Damage Report

I mentioned in my post last Friday that we successfully towed our damaged boat back to the dock the same night it was lost. Despite how serious the condition was, it still floated. We bailed it out and left it tied up for the night. In the morning several of us went to the crash site in an attempt to salvage lost belongings while a couple others took the boat out of the water.

We were missing a lot of things, some of them quite valuable (a spare SCUBA tank, a set of regulators, my sunglasses), some of them practical (a pair of eye glasses, a snorkel, my left shoe), and some of them sentimental (my ratty old green t-shirt). We were much more successful than I expected. Right away we found a floating dry-bag with the eye glasses and a floating water bottle. Once on shore, I found my bag and sunglasses. Incredibly, I also found my missing shoe floating in a cove. We turned up the tank and regulators, another shoe, a bag, a camera bucket, and even a set of keys. On a second trip out there yesterday, at low tide, we found a few more things including the snorkel, a pair of gloves, and my t-shirt! That shirt spent 48 hours being pulverized by waves, sand, and rocks and it's never been so clean.

Once the boat was out of the water, we were able to see the full extent of the damage. Truth be told, I expected it to be worse. Although, it still may never get back in the water. The prop is badly damaged and the steering mechanism is completely destroyed, but the others were guessing that it might actually still run (the engine itself seems to be intact). The hull of the boat is quite shaky, but there are no holes that go completely through, like I expected there to be.

This one nearly goes through.

p.s. Here are a few more dolphin photos taken by Jim, one of the interns: