But somehow, we turned around in the one teeny tiny deep slot that we had entered by and calmly motored out the way we came.
I wondered if the people in the house knew we were idiots but Jon's driving was so slick and confident-acting is a useful talent after all-that, perhaps, we had seemed to those on the hill above us ,to be the most bad-ass sailors ever.
People so salty, they pushed the envelope.
People with no fear.
I honestly don't know.
But, somehow, Jon got us out of there and we came through without a scratch.

Big, fat, BAG of LUCK....

"That was some good driving, today. " I told Jon that night, as we lay in our bunk.
It was dark and quiet and everyone on board was sound asleep.
The moon glared down at us, through our hatch.
Jon shook his head and let out a long breath. He rolled over and took my hands in his.
"We were SO lucky." He said. His eyes were wide and honest. There is not a hint of bullshit in Jon. It's a big part of why I trust him in all of this.
"That rock was six inches away from us. Pura Vida pulled up her skirts because for a minute there...I thought we were screwed".
Jon laughed and shook his head.
"That rock to Starboard was five feet underwater'.
Our draft is seven feet.
"Good Boat" I said, patting her bulkhead-for the hundredth time this trip.

It's hard being new at something, to overcome the Fear, in the first place and as you gain confidence, your even more likely to screw up.
I guess we have lots more of that to look forward to.

I was recently reading a book, written by a sailor we met awhile back, who had circumnavigated three times.
His tale begins with a screw up. It is the heart of good storytelling; near misses and close calls, outright screw-ups...
It is adventure, after all. It is not staying at home.
It sure makes you toss in your bunk though, counting those lucky stars.

Hopefully we've added to our bag of Experience...
And thank Neptune for that bag of luck.
I'm sure we're gonna need it again.