Last night at about 3 AM, I was having trouble sleeping so I got up to write Julie some emails. Shortly after finishing my emails, I realized that the dinghy, which was hoisted out of the water by the spinnaker halyard, had caught lots of rain water in it and was too heavy to remain hoisted. I went up on deck and lowered the dinghy down to the surface. Then I hopped in it to remove the halyard from the lifting bridle. It was a pitch black night with virtually no starlight or moon. The water in the anchorage was calm and by now the rain had left us.

As I got in to the dinghy I heard a strange noise off toward the deep water channel that separates Isla Cana from Isla Del Rey. At first I thought it might be a holler monkey as they make these terrifying cries in the jungle on occasion. The noise came again but much closer and with a rushing of water. Normally I feel very secure in our little inflatable dinghy but I now I was a little spooked.

It was dark, very dark, and I was in a 60 pound inflatable dinghy and having trouble unfastening the lifting bridle which was now tangled underwater. My heightened anxiety from this strange noise did not help. Of course, I had not brought a flashlight, as I have done this drill hundreds of times before. I was bent over the side of the dinghy working the tangle out underwater. The noise came again - louder and with a horrifying grunt. It sounded as if it might be on top of me in the next several seconds.

I struggled with the tangle and fortunately it came free and I turned to jump up on Cisnecito but the current had caught the dinghy an swung me out away from her. I struggled to find the painter to pull the dinghy back to her. Suddenly a wake jarred the dinghy and a loud grunt and massive blow of air was right behind me. I pulled hard and jumped straight out of the dinghy on to Cisnecito. I ran below decks and woke Andrew, "Uh I think the whales are back" I said in a frantic tone. Andrew had heard them before at night in Contadora. We both went up on deck and sure enough a loud grunt and blow of air came up right behind the boat.

It was great, here we are in our PJs, and about 4 to 6 whales decided to invade the very small anchorage in the middle of the night. Since it was dark, we could only occasionally see their backs pierce the surface of the water, but the mist in their breath glowed in the dark with the phosphorescent plankton. It seemed almost supernatural. Some of their breaths made clouds of mist at least 12 feet above the surface which looked like ghosts. They swam around the anchorage for about an hour grunting and blowing and stirred up the anchorage enough to have all 15 tons of Cisnecito bouncing about. Finally they swam back out the channel and were gone.

I will never get tired of seeing or hearing whales. This was a special experience for me and it warmed my spirit.