We had been telling our friends Mike and Holly on Wanuskewin what a great place this anchorage and hotel is. So they had decided to join us. They left the Bahia Del Sol estuary last night - barely escaping being turned over in their bar crossing due to an engine issue that delayed their departure making the waves across the bar higher as the tide went out. They arrived around noon and anchored next to Apsaras and headed into the hotel. We had a blast catching up and swapping stories until evening.
Isaac had a diver fetch us a batch of fresh oysters from the oyster bed here in the bay. Apparently the Japanese had helped 5 families on the island set up the oyster beds and taught them how to maintain them as a project to help the local economy. All the oysters are sold to a restaurant in San Salvador, but Isaac can get them for the hotel by special request. So these were as fresh as oysters can get and were delicious. They were as good as anything we get in the Pacific Northwest. We were shocked because we had heard that the oysters that grow in the warm tropical waters aren’t very good.
As usual, the afternoon winds had kicked up, but they had shifted around from a different direction, kicking up 3 foot waves in the anchorage. That made getting back to the boat after dinner a challenge. The dingy ride to the boat was ok, but when we got to Apsaras the stern was thrashing about going up and down – sometimes with the stern two feet out of the water. This makes landing the dingy tricky because it’s dangerous if the dingy slides underneath the stern and then gets smashed when the boat slams back into the water. Fortunately we had left the swim steps down which helped somewhat. Eventually a lull came and Melissa was able to jump from the bow of the dingy onto the swim platform and then Dave was able to get the pulleys attached to the dingy so we could get it raised out of the water. A few hours later the waves had died down because the wind had eased off and we spent a peaceful night.