Sunrise on Tuesday, January 24

The wind had picked up during the night, and by morning the wind was back to screaming with sustained winds in the low-20-knot range and gusts to 30 knots. We even had one gust of 39 knots! There were whitecaps in the channel.

We all slept poorly from the wind causing so much noise and motion. The motion was different here than it was in most anchorages — there wasn’t much fetch, so we weren’t really pitching or rolling; instead, the erratic gusts were causing us to glide side to side. It wasn’t an uncomfortable motion by any means, but it was still motion none-the-less. We were well aware of how uncomfortable it would be in other anchorages and were grateful for the motion was mild.  

At 1300 (1:00 pm), we met some of the crew from One world, The Mob, and Moin. One of the boats with a fast dinghy kindly gave us a ride, since our dinghy was a little tenuous in the heavy winds. We went on a walk to the salt flats, which were on the north end of town, on the other side of the ridge that made up the north side of the San Evaristo Bay. As we were putting on our shoes, a dog came up to us and jumped into one of the kid’s laps.

We walked over to the road that paralleled the beach (the road that the market was on). The dog happily followed us. At the north end of the beach, the road veered inland.

We climbed a small hill that led down to the salt flats.

Much to our surprise, there were cows down there! The dog chased them off the road and onto the salt flats. We were glad he’d escorted us!

The road continued around the edge of the salt fields. On the inland side of the road were some homes and some fenced in yards. We saw burros up ahead, and we noticed a burro in one of the fenced yards. We had to watch our step, as the ground was littered with animal carcasses and piles of dung.

The road turned east at the edge of the salt field and ended at a rocky berm that protected the salt field from the ocean. Next to the road’s end was a small outlet out that was probably used to control water inflow for the salt production.

View looking south

On our way back, we caught a glimpse of Kosmos from the hill

The walk took us about an hour round trip, walking at a leisurely pace. We walked over to the restaurant, hoping to get lunch. We were disappointed that it was still closed. We headed back to our respective boats for the night.