We awoke to a view of the calm, impossibly blue waters of our little bay, called La Puerla.  It has been a quiet night and we were looking forward to getting out on the water with the paddle boards.  Having learned our lesson from the last time we used them, we had blown them up the previous evening, setting them in our palapa for the night.  We ate and had our coffee before setting out on the day’s adventure.  Of course, by the time we had finished, a small ripple had appeared on the water, but it was negligible so we confidently hopped on our boards and started to paddle around the small island we had seen the night before. 

It was a short distance away and didn’t look too big, so we figured we had plenty of time before the afternoon winds kicked in.  As we moved out of our little cover, the waves grew slightly larger, but not too big and we both stayed standing as we paddled, practicing our newly learned J-strokes as we moved along.  We were moving expeditiously and were really enjoying the beauty of the morning.  Off in the distance, we noticed a pod of dolphins splashing along.  What a sight!  So quiet, so peaceful, so wonderful.  Ah, this was what we were wanting when we brought the paddle boards with us!  A perfect day!  

As we approached the little island, the waves grew larger.  To maintain our balance we dropped down to our knees.  We had a decision to make: going right would lead us around the outside of the island but into still larger waves and to the left would mean a shorter paddle to the little beach we had waded out to the day before.  Not wanting to stop, we chose the longer route and were soon sitting, the waves having grown quite challenging.  However, we had a nice wind at our backs so the paddling was not too strenuous.

We enjoyed the view of the little island – its craggy rocks with spots of green where plants managed to take root.  There was a fairly large population of seagulls that hung out here as well, as evidenced by the white coating in several large areas.  “Kind of looks like the White Cliffs of Dover” Jim observed.  Well, yes, you might say that, although I’m sure the folks back in England might not appreciate the comparison!  

As we rounded the far side of the island both the wind and waves died down.  We confidently stook up, enjoying the opportunity to again practice our newfound skills.  As you might have guessed, once we rounded this end of the island we were again into the wind.  Only this time, the wind was in our faces.  We attempted to remain standing, but if I stopped paddling for just a second, my board would do a 180°, so we both moved back to seated paddling. I found I didn’t have enough umph in my stroke, so had to move to kneeling in order to maintain any sort of forward motion.  Our goal was the little sandy spit that we had chosen not to head to at the beginning.  We were now approaching it from the other direction and straight into the wind–it was quite the struggle.  Eventually, we made it, beaching our boards and taking a long, well deserved break.  

After a long drink from our water bottles, we laid flat on the half-beached boards, enjoying the soothing feeling of the gently lapping waves beneath us.  Oh, what bliss!  If only we didn’t have to continue on!  We still had a ways to go, so eventually we hopped back on and paddled out.  We thought about hugging the coastline so we could rest, but we could see the entrance to our little cove straight ahead and decided we would just go for it.  The waves again grew large, and the wind hammered into us, making it hard to maintain any kind of forward motion, but eventually we rounded the corner and gratefully paddled into our cove.  Once on shore, we stowed the boards once again under the palapa and dropped into our beach chairs.  It hadn’t been what we intended, but was still a fun and challenging day!