Slideshow Flood Damage & Construction 2008

Our cruising has come to an abrupt end after we received a satellite phone call from home letting us know that a flooding Sabino Creek had wiped out about 50 feet of riverbank and stopped an inch from the east end of our house!

We were a day’s sail out of Manzanillo when we got the news early Monday morning, so spent the day rushing towards civilization (with an airport) and making phone calls to try to put emergency bank protection in place. By the following morning our contacts at home had obtained three construction bids, gotten a signed contract, and had a crew complete with backhoes, bulldozers, and multiple truckloads of boulders building a temporary barricade against the next possible flood event – with rain forecast within five days! We even had construction permits from the county in place!

Our last night in Mexico we anchored in a lovely (but crowded) little bay called Tenacatita, but missed the high-speed jungle dinghy ride that we had been anticipating. I did manage to get in my first swim of the trip – the water temperature was almost up to 80 degrees, much more to my liking than San Diego’s chilly 57 degrees! And the phosphorescence was sparkling, so I went for a night swim, making a couple of laps around Raven.

Next morning we pulled into the lagoon at Barra de Navidad, got ourselves an anchorage in the lagoon (no room in the marina), and caught a taxi to Manzanillo airport to get home and see the damage for ourselves. We didn’t even get to try the wares of the French baker who sailed by in his panga with a selection of croissants, pies, breads, and other goodies that he delivers to the anchored yachts each and every day!

So Rod will be enjoying Barra on his own, and we will have to regroup and figure out when we can catch up with the cruising later this spring!
Hasta la vista to all!