16. It's Tricky Tracking Henriette

Sept. 5th: We arrived in San Carlos on Tuesday evening and made the decision to stay in a hotel; Hotel Creston. Wirewalker was "disassembled" as part of the preparations for storing her, and we were a bit tired from travelling ... the hotel sounded good.

We woke up on Wednesday morning (the 5th) and there was very little wind and a light sprinkle going on. Hey, looks like we're going to be spared Henriette! I checked the 8:00 am update from National Hurricane Center and it showed the storm would come ashore about Topolobampo, about 200 miles south of here. That makes it easier for us!

We checked out of the hotel and went to the boat. By 11:00 am the winds had started to pick up and it was raining harder but we figured we'd be fine to stay aboard. Our ride back to town left at 11:30 am, so we were here! No backing down.

Well, we pulled in the 11:00 am NHC update and it showed the storm coming much further north. Uh-oh. By 1:00 pm the winds were blowing 30 - 35 kts. so we put an additional line from our boat in the dock ashore and around a tree. We were not planning to go anywhere!

By 2:00 pm, Bill took the 1/2 mile walk to the marina office (closed, but if you go in the bathroom, you can pick up the wireless internet signal!). The winds were howling and hail was coming down. The computer was in a waterproof bag and Bill was wearing his wetsuit and his foul weather jacket.

The 2:00 pm update showed the storm now closing on Guaymas (just south of San Carlos). That was easy to tell, even without the weather update! The thing of most importance was, when would it pass?

About4:00 pm, things started calming down a bit. Bill took another walk to the office at 5:00 pm and the NHC update said the storm was just south of Guaymas and would come ashore in the next couple of hours. That didn't make sense with the winds starting to lighten up a bit. When Bill went outside, the winds had clocked around to the north, which can only happen if the storm is past you on the land side! Yippee! We should be okay!

Bill got the 8:00 pm update, just to be sure and Diane and Bill had an excellent pasta dinner (only thing on the boat) and a rum and Crystal lite (only thing on the boat).

The pictures, below, show the NHC projected tracks every 3 hours. The lesson here; take precautions ahead of time and don't take weather predictions as gospel. They're only guidance.