Sailing to Melaque with friends 1.24.09

We had a wonderful day today. Our new friends, Ron & Wendy, who we met in the grocery store a little while ago had talked with us at the fishing tournament about going out for a sail with a few friends. We figured – why not?! I was dying to get out of the lagoon and so we said yes.

Ron & Wendy had rented a condo in a complex with 3 other condos and had become good friends with the other 3 units and invited them out as well. We had a total of 10 on the boat, 8 guests plus us. Ron & Wendy were from B.C., Luigi & Pat from the U.K., Laura & Adam were from England, & Ed & Chris are from Canada as well. They were all here on vacation, some her for 2 weeks, some up to 8 weeks. We had a FANTASTIC time! They all came aboard with coolers & snorkeling gear and we headed out of the lagoon around 11am and had a wonderful sail outside of Barra. Ron has a sailboat that on the Shuswap Lake in B.C. and took the helm for the majority of the day. He looked as if he was in 7th heaven as he was steering the boat and showing others how to steer.

We had some incredible whale experiences out there that was the highlight of the sail! Two of the guests were worried about getting seasick so they were watching the horizon the entire time. Suddenly, Chris shrieked – WHALE!! There were whales that were breaching far away, probably 300 yards from the boat. We all watched while we were sailing back to Barra and were preparing to drop the sails. Everyone was looking intently in the direction we had last spotted them when suddenly, there was a spout that was so loud, both myself & Pat jumped and Pet even though we had ripped a sail! I was so stunned…all I could say was WHALE!! There were two huge whales, just off the port side of the boat that were probably 20 feet from us! They were spouting & gracefully arching and showing their tails right in front of our eyes! It was absolutely, completely amazing. And what an experience for all of our guests! We joked that we didn’t charge extra for that sight…but I think everyone was too stunned to get the joke. And our final whale encounter was once we turned around and was headed over to the anchorage in Melaque, a humpback whale did a turning breach right out of the water that I swear was National Geographic perfect. He came all the way out of the water, turned around, & flopped hard on the water – so much that Michael swears he felt the impact in addition to hearing the sound! Incredible…

After the spectacular whale sightings, we headed over to an anchorage in Melaque & dropped a hook for some lunch and snorkeling. Luigi made wonderful sandwiches & had fruit, croissants, & snickers bars and several of us jumped in the water to check out the snorkeling. I got my first jelly fish sting as I must have jumped right onto the rascal. It wasn’t that bad, it felt like someone slapped my leg really hard and eventually in the afternoon, I had red welts where it had stung me. But by the next morning, it was all better. I considered the snorkeling poor as it was very murky, but I eventually found a perfect spot to hover & watch the beautiful fish. I saw some absolutely gorgeous yellow angel fish that I haven’t seen before and some little fishes that were half orange and half blue – but every fish had it’s vibrant colors – orange, yellow, blue, purple, red – you name it!

After getting my fill of fresh water and lunch, we motorsailed back into Barra, successfully avoiding the bars as we were came in at low tide. We had such a wonderful time enjoying our new friends and although we have seen whales previously, we never tire of them as they are spectacular – so graceful.

We’re thrilled that we could take the group out and experience our life a little bit. We were given some ‘coconuts’ ($) for gas as it is illegal for us to earn money on our Mexican visas. The water taxi took the group and Ron & Wendy flew out the following day. My camera had a dead battery and I only got a couple of photos, but I hope that our guests will send us some photos of the day so I can post them!

Pacific Jade is back in the lagoon from their adventure and we are planning to join them to leave Barra and head South to Santiago Bay, hopefully later in the week.

More to follow!
Rene