Ilha de Culetra

We anchored off Culetra arriving late in the day.  The next day Josie, Justin and I walked through the small village across to the beach on the other side of the island.  The sun was warm, but the water was a bit cool.  We walked down to the end of the beach that was beyond the lifeguarded area where it was not as crowded.
Michael decided to stay on the boat and did not join our shore excursion.  We were off again the nest day.  There are so many nice anchorages but so little time!!!

Some of the houses in this small seaside town were quite interestingly decorated.

More visitors

We have had birds drop in on us from time to time as we are sailing, but these visitors seem to come a little more often here in the Mediterranean. Perhaps because we are close enough to land for them to make a flight but still far enough away (out of sight of land) they decide to stop and take a break.  Some of them have stayed aboard for an hour and come quite close to us.  One landed on Justin's knee briefly one day.

Another time one hung around long enough Josie fed it bits of the orange she was eating.

Delight (visitors)

Leaving Gibraltar we had periods of no wind where we just drifted, especially early in the morning.  Josie and I were on watch early one morning during one of these periods when I was reminded of one of Beth Moore's talks where she received what she called a delight.  That is exactly how I felt; delighted by a reward for our patience by a visit from a pod of what we determined to be pilot whales.  Shortly after the sun came up we spotted what at first we thought were dolphins, but as they got closer proved to be whales.  We woke Michael and Justin up as we were sure they would not want to miss out.  The whales played around the boat for an hour.  They would swim around, move off, dive under the boat and provide quite a show.  Michael tried to get a shot underwater by hanging off the back of the boat and reaching his hand down into the water with the camera, but was unsuccessful.  I finally got into the water with the camera and Josie and Michael soon joined me.  Shortly after that the whales departed, resuming their journey.  We saw a pod the next day as well, but we were underway and not just drifting and they did not linger.

Ferraguda

Anchoring off Ferrraguda we ran into S'Ours again and enjoyed seeing them before they took off for England and we continued our voyage.  

Everyone else elected to stay on the boat and I took the kayak into town by myself.  I elected to go around the castle and beach the boat closer to the fishing harbor.  I walked through the town and came back out on the beach across from our boat.  I took the beach route back to the kayak, but had to wade in the water around the castle as the tide was coming in and there was no longer any beach showing in front of the castle.