We woke up at 5 AM somewhat anxious that we would be butting into a strong northerly and steep swell that would knock our speed down by a couple of knots, resulting in a night arrival which we try and avoid. As it turns out it was flat calm, and we motored the entire way. Our destination was Bahia San Gabriel on the island Espiritu Santo. When we arrived we were told by a boat that was just leaving that National Parks wardens had told them that they could not anchor. As we had had a fast trip we had time to go up to Candelero Bay which turned out to be absolutely beautiful. We arrived and immediately went snorkeling from the boat. Rocky islets divided the bay into two and these proved to be a paradise. There was a lot of hard coral but also intricate soft coral fans that looked too fragile to survive the fish that were swimming in and around them. I was swimming close to a gap in the coral when an angry moray eel came shooting out in a menacing way. Then an octopus came trundling across the sand and wedged itself into a cleft in a rock, magically changing from sand color to the color of the rock. If you didn't know it was there you would never guess, its coloring even matching the white spots of granite in the dark rock. There were puffer fish, brightly colored rainbow wrasse, and big reef fish like the king angelfish, 9 inches tall and over a foot long. Naomi pointed out a beautiful little seahorse, all green and looking more like an intricate weed than a fish. Rory poked a scorpion fish which was playing dead and he was lucky not to get a puncture wound. Best of all, though was swimming with a turtle that lazily swam beside us as we swam between the boat and the reef.
The picture below shows the moon rising above the hill that separates the two arroyos.