After another night watch, the winds continue the whole day. Just enough to keep us moving nicely along. We spend the day doing various things: reading, schoolwork, fixing things on the boat, cooking, cleaning. We also spend a good portion of the day thinking about doing all sorts of productive things. Late afternoon, as we are watching another Christmas movie in the cockpit, an enormous pod of dolphins come up alongside the boat and gives us an incredible show of acrobatics. Dolphins are leaping bodily out of the air, flipping, spinning, somersaulting and showing the kind of exuberance we can only think about having ourselves. We cheer them on, hoping the encouragement will lengthen the show. We are not disappointed. Just as the sun is setting the winds start to pick up. We are entering the “Gulf of Papagayo” which is a general term for a stretch of coastline that can have something called “gap winds.” In short, what this means is the conditions on the Caribbean side of Central America are causing winds to blow over the isthmus and over the Pacific. Right on us. Sometimes these gap winds can become extremely dangerous, such as in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, where conditions can get dangerous very quickly. We timed our passage along the Gulf of Tehuantepec shoreline when the winds were light. The Gulf of Papagayo is like Tehuantepec’s smaller, younger brother. Not as threatening. Not as deadly. But annoying as hell. And he was about to become a huge pain in the ass..