FWOOOMP! SPLAT!

"How many days were you here?" The marina employee asked us.

"Uh...I dunno. 17 days? Maybe. I am not sure." David replied.

"Oh, ok." The marina guy gave us the total for 17 days and said if we wanted to pay with a credit/debit card that we'd have to wait an hour for the other employees to come in. They know how to work the charge machine and he doesn't.

This is typical of the Mexico way of things. No demand for immediate cash. No hurry. No worries.

We paid and sailed off in search of an internet free existence.

We were welcomed back to the life of water by a whole bunch of common dolphins jumping, splashing, tail-slapping while herding fish into an edible buffet ball. The dolphins had bigger company though. Two huge humpbacks were close by with two more off in the distance. We'd lost track of the humpbacks as we watched the dolphins coordinate their movements. All of this sudden we heard a loud FWOOMP-SPLOOSH! One of the humpbacks decided to do a tail-slap about two boat lengths from our starboard side. The whale repeated the display and its friend surfaced with gusto. We were surrounded by such amazing hulking beasts and nimble dolphins and it was a good feeling to be back.

The day wore on and the sun blazed down on our now 'pale' skin. David summoned me from my reading to check out the ray ruckus. I looked around and saw Devil Rays (they look like small Manta rays, but they are a different genus) leaping from the water. The more we looked around the more we noticed that they were everywhere. We must have seen fifty of them flying from the water flapping their wings and landing with a SPLAT on their white bellies. It was very cool to see so much life in a short time.

The wind slowed as we were about six miles from Caleta Partida. It was flat calm, still warmish, the sun was setting. We made dinner and enjoyed the relaxing pace. Eventually the wind kicked up enough to get us close to the mouth of Partida. The breeze that usually exists in Partida seemed non-existent, but there were enough puffs to get us going. We were tacking back and fourth when I stupidly decided to muscle the sail in with no winch handle. My back did not like that decision one bit and loudly voiced its disdain with shooting pain. David, being the trooper that he is, took over all of the duties of tacking, dropping sails and anchoring as I stood hunched over in the only position bearable for me.

We finally made it. No marina. No clubs blaring mariachi. No halyards slapping abandon boats masts. No squeaky docks. No noise other than the gulls cawing to each other over who gets which rock. Sleep comes easy in such a good environment.