Sundown it traditionally a cruiser time of relaxation and sharing a drink of two, often referred to as a "sundowner". However, after an afternoon of rolling around at anchor, sundown marked our last chance to pull anchor in an attempt to find a calmer spot in Aqua Verde. Earlier in the afternoon, we had talked about leave Aqua Verde and making either the 7 mile trip south to XXX, which affords some protection from the NW swell or going 13 miles north to Isla Manserat's south east anchorage. We were waiting it out in hopes that the dying afternoon wind would bring with it a smaller more comfortable swell, but all it had brought us was no wind and THIRD DAY abeam to the swell. So as the sun hit the mountain tops on the western side of the anchorage, we headed for a new spot that I had scoped out via dingy on the eastern portion of the anchorage that seemed to be out of reach of the north west swell. Once the anchor was down, the kids and I jumped in the dingy with the hand held depth sounder to check out the area around the boat, an area that we could swing into in a shifting nights wind. We are tucked pretty tight into a "U" shaped cut out of the cliffs, so in addition to pulling our anchor into the sandy bottom with the full force of THIRD DAY's engine in reverse, a little preventative recon of the area seemed like a prudent move, just in case. We are happy to find 20ft of water all around that boat and right up to the face of the towering 100ft cliff that ringed our little cove.

Now that the sun is back up again, we are pleased with our decision to move because we had a great nights sleep, despite the warm weather. But we also realize that our move could have resulted in worse conditions than we had, as we rolled 30 degrees from side to side, as the sun painted a brilliant, almost glowing, red and yellow painting in the western sky. That's the risk. Do nothing, stay where you are and take the bad conditions you are currently in or do something, take a gamble, and try to improve your condition. It's always a tough call to make knowing full well that your "solution" could put you in a worse predicament, but one thing that you do know with rolling certainty is that where you are is not working. This time it worked out for the better, which in my mind only improves the odds that the next time we will be longing for a great sunset along with only a 30 degree boat roll, as we are rolling 45 degrees and being attacked by the bugs we didn't know existed in the new anchoring location---out of the frying pan and into the fire!

I could attempt to point out the obvious life analogy which seemed to appear as I described the anchoring decision we faced last night, but knowing that my blog readers are typically smarter than the blog writer, I'll spare you my limited thoughts and childish insights. Besides, this being one of the first times that a hastily made, last minute decision has yielded such good results, I would be a poor example to follow. But, and there always is a "but" isn't there, having already made our decision to go cruising, our hard decision last night, and perhaps for the week, was if we should move from one end of our Sea of Cortez anchorage to the other, which looking back seems like a 1 on the zero to ten scale of difficulty when measured against our decisions to leave our old life behind and go cruising. From that point on, every thing else, form the broken V-drive transmission 3000 mile driving trip to should be race South to Panama or spend the summer in the Sea of Cortez working on our sweltering skills has been easy. That one hard decision, to actually GO, has either improved our hard decision making skills or simply given us the ability to choose between to relatively good choices.

It's now time to pull anchor and head the 13 miles to our next spot, where I've heard has even more great snorkeling and diving. Oh -- the choices: to dive in the morning or afternoon? Perhaps I could steal a line from a famous Bo Jackson tv advertisement and simply say, "Both"

We are just a few days away from Puerto Escondido, which has internet access, so I'll soon be updating the Blog with photos!

(photo of THIRD DAY in the tight Aqua Verde anchorage)