Lifestyle or just life?

Trimaran on the hook, Isla Isabela

Frigate bird, one of thousands

Anchor chain in 25 feet of water

One of the things that has been going through my head as we have progressed northward is that this IS a lifestyle, albeit a very strange one at times. Yesterday we pulled into an anchorage at Isla Isabela and dropped the hook into the clearest aqua blue water I have seen in a long, long time. I mean, it was stunningly beautiful and we were the only boat there. A bit later a trimaran popped around the corner and eventually settled on a spot too but it was not crowding us in the least. Here we were in the best of all possible places I thought as we watched whales leaping and cavorting just off the island. Here we found a kind of solitude and surroundings that you dream of finding.

It was not until the next day that the full force of what we were experiencing hit me. We jumped off the boat into 25 feet of water and started snorkeling around the anchorage. I could see the anchor from the surface and the fish, in great numbers, swarmed over the bottom. In a way it reminded me of what I had seen years ago in Lake Tahoe, a sense of greater depth ran over me. We had talked about taking the dinghy into the island when we were approaching but once we were snorkeling there was not going to be enough time to do both. Part of our problem was that we needed to carry on to Mazatlán so that our guest, Sue, could get to the airport in time for her flight. Our sail up from La Cruz had already been punctuated by seeing a couple of sharks and several pods of whales so we were not starved for wildlife encounters. It was made slightly more complex too because the shortwave net that morning had mentioned a weather front coming in and the anchorage and the rest of sail north would have gotten a little dicey. The other thing that happened and had me chuckling was that about the time we started getting the boat ready to go several more boats topped the horizon making for the island and the anchorage was going to get more crowded. We have now seen what holds the promise of a trip back next season and we will time our approach with the possibility of staying several days.

Jumping into the momentarily brisk water was a chance to explore a whole day of a new place and gave us a fresh look at why it is we enjoy doing this so much!