On Friday morning (September 9), we were surprised to wake up to no wind and no rain. The storm had cleared much earlier than expected. What a relief! It did start to drizzle not long after we woke up, but the drizzle didn’t last long.

The rivers had dried up. We couldn’t believe how clear the water in the bay was! Between all the mud that had come down and the churned up water, we’d expected the water to be too dirty to run the generator or watermaker. Another happy surprise!

It was cloudy all day, with pleasantly warm, but not hot, temperatures. It was still humid, but not unbearably so. The cooler weather was a welcome change from the oppressive heat that we’d had lately. The only downside was that gnats were a big problem. We hadn’t even seen any gnats until now, and suddenly the gnats were everywhere!

During the morning radio net, everyone reported on their damage. The worst was someone’s wind generator had fallen over and landed on his dinghy. Several boats reported leaks. Overall, everyone had fared quite well. 

Eric got the dinghy down and went over to the boat with the felled wind generator. He helped get the wind generator off his dinghy so that it was possible to get the dinghy down. Eric spent the rest of the morning visiting most of the boats in the anchorage. Most everyone was spending the day putting their boats back together so that they could sail again. 

At around 1400, we decided to go to land. Here is Keith driving the dinghy.

Unfortunately, our timing was poor. It was high tide, and when we got to the shore, we saw that the beach was underwater and there was no place to land the dinghy. Since it was the perfect time to go to The Bathtub, we headed over there to scope it out. We decided there was too much debris floating in the water. We headed back to Kosmos and one of the families came over to visit. 

In the evening, one of the boats threw a “Don Juan Survivors Party.” Most of the people in the anchorage came, and it was a fun time. Check out this giant moth!

The moon was full and provided a lot of light despite the dense cloud cover.

On Saturday morning, Christi needed a jacket when she sat outside to watch the sunrise!

Once the sun came up, it got hot and humid fast. The skies were partly cloudy all day. While it was significantly hotter than it had been on Friday, it never got to be unbearably hot like it had been prior to the hurricane.  

Eric’s biggest chore of the morning was to change the watermaker filter, and he did it in record time. 

We pulled up anchor at 0915 and headed to the La Mona Anchorage for the “General Bay of LA Area Survivors Party,” with everyone in the general area invited. 

As we rounded the corner and La Mona came into view, we noticed that the boats that had chosen to stay in La Mona for the storm had all congregated in an elbow between the rock formations and the La Mona beach. That is all except for one boat, the boat which had left Don Juan on Tuesday. That one was all by itself a little farther south. 

We hadn’t been on dry land in four days, so after we were anchored, we immediately took the dinghy over to the beach by the bar to enjoy terra firma. We think it’s safe to say that the beach suffered some erosion from the storm. 

Being as the bar was partially underwater, its operations were limited. They only had bottled beer for sale. Christi went for a walk along the shore to get a closer look at the houses. While there was erosion all along the beach, the houses seemed to be intact. The kids from Gen M met us at the beach and the kids played in the surf.

At lunchtime, we went back to Kosmos for to eat and take naps. 

Twenty boats turned out for the potluck, held on an isolated strip of sand between two rock formations, a little north of the beach bar (it can be seen in the image above of the sailboats; several boats are anchored in front of it). There was a shipwreck smack in the center of the beach. We used the sunken sailboat as a buffet table.

Between the beach and the rocky hill behind it was a small stretch of land that was currently partly flooded. We could see remnants of a foundation; once upon a time, a structure of some sort had been here. We also saw a couple of coyotes in there.

There was lots of talk about the conditions in the different anchorages during the storm and how well everyone’s boats fared. We also talked about everyone’s future cruising plans. The kids played hard. Everyone was in good spirits and we all had a lot of fun

On Saturday night, as he was going to bed, Eric fell on the last step and badly bashed his feet.