January 24

This morning while attempting to land at the beach, I misjudged the swells and got caught in a breaking wave on approach. We were flipped badly and dunked in the surf. When I came up from under the boat, dragging Jonah, Kate was already above water and we quickly as possible righted the dinghy and started dragging it ashore. Jonah "helped" and thought the whole thing was like a ride at Disneyland. Kate sustained a badly bruised calf in the tumble. The outboard was running when it went under and sucked in some water and of course would not start. We were towed back to the Queen Jane (after some cervezas and some cevechi) and I got to work on the outboard.

By removing the spark plug and draining the cylinder of water immediately, permanent damage (I hope) was averted. While draining the oil (it's a 4-stroke outboard), I noticed the first few ounces out of the plug were not oil but water. I refilled the case with fresh oil. After cleaning, drying and lubricating as much of the engine as possible,I hooked it up to the raw (salt) water hose and she started in about 5 pulls - I ran her for a half hour.

I then drained the "oil" and refilled it with fresh oil. The "new" oil I just removed from the engine having been completely emulsified by the water residue left in the engine. Tomorrow I will run the engine again for 30 minutes and check the oil. If it looks like it still has water in it I'll change the oil again. Lather rinse repeat.