We arrived in Pierto Balandra about 11 am. This is truely a wonderfull place. You can see from the photo the sand is like sugar, fine and white. We broke out Nelda's inflatable paddle boards for the first time on the adventure. Yep, they are like an inflatable surfboaed with a paddle. You stand on them, if your good on a skateboard, if not you fall off allot. Personally I didn't mind getting wet. Nelda and I had a great afternoon. We paddled into the shore and walked the beach. It was Sunday so there were lots of local people swinming and just having fun. After we got back to the boat we (I) took a nap and when I got up it had become very overcast. In about an hour we had very light rain and about 10 to 15 knots of wind. It was nice to get the salt washed off Diamond Girl in the areas like the mast and dodger we couldn't reach with the hose. It was the first rain we had seen in almost a month and it was great. One of the boats that had come in earlier had anchored futher out that we did. The guy was by himself and immeadiately left in his dingy to another boat that had a party going. When the wind kicked up his boat started to drag toward the rocks. We watched it go right by us and thankfully it didn't catch our anchor as it went by. He raced back to the boat and his friends abandoned him. He tried in vain to get the anchor up but in the end had to just let all the chain run out and the lost the anchor and the chain but he saved the boat. Wow, that was scarry but we had no idea it was just the start of what lie ahead. We had polo (chicken) for diner and a fine bottle of 2 Buck Chuck that had aged at least 30 day, it was perfect. We just kicked back and took it easy. Now picture eighteen boats in the darker water of the photo. We were the closest into the beach but still had a 1/4 mile to the shallows. We were all nicely spaced and the weather forcast was for gentle westerly winds, which already had not been so gentle, which would enter the bay but wouldn't be a problem. We set the anchor alarm to let us know if the boat was pulling the anchor around the bottom but it was just a precaution, we really didn't need it. That is until 10:30 when Nelda shook me awake to the sound of the alarm going off and it pouring rain. Coming from Boise I have only seen it rain that hard once and that was in Florida. The wind was blowing like stink from the Southwest and water was everywhere in the cocpit and as it turned out in the salon below. After the shower we had I cracked two hatches to let just a little air in as it had stopped raining. Well these cracks were torrents of water coming in the cabin. No time for that, all the boats were now blowing the opposite way (directly out the bay away from shore) from where they were pointing during the first shower. Now it was us, that would drag into the other boats if our anchor didn't hold. And it was dark and the visability was not good due to the heavey downpour. This nerve racking situation lasted about 3 hours. There was no going to bed as we had to keep an eye on our position to make sure we weren't going to drag into other boats. Fianally the wind started to go down, but I said to Nelda, back home when the wind blows from the Southwest and it pours rain that is a warm front, that is always followed by a stroger cold front blowing from the west. But the wind was light and some stares were showing up. Oh well I went to bed again. This time sleeping with one eye open just like Captain Ron. About 1:30 all H-- broke loose, yep the cold front showed up and all the boats reveresed position once again and we were now the closest boat to the shore, again. Now the winds were a constat 25 with gusts to over 30 knots. All the boats were moving around their achores but fortunately all the anchors held until about 4 am. Then the snoubber or contol line on a larger boat broke letting chain run free form his chain locker. The radio lit up like a Christmas tree. Everone was in their cockpits of thier respective boats listening to the radio. In the words of a not so famous positive pessimist, "the wind may have been ov erhelming but at least the waves started to get huge" and both were pushing us toward the shore. The bay was open to about 500 miles of water and the wind was building huge wave sets. We didn't know what was going to get us first, the wind or the waves or both. We just sat there waiting for something to break on our boat or on someone elses and takeing us in to the shore with them. There was no pulling the anchor up as you could hardly get to the bow of the boat just to see if everything was ok no less pull the anchor. TO BE CONTINUED...