Although we had planned on doing another car trip to another national park, nature had other plans for us. It was an insidious two-pronged attack, the first sortie was done by a one or perhaps two schools of dolphins that invaded the anchorage in the morning hours and then spent most of the day frolicking with each other and any snorkeler and swimmers who ventured into that area. After realizing that they were staying rather than just passing through, I got out the GoPro camera and went snorkeling towards the big group of swimmers and occasional fins breaking the surface but encountered a large group of dolphins that I had all to myself! I got some great footage with me swimming alongside the dolphins until about 10 minutes later a group of snorkelers arrived and I was no longer the single human amongst the frolicking dolphins. They had 2 small ones along who were very playful with the adults and it was a positive pleasure to watch.
Back aboard I downloaded the GoPro memory and, much to my chagrin, realized that I wasn’t in video mode but in time-lapse photography mode – which was taking one picture every 5 seconds! Thus out of all the footage I thought I’d shot I got just a very few pictures, and those few photos weren’t particularly good. I will have to beg, borrow or steal some of Michaela’s work so that the dolphins can be featured on this blog.
After I was done with the dolphins the second front was opened, as mother nature changed the winds around and now I had a Belgian boat almost hitting me and the skipper was off on another boat in the anchorage – although he could see how close he was he didn’t seem to care and just as I was about to swim over and tell him to move he returned and ended up weighing anchor and departing. I had my dinghy upside-down to dry out and spent some time scrubbing it to remove growth and found the slow leak in the bottom which I patched up with my repair kit; but I’m not sanguine about my chances at success since I believe my repair kit is not meant for Hypalon material. After the repair job the coast seemed clear to leave the boat, but in the meantime others had anchored close by and the wind threatened to return to normal so I opted to stay aboard and prevent problems. The wind didn’t change until close to sunset, so the day was spent in the anchorage after all and we opted to take an early morning drive to the forest for a walk before returning the rental car at 10AM. I was invited aboard Katzenellenbogen for dinner, chicken saté and some Merguez sausages that I’d thawed out.
Upon returning to the boat I had a bit of bread and cheese as a dessert and watched an episode of “Black Adder” with Rowan Atkinson before reading in bed (all of 2 paragraphs) before falling asleep.
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