With wind and swell coming from the east, cruising up the east coast wasn’t going to happen so we headed west and had a good downwind sail to Santa Ponca, again we changed sail-plan a few times along the way, along the way we lost Tortola on AIS so I looked at vessel finder and saw they had turned around and were heading in the opposite direction - We suspected they may have lost their dinghy as they were towing it,  when I looked at vessel finder again there was a helicopter very close to their position so for a minute we thought maybe something else had happened but then we would have heard on our VHF if they had put a call out or had an emergency! It turned out that the local rescue services were carrying out an exercise and the rescue boat had found Tortola's dinghy and had it in tow, Teresa and Terry were very relieved and grateful that it was found and they didn’t loose it. 

When we got to Santa Ponca it was pretty busy so we anchored quite a long way out, Mark on Grace Richard was here along with 3 Ocean cruising club boats. The first night we had drinks on board with Terry Teresa and Mark and the next day Steve went around the OCC boats and arranged drinks at a bar in the nearby marina. Sadly one boat couldn’t make it but we had a great night out with, Terry and Teresa, Mark, Tom and Pam - Stealin Time and Jan and Annalise - Anna Sophia2.

Friends Steve and Janine arrived in a bay around the corner in their new to them Oyster 56 Gigi of London so the next morning Tortola and us set off on the 3 mile trip to find them.