Anchor was up at 10:25 pm. Saturday. We had the pleasure of buddy boating with Ken & Dottie on the Trawler DreamWeaver out the channel and down Golfito Dulce towards the open ocean. The weather was calm, particularly down the gulf. Swells increased just a tad out in the open water, but not much. I stayed up with Jim until 12:30 a.m., then went to bed. I woke at 3 and checked on him, he said he was doing fine and told me to go back to bed. He seems to get somewhat of a high doing night watches. He's more relaxed, he's able to read books he doesn't have time to during the days. I woke again at 5:30 and he still wasn't willing to relinquish watch. I was glad to awake and see daylight, I'm not fond of night cruises that are dark- it was a new moon after all! But when you have 85 or so miles to go, some of it's bound to be at night and you do what you gotta do. Jim finally went to bed around 10:15 a.m. and pretty much slept until 3:30.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful as well. We had a few dolphins join us occasionally, but only for a few moments. A lonely stingray makes it's presence known with a jump or two. The only real excitement was a small pod of dolphins, maybe 8 or so, about 40-50 yards away were out for a great Sunday swim. They weren't just gracefully jumping at the surface, they were out for speed! And, even though they weren't jumping up and high out of the water, they were jumping farther and faster and all in a group. They appeared to be chasing fish because there were also some birds following them, probably trying to catch the same fish! Wonder who won!
We were nearing our last waypoint into these group of Islands all around and mostly to the East and South of Isla Parida, the biggest Island, and how confusing! There are about 20 plus Islands all in a cluster, not including the juts of rock beds and formations throughout the Island group, and coming into it for the first time can leftour head spinning trying to match the GPS location with what we saw on the- maps, charts and guides while trying to find the anchorage we chose on the map. We slowly manuevered our way around and finally dropped anchor about 4:45 after careful consideration of where to enter in and drop the hook. But it was worth the effort. I think this quickly rose to the top of the "favorites" on all our lists. We have the whole little Island of Bolanos to ourselves, a private sandy beach right off our bow, and water so clear we can see our anchor chain for 30-40'. Plus we can see fish and coral while standing on our deck! It can't get any better than this!