January 23, Wednesday

I was cleaning up the dinner dishes about 7pm and went to rinse a fishy cutting board in the salt water off the stern. It was quite a shock to see our dinghy gone. Jack and Cory launched the kayak, collected headlamps and a radio and took off into the 20k winds. It was pitch black, the wind was gusting over 20 knots and the waves were running. They were gone about an hour when we heard Jack whistle, driving the dinghy home and towing the kayak. They had paddled over a lot of ground and taken in a lot of water. On their way home they came upon it, hidden in a cove on a rocky island. We were lucky it hadn't made it through a cut between the islands and out to sea, never to be seen again.

Katie and I were thrilled to see them, and the boat - they were too! Life on a cruising boat would be difficult and down right unpleasant sometimes without a dinghy.