(First off: Happy Birthday to Ann’s sister, Carolyn and also to our dear friend, Chuckie, both celebrating birthdays on Friday, February 10th) We were cruising along somewhere between San Blas and Bahia Chacala (where we are now), Ann was sitting up on the foredeck and I was watching the wind vane making sure our course was correct. I’d been watching whales jumping right and left, but none were really close, so no problem. However, one finally surfaced fifty yards of so off the port side and my intuition said that he didn’t know we were near him. We were after all, sailing and therefore hardly making a sound. So, I called out to Ann: “Stomp your feet”. She didn’t realize that I was trying to signal to the whale, so I heard; “tap, tap, tap” as she lightly touched the deck in response to my request. Seconds later, Mr Whale (Emily, we think it was a Grey Whale) surfaced right next to Charisma and startled both of us by how close he came. He seemed to have heard the “tap, tap” and headed over only to find a sailboat, therefore he circled around and passed us by about 15 feet. Problem was we were towing two fishing lines. Not 10 seconds later, the fishing pole started screaming and the line was ripping out at an amazing pace. In fact, it was coming off the reel about the speed at which a whale swims. Not much question what the problem, so what’s the solution? Well, I can tell you trying to pull him in didn’t work. My instinct tried that for about two seconds before almost being launched off the afterdeck. In the meantime, Ann knew that the only solution would be to cut the line so she reached down into the companionway hatch and grabbed the first metal gripped item she could find and handed me….a flashlight! “What the hell! We have a whale on the line and you’re handing me a flashlight!!??” While she reached back for the knife, I came to my senses, grabbed the knife in my pocket and cut the line. Instant quiet. We just stared at each other. “Did that really happen? Did we almost catch a whale?” Well, almost is a relative term. We hooked a whale, let’s just leave it at that and he now owns my $35 squid lure. Oh well. When we got into Chacala an hour or so later and told Dave and Steve from “Free Spirit” who got in a couple hours ahead of us, about how we almost caught a whale. Steve, ever the gourmand, got on the radio and asked with feigned innocence; “…and how were you going to prepare it?” My only answer: “Very carefully”.

So, tomorrow, we’ll explore a new (very small) town.

So here we are at Chacala and we had chicken for dinner. It’s a small cove, fairly open to the West through South. We have a stern anchor out to keep us pointed into the waves. Four of the five other boats in the cove did not do that and now they are sitting sideways to the waves and rolling from rail to rail. It will be a very uncomfortable night for them. We, however, will point into the waves all night and be comfortable. Yay us!

By the way, for my friends in marketing who are reading this, here’s a unique way to market your services. Ann and I were sitting in the cockpit enjoying a cocktail and watching the sunset when we heard a voice, seemingly from nowhere, “Welcome to Chacala”. Huh? We looked down and there were two people, a man and woman who had swum out from the beach. After welcoming us to the cove, she added that they live in the; “Yellow house on the beach with the white cover on the room and I do massage therapy”. Ah, that’s exactly what we need, so I’m thinking her welcome was very effective target marketing. Now what to call this particular kind of media so we can scale it for broader use….?