Providencia is 60 nm NNE from San Andres. If we travel at 5 kts, that is a 12 hr day. If we stray from our rhumb line that is a more than 12 hr day. We really needed to keep to course if we want to arrive before dark. I got up ~5:30 and made coffee so I could get the crew up and underway by 6:00. The wind was still @50*. Some of that might be land effect, but no way was it the 90* we needed. We weighed anchor and got underway without difficulties. The first two legs were NW and N to clear the island of San Andres before heading to Providencia. Those legs were great - sailing 7-8 kts in 20+ kts of wind.Turning the corner to Providencia was another story. Will was at the helm and even hand steering to prevent losing as much heading when errant waves hit us sideways, he could not hold better than 9- 10*. We needed 24*. That much variation would add way too many miles to our day (and then night!) I fired up the starboard engine and be motor sailing wee were able to point higher and at least come close to our course. Eventually though we had to roll up gennie as we just could not both keep her full and hold our course. So we motor sailed with main and engines and were able to keep within 5-10* of our course. Cross track error (XTEdistance you have strayed from your course line) slowly crept up to 2.5 nm. Finally the wind clocked bout 5* to the E and we were able to pull our course line again (still motor sailing) and XTE began to fall again. We should make Providencia by nightfall. About mid day a pod of tiny dolphins joined us to play. I'll have to look up what kind they were when I get a chance (Your someone can tell me in 'Comments') but the are much smaller than the ones we have in Bocas, grey with a small, sharp dorsal fin. Very acrobatic. Several jumped entirely out of the water as the swam up towards the boat. Once at our bows, they swam and dodged and jostled each other all over the place. At one point we had 12-15 at once playing be out bows. They stayed for 5-10 min. and then they were gone. As we were approaching Providencia, another, even larger, pod of dolphins greeted us. Most were still the smaller variety, but some larger ones as well. Probably over 20 in all. They jumped into the air and did flips. One did a tail stand, another kept leaping up and then just doing belly flops, others flipped and landed on their back. It was really quite a show and a very nice welcome to Providencia. The official instructions for entering Providencia are: "Put Morgan's head in his ass and you can cross the bank." Honest, it is printed right on the electronic chart! (Well actually, it refers to the cleft hill as "Fairway hill", but everyone knows it as Morgan's ass.) Anyway, in addition to these delightful instructions, there is an excellent series of lighted buoys, so even though dusk was falling, we had no problems making the harbor. We anchored comfortably in ~6' of water, somewhat protected from the wind that continued to howl. I called 'Bush Agency' on VHF 16 and Mr. Bush, who has held this position for more than 20 years that we know of, came back immediately welcoming us to Providencia and asking that I come to his office to clear in the next morning @ 10:00. Very civilized. After a toast to Neptune and Aeolius, and a celebratory drink for all, we had lasagna and salad for dinner and a fairly early bed for all. Today, after I clear in, we will do some shopping, see which of our friends here are around and generally have a slow day. Then maybe we'll rent a golf cart tomorrow and tour the island. We also need to top up the diesel - we've used a lot more than expected so far with all the motor sailing - but the motor sailing allowed us to make anchor before dark and that makes it worthwhile.