Maryly and I got up early and after a snack went for a paddle without the guide. He told us there was a surfing area around the next point and we went looking for it. We found a large gently sloping sand beach with mild waves breaking on it. Maryly was comfortable with these waves and decided she liked surf practice here. When the support boat arrived the day before we discovered that it was named "Mariela" which is the closest Maryly has ever seen to a Spanish name that looks like hers. So she decided to take Mariela as her Spanish name and then we named this surfing beach "Mariela's Surf Beach". After only half an hour of surfing we head back to get "home" in time for breakfast.
After breakfast we three kayakers headed for the Tortuga Islands leaving the boat captain Danielle behind to watch the camp. Our goal was to circumnavigate the islands and do some rock gardening. Paloma told us there was a large arch in an offshore rock we would be able to go through. If the wind did not come up too strong, Danielle might bring lunch out in the support boat.
After a short 2 kilometer crossing the first island turned out to be named Alcatraz. We hugged the shore and started around the west side of the island trying to go behind the rocks and looking for caves. There weren't many caves large enough to paddle into and without a helmet I wasn't very tempted by the small rough holes I saw. We went through the large arch as promised and continued around the island. I was interested to watch Paloma at work as a guide. He never suggested a particular path and didn't cringe or warn me off from going behind rocks with rough water around them. But he always set a good example by going on a more conservative route.
As we rounded the far side of the island, a strong wind came up and blew directly at us through the narrow channel between Alcatraz and the main Tortuga Island. Paloma and I were eager to paddle into this wind, but Maryly made us stop and talk about it first. Remember, Maryly hates wind on the water. Paloma predicted that the narrow channel would be the worst of the wind and then we could continue to some offshore rocks and the rest of the way around Alcatraz. We convinced Maryly to come along against her better judgement.
When we got out of the channel, the wind did not let up. Maryly refused to continue out to the offshore rocks so we turned and went along the east shore. Maryly was furious at us, in a good natured way, for talking her into doing all this work against the wind. I figured that she would be happy later knowing that she had persevered and made it all away around the island. There was no discussion of continuing around the main Tortuga island as we had originally hoped.
When we got to the crossing to go back to our beach the wind did not let up. It was apparently a general wind and not just a local effect between the islands as we had first though. We had to slog over the crossing with Maryly muttering about paddling in wind. As we landed on our beach the wind was locally shadowed by the cliffs behind us, but we could see whitecaps to the horizon. No way to talk Maryly into going back out again.
Late in the day, however, the wind died down and Paloma went out with me to explore the offshore rocks we had missed in the morning. We didn't get organized to launch until 4:00 PM and had to hustle to get out and back before sunset. When we got to these rocks, a strong wind came up again while we were paddling between two of them. Just like earlier we thought for a minute that this was a local effect between the rocks but then discovered that the wind had come back up everywhere again. We let the wind blow us back to Alcatraz Island to look into an arch we had missed earlier in the day. But the tide was low and the arch was impassible. We turned towards home. Close to the island I saw a pair of manta rays drifting just under the choppy surface with their wing tips sticking out of the water.
Crossing back over to our beach we had strong wind and wind waves coming from our right. But the tide was flooding back into the Golfo de Nicoya and the current was running against the waves, making them almost standing waves.. The waves washed over my deck and drenched my arm and my side. But the 80 degree water felt like I was in a tempest in a bathtub. This made me feel safer and I wondered if that feeling was justified. The force of the wind and the current almost canceled each other out and we headed straight across without having to angle our boats in either direction.