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Hello to all our friends and family,

Today, we are at Bocas del Toro, Panama and I will finish bringing you up to date with the next newsletter. The following picks up where the last newsletter left off.

Later that day, April 14, after leaving Quita Sueno Banks and after catching the tuna, we continued to scan the waters for signs of schooling fish. Joan spotted some activity about 1/2 mile west of our course and we headed for it. In a bit we could see that it was a pod of about 6 whales. We have seen the smaller pilot whales before, but this was our first sighting of large whales. Slowing to a creep, we moved Francesca to within about 75 feet of the nearest of the group and shifted out of gear. The whales were not happy with our presence and sounded. We waited for a few minutes to see if they would get curious and come back. While waiting, we noticed some fish swimming below the boat about 20 feet down. I threw in a jig to try and catch one and wham!, hooked a 4 1/2 ft shark. Darn-, the shark had my favorite and most productive lure and I wanted it back. Since the shark didn't volunteer to return it, we had to do it the hard way. It wasn't easy, but in a while, I had my lure and the shark was released. We were both happy, sort of.

The whales surfaced about a quarter of a mile away and being more careful not to spook them, we cruised over. We were close enough to hear their spouting and see up close the 6 to 8 feet of misty water shooting from their blow holes. It was difficult to tell how big they were, but I think the larger of them was around 35 feet long. What a sight.

A few hours later we sighted the rugged, up to 1000 ft high, hills of the island of Providencia. The Colombian archipelago of Providencia is a 10 mile long egg shaped reef structure with a large southern island and the small town of Providencia. We planned to check into Colombia at San Andres Island further south, so rather than go into Providencia town we opted to anchor at the north end of the reef near the minimal island of Low Cay. We arrived there about 4:00 PM and were pleased to find the sailing vessel "Respite" at anchor. It had been a perfect day ending at what I considered a perfect anchorage. After getting the anchor down, "Respite's", John and Marianne were invited over to Francesca for a dinner of grilled Blackfin. We had a very nice get together. "Respite" was laying over at Low Cay waiting for favorable winds to take them to the Grand Caymans and then back to their home in Maine. As I recall, they have been cruising the Caribbean for the last year and a half and home schooling their two early teen boys.