The first thing that Eric did when he got back up on Tuesday (November 8) was to go check the dinghy for damage. He was horrified to see that there were two large holes in the side. Fortunately, they were up high enough that no water got in.

He saw there was also damage to the seat in the middle of the dinghy.

It didn’t take him long to figure out what went wrong. When he rigged up the current dinghy tie-up configuration, he’d wrapped Demya line around the seat and used the line to secure the dinghy tightly to Kosmos. Demya line is unbelievably strong, but he figured the kevlar of the dinghy was stronger. In the rocking last night, the line had sawed through the bench, making the line longer and allowing the dinghy to smack up against Kosmos. Had the fender not slipped out of place, the dinghy would have probably been okay, but without the fender, the dinghy was damaged.

We immediately hoisted the dinghy up. After inspecting the holes and inventorying what we had onboard to work with, he decided to tape the holes up with duct tape. We’re classy. 😉

He also rigged up a more robust fender system. It’s harder to get on and off the dinghy now, but it’s fine overall.

In more bad news, the forecast had changed. The winds weren’t going to shift around as anticipated until tomorrow, which meant it was going to be rolly and uncomfortable all day today and again tonight. Almost all the boats in the anchorage left.

In the early afternoon, we went to shore, both to test the dinghy “patch” and to get a reprieve from the rocking. Yesterday, the cruisers we’d talked to said that the bugs wouldn’t be a problem during the day; they only came out at sunset. We landed the dinghy farther north on the beach, where the shore was lined with pebbles instead of sand. We walked north to the little peninsula that makes the tip of the anchorage. There were some bugs, but it wasn’t horrible.

View of the anchorage from the tip

In the picture below, the camera is looking northwest of the above photo.

View of the Sea of Cortez and Isla San Jose from the tip

Once we got back to the dinghy, Eric and Keith kept walking south towards the sand.

Near the sand, they were swarmed by the noseeums. Eric’s body was completely covered, and they still bit his fingers and face. Once the attack started, they ran to the dinghy and we rushed away from the shore. Here’s a nice photo of Kosmos in the anchorage.

Back at boat, we were all lethargic and grouchy from the rocking. Eric decided to put out one paravane and one flopper stopper to see if maybe the flopper stopper would work better with a counter-weight. The noseeums attacked Christi as she was helping Eric put them out.

Boats streamed in all day, and by sunset, the anchorage had filled back up. Looking west.

Looking east

The night was lit up by the luminous moon.