Hurricane Odile Impact

We are having some extremely anxious moments here at home while we follow the projected and actual track of Hurricane Odile as it closes on the southern tip of Baja California and the Los Cabos area.  Choosing to leave INTREPID II on the hard, initially in Guaymas, and now in San Carlos, was largely driven by the area being 'out of' the historical hurricane tracks, but you never know!

These satellite images (via Club Cruceros via weather links) speak for themselves.

Information was and still is sketchy.  We learned yesterday that, with the exception of damage to some of the docks in Marina San Carlos, the boats in the water and on the hard at Marina Seca appeared not to have sustained any damage.  Marina Seca staff sent us a much appreciated email:

"This notice is to inform you that after the Storm Odile on September 15th/16th there were no damage report on any vessel in both Marina San Carlos and Marina Seca.  There are two of our Docks R and S presenting minor damages, due to this situation we had to relocate some of these vessels located there to another Docks, our maintenance staff is working hard on the necessary repairs to get them ready as fast as possible."

Our thoughts are with those directly impacted by this most devastating storm:  those people who call Baja California home, as well as the cruising community we have come to know.  There are now reports of loss of lives and boats sunk from La Paz cruisers' reports:

"Within the boating community, the most tragic news thus far is that well-known cruiser Gunther Trebbow perished during the storm after his boat Princess was blown ashore from La Paz' Magote anchorage at roughly 2 a.m. on Monday.  On the popular website www.bajainsider.com Tom Zyber refers to Trebbow as "a local fixture" who was a long-time Friday Net host, and Christmas story reader. According to Zyber, "Gunther's health had been failing for the last year or so, and after trying to save his holed vessel he was too weak to make it to shore. He will be missed."

We had the opportunity to chat with Gunther at 'coffee hour' at Club Cruceros and are saddened to hear of his untimely death.  While the La Paz marinas appear to have come through unscathed, the dry storage yard near Marina Palmira has once again seen boats toppling and falling.  This is reminiscent of Hurricane Marty some years past.  There are reports of damaged or sunk vessels in Puerto Escondido and the loss of the old marina in Santa Rosalita.

Latitude '38 has been providing electronic updates gleaned from satellite phone calls and other reports from cruisers who were able to send out information:
http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso

For certain we will be determining just what supplies and resources we might be able to bring down with us later this year to assist in the cleanup efforts.