June 2017 – Adagio’s Voyage

Monkeys!

After leaving Bahia Ballena, we arrived at Islas Tortugas, which are a pair of islands not far off shore in the Gulf of Nicoya. The islands were absolutely beautiful, and we were excited to be at such an awesome spot. We had read that there was good diving and snorkeling around the pinnacle islands, but we were a bit concerned about the water visibility. The water looked pretty green, and we were only two days since the big storm that washed all the silt and debris into the water.

Dan and Susan on Kini Popo decided to do some reconnaissance snorkeling, while Mike and I had to do some work on the boat. After sitting in the brown bay of Bahia Ballena with the runoff from the storm, we had two issues to deal with. First, the waterline of the boat looked horrible. We had to jump in and do some serious scrubbing to get the dirt and growth off the paint. And, second, somehow our salt water intake was clogged up, probably from the debris after the rainstorm. Unless we unclogged the saltwater intake, we were not going to be able to use the watermaker.

After scrubbing the waterline, Mike jumped in with a long drill bit and dove under the water to the thru-hole for the salt water intake. I was monitoring the hoses on the inside to see if he could shove the drill bit up high enough to dislodge whatever was clogging the intake. Sure enough, a bunch of wood chips got dislodged and made their way up to the filter. After several cleanings of the filter, we were good to go with the salt water and could run the watermaker again.

Dan and Susan returned with the bad news that the water visibility was horrible. There were lots of fish, but you couldn’t see them unless they were right in front of your face. We decided to make a Plan B. The Curu Reserve Park was on the bay just around the corner from Islas Tortugas. We decided to dinghy over to the park the next morning to go exploring.

The Curu Reserve Park used to be a family farm and was slowly converted to a park and received protective status in the 1980’s. It is a natural tropical forest and wildlife reserve. So, we were definitely on the lookout for the wildlife.

After paying the small fee, we received a map of the trails and set off to wander into the forest. Although we saw signs warning us of crocodiles near the estuary and lagoon, we didn’t see any crocodiles.

We did see all sorts of birds (well, mainly heard them in the trees) and lots of different lizards and iguanas. We even saw some small deer. But, the highlight was definitely the monkeys!

We were about half way through the hike when the sounds of the howler monkeys started getting louder and closer. We knew we were on the right trail. As we craned our necks to look into the tree tops, the howler monkeys were jumping from tree to tree coming toward us. The larger and vocal males were clearly first. Then the rest of the troop of females, juveniles and even some babies started following. There must have been at least 40 monkeys in the pack. We stood there for about 30 minutes just watching them. It was awesome!

After making our way a little farther down the trail, we started seeing a bunch of capuchin monkeys. These are the little, white-faced monkeys you’ve probably seen on tv or in the zoo. They don’t growl like the howlers but make some small squeaking noises when trying to communicate. These capuchins did not seem to be traveling in a pack like the howlers. Each of them we saw looked pretty solitary.

One of the capuchins was sitting on a branch not that high up off the ground eating a mango. He was clearly watching us below him but didn’t seem too bothered by us. There were a ton of mango trees, and the monkeys were making meals of the mangos as we saw numerous half-eaten mangos all around the trail. The mangos were also huge – much larger than what we find in the grocery stores. Mike and Dan started to walk under the tree to check out all the mangos that were littering the ground. The capuchin seemed quite interested in what they were doing and started following above them in the tree. Then, the monkey started picking the mangos and dropping them down on Mike and Dan! It was hilarious. Luckily, none of the mangos hit the boys. I’m not sure if the monkey was trying to be nice and give them some mangos or was being naughty and trying to hit them with the mangos. Either way, we got a good laugh.

We kept on the trail and saw some more capuchins, one little guy looked so sleepy just relaxing on a branch. We snapped his picture before he shut is eyes to get a nap in.

Toward the end of the trail, we came upon a lagoon (again, no crocodiles in sight) that was quite beautiful. There were water lilies floating on the water, some interesting ducks lingering around, and so many beautiful flowering plants surrounded by butterflies. Fantastic!

After a full day hiking in the rainforest, we headed back to the boats for a quiet evening with plans to depart the next day for Bahia Herrradura across the Gulf of Nicoya.

~katie

Montezuma Waterfalls

After a few fun days in Tamarindo, we decided to head south to Bahia Ballena in the Gulf of Nicoya. Bahia Ballena was about 90 miles south, so we left in the afternoon on an overnight passage. The wind did not really cooperate with us, so unfortunately we motor-sailed most of the night. We had to dodge a squall and a fleet of fishing boats, but otherwise the passage was uneventful.

We still hadn’t had much luck fishing in Costa Rica, so we were pleasantly surprised to catch a Sierra as we were coming into the anchorage at Bahia Ballena. It was definitely the largest Sierra we have caught. I would have snapped a picture, but between Mike trying to get the fish on the boat and clean it and me steering us into the anchorage, we had our hands full. But, that fish made some great ceviche and fish tacos that we shared with our friends on Kini Popo who joined us on the trip.

Our first night in Bahia Ballena brought some pretty good rain overnight. We didn’t think the storm was all that intense, but it must have really come down over the land. When we woke up the next morning, the entire bay was brown and full of debris. In fact, we woke up to a clunking sound on our hull and realized large logs floating in the bay were hitting up against the hull. The rivers on land of course wash out into the ocean, and this storm dumped a ton of silt and plant debris into the water.

Mike and I had read about a small town called Montezuma not far from where we were that had a cool waterfall hike, so we set off to try and find it. We pulled the dinghy on shore and walked into the little town of Tambor to try and catch the bus to Montezuma. Apparently the storm had knocked out the electricity in the entire area, so no stores or restaurants were open. But, we found some nice people around town to give us information on the buses and give us some change, because all we had were large bills. The information we got from the locals was that the bus didn’t necessarily arrive at a particular time. It all depended on when the ferry arrived in Paquera from Puntarenas. The bus waits for the ferry passengers and then begins its route around the peninsula. So, it was possible that we could have to wait a couple of hours for the bus.

After about an hour with no bus, we spoke with young woman who got dropped off at the bus stop. I think she was German, but she lived in Montezuma. She said that she hitch hikes to get around and that we’d probably have better luck getting there by trying to hitch a ride with someone. I certainly would never think to hitch hike in the States, as we’ve all been told since we were kids how dangerous that is, nor would I pick up a hitch hiker. But, attitudes are definitely different here as we soon found out. We got three separate rides, pretty quickly, that got us to our destination. People were so friendly and just wanted to talk to us and perhaps practice their English, curious about where we were from and where we were going. One gentleman was an exporter of pineapples and one woman owned a hotel. Super friendly and wanted absolutely nothing in return.

The hotel owner told us how to find the entrance to the trail to the waterfalls once we reached Montezuma, and so we were off. It was clear immediately the storm was going to have an impact on our waterfall hike. Not too far into the hike we came upon others doing the same thing. That’s when we discovered that the part of the trail that is likely a walk over a small creek would instead be crossing a raging river! There was a guide there who was helping direct people across. The difficult part was really not the strength of the flow of the water, which was manageable, but the fact that the river was so brown that you couldn’t see where you were stepping. You had to feel around for a substantial rock to step on and get good footing. Most of the crossing was not deeper than knee depth, but at one point I was in the water up to my waist.

After crossing the water, there was a muddy trail to follow around to the large waterfall. The amount of water coming over the falls was impressive. We definitely got the impression that this was an unusual amount of water flowing due to the rainstorm. Mike hiked up a steep trail to see if there was another part of the falls to reach. There were falls farther up, but they were impossible to reach given the current depths of the water and the strength of the flow of water. It definitely was too dangerous to go further, but I’m sure in the dry season there is an even longer hike.

We enjoyed the hike and the falls and eventually made our way back into Montezuma for some lunch. Montezuma is a really cute, small town which looks like it caters to the hippie, backpacker crowd with various hostels, bungalows and surf tour operators. It looks like it would be a fun place to stay if you are looking for a really laid back town surrounded by jungle and trails to hike.

After heading back to Bahia Ballena, we made a plan with Kini Popo to depart the next morning for Isla Tortugas. But, more on that next time…

~katie

Afraid of the Dark?

We’ve had quite a few water adventures the last month in Costa Rica, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to do any inland travel. We read about the Santa Ana Ice Caves in the Barra Honda Parque Nacional about 1.5 hrs from Tamarindo, so we rented a car with our friends on Kini Popo to check them out.

We arrived at the park, which was absolutely beautiful and green! I’m not sure if it is technically a rainforest, but that it what it seemed like. We told the administration that we wanted to see the caves, and they explained that the caves were a drive farther into the park and that we had to have a guide.

We paid the fee and piled our guide, Miguel, into the car with us. We were pretty happy we had a four wheel drive vehicle because our car barely made it up the steep, muddy and rocky roads. We even had to reverse and get some greater momentum to make it up one of the hills.

We arrived at another small parking lot where we would begin our hike up to see the ice caves. The hike was a good workout, especially because the amount of mud that caked to the bottom of our shoes felt like weights we were carrying around. Miguel pointed out various plants along the way that were used for cooking or medicinally, such as aljillo and anise. We could hear the howler monkeys in the distance but unfortunately did not see them.

We finally arrived at the descent into the cave. We all had helmets to put on and some very worn harnesses. Then we saw where we were going to descend! There was a single guy belaying a rope through a ring attached to our harnesses while we had to go down about a four story ladder. The ladder looked like old Home Depot ladders that were just lashed together at the joints. There was so much mud on them that you had to be careful not to slip and had to hold onto the sides rather than the rungs. We all laughed a bit and said this would not be Cal OSHA approved!

The top of the ladder…

View from the bottom of the ladder looking up…

One by one we made it to the bottom of the ladder where Miguel gave us all headlamps. The caves were damp and muddy and required some serious negotiating of where you stepped. But, the scenery was fascinating. The long stalactites and stalagmites gave the cave its name, as it did look like icicles all around.

We wandered further and further into the cave, admiring the interesting structures and contemplating how mother nature can create something so incredible. Finally we reached a dead end in a big open part of the cave. Miguel had us all sit down and together we turned off our headlamps.

Have you ever experienced real darkness? There was not a hint of light in this part of the cave. It was so dark that your eyes almost play tricks on you making you think you can see something. We sat in silence for a few minutes just listening to the drips of water echoing from somewhere in the cave. The dark and silence creates a surreal sensation of almost floating. I admit I am not really a fan of the dark, but this wasn’t scary. It was one of those experiences that makes you aware of your senses and makes you feel alive!

We made our way back through the cave to the ladder that we now each had to climb up to get out of the cave and back into the sunlight. We hiked back to the car and stopped at a lookout where we could see the green valley below the park and the Gulf of Nicoya far in the background.

It was a fun trip to see something unique in nature, and we were all happy to have a day out of the water!

~katie

Surf’s Up!

There wasn’t much opportunity for surfing where we were in Mexico, but now that we’re in Central America the surf beaches are everywhere. Mike had done a little bit of surfing back in California but really considered himself a beginner. If Mike is a beginner surfer, I don’t even know what that makes me considering I had never tried surfing in my life! We didn’t exactly have an ocean nearby where I grew up in Texas.

After talking with friends back in Mexico, Mike decided he wanted to get a stand-up paddle surfboard. We found a great used board in Punta Mita (Mexico), but Mike hadn’t really had the opportunity to try it out yet. We are still hanging out with our friends on Kini Popo, and Dan was into surfing too. So, it was time to go find the surf beaches!

Our first stop was to actually head back up north toward the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border where there is a famous surf spot called Ollie’s. I have no idea if this is true, but our guidebooks say that Ollie’s was named after Oliver North because this is the spot where he smuggled arms to the Nicaraguan Contras. Crazy.

Anyway, Ollie’s Point is in Bahia Potrero Grande. Like any good surf beach, there is quite a bit of swell coming into the bay. That means a bit of a rolly anchorage for the boats. But, it is a huge advantage to be anchored there as the only way to reach the surf spot is by boat. On days of good surf, tourists pay several hundred dollars to rent a panga and take them out to Ollie’s for a few hours.

Mike and Dan got to catch a few good waves the first day, but Mike ended up ditching the paddle and regular surfed the new board. With a SUP board, you either have to have enough volume on the board to keep you afloat or you have to get some speed going to keep you on top of the water. The board floats me just fine, but Mike has about 50 lbs on me. Until he gets quite a bit more practice under his belt, the board is going to have to be a regular surf board for him (more on that later.)

Dan, getting his surf on…

Later on we all headed back to the surf spot, and I ended up playing around on our board in the baby waves by the shore while Mike took Dan’s longboard out for a spin. Susan and I were on shore while Mike and Dan were farther out in the wavers when we noticed dark, ominous looking clouds coming our way. It became clear that a storm was quickly approaching. The dinghy was anchored on the other side of the breakers, but the sailboats were clear across the bay. As we had left the boats when it was sunny, both boats had all the hatches open.

I grabbed the board and started paddling as quickly as possible for the dinghy. Susan didn’t have a board and was going to have to make a pretty long swim. As I got closer to the dinghy, I saw Mike and Dan paddling quickly to meet me. Susan was still trying to negotiate the waves on the shore as the three of us piled in the dinghy and the rain started. Dan yelled at Susan to stay on the beach. We would have to come back for her, but we needed to race to the sailboats or everything was going to be drenched. The boys dropped me off on Adagio and grabbed some fins from Kini Popo. The boys raced back across the bay to get Susan. Dan swam the fins to Susan to help her swim out past the surf and into the dinghy.

It was probably only 10 minutes or so after the boys and Susan got back that the storm really hit. And, it hit hard! We’ve had a ton of rain the last month while we’ve been here, but usually there isn’t too much wind with it. This time was different, as we saw about 40 kts of wind! Mike was out in the cockpit and yelled at me to open the thru-holes and give him the engine key. We were not too far from the rocky shoreline and if our anchor started to drag we needed to be ready to start the engine quickly. We have a cool app on our ipad with an anchor alarm that I could monitor by GPS where our boat was and if we looked like we were moving at all. Thankfully, our trusty anchor held us once again.

The winds weren’t our only concern of course, the lightening is always the biggest worry. And, boy did we have a light show. All we can do is stay away from anything metal in the boat and keep our fingers crossed that today is not our day! We cheated death once again as the storm finally passed.

After a couple of days at Ollie’s we headed south toward Tamarindo. Although, we started calling it “Tamagringo” because there are probably more gringos here than locals. Not many cruising boats stop here, because it is a rolly anchorage. Again, another surf beach so lots of swell. But, the little town is actually pretty fun and there is a ton of surfing. In fact, I think every third store in town is a surf shop.

Both our inflatable paddle boards blew out in the last couple of weeks, and Mike decided if he really wanted to SUP surf, he needed to start on a board with more volume. So, we were on the lookout for another used board. We happened to meet a guy in a bar with a SUP rental place who said he had some used boards for sale that might be perfect for what Mike wanted. We met him the next day and found another board for a great price. We now have two SUP boards again!

After talking to some locals about the fun surf beaches around, we were recommended to go to Playa Avellana. We knew we were in for an adventure when we told the guy at the rental car place where we were going and he said we needed 4 wheel drive.

Avellana isn’t that far from Tamarindo, but you have to wind around and ultimately get on a dirt road that arrives at an idyllic, unspoiled beach. The swell was up and the boys were ready to get wet! Susan and I found a great little spot shaded by a tree to set up our beach chairs and watch the action.

The waves were pretty big and a bit intimidating to me, so Susan and I did a bit of relaxing until lunchtime. Meanwhile, Mike & Dan tackled mother nature. We got to watch them catch some really good rides, but we also saw them take some big hits, especially Mike who got pounded a few times. Dan’s comment was, “Mike has more muscle than sense.” Hilarious, and true, but I’m proud of him for getting out there and trying. It is hard work!

The boys took a break and we got some lunch at a fantastic spot on the beach called Lola’s.

After some much needed food, we headed back to the water. The tide had gone out quite a bit and the waves were much smaller. So, Mike offered to help me try to catch some waves, since I really have no idea what I’m doing. They might have been tiny, baby waves, but I stood up twice and rode a wave into the beach. It was so much fun!

Surf’s Up!

~katie

Schadenfacebook?

The title of this post comes from an episode of Hidden Brain that we recently listened to (a great NPR podcast you should check out). The premise was that people tend to only post the good or exciting things in their lives on social media, so readers get a false sense of what others’ lives are really like. It’s definitely easier and more fun to write about the fun times we are having on our adventure, but I want to make sure that I adequately capture what life is really like for us on this blog. So, given all that, I thought I would give you a post about some, well, interesting things that we’ve had to deal with recently.

(1) Fixing the toilet

When we first arrived in Costa Rica, we were elated at the beautiful scenery, friendly people and possibilities for exploration. After our friends on Anjuli left us to head south, we started looking into the snorkeling, diving and fishing opportunities around the bay. But, before we even began to have some fun, we had a bit of an issue come up. We only have one head (bathroom/toilet) on board, and one morning it just stopped working.

Adagio has a Lavac manual vacuum pump toilet. The way it works is that when you are done using it, you close the lid which has a rubber seal around it and hand pump it. The seal on the lid creates a vacuum which flushes the toilet clean and then pumps new water in it. The pump is basically a bilge pump with various rubber gaskets in it that can go bad over time. After a couple of years of use, you may have to rebuild the pump and replace the gaskets.

So, that it where we were one morning without a working toilet. We carry spare parts of just about everything, so we had an extra pump that Mike had previously rebuilt as well as a new set of gaskets in case we had to do another rebuild. Mike began to undertake the not-so-fun process of removing the pump and gaskets. If you can imagine that everything has to pass through the pump upon flushing, you can probably get an idea of what builds up and hardens inside the pump over time that has to be scraped out and cleaned. Just one word – gross!

As with just about all boat projects, a project we thought would take about an hour ended up taking about five. And, poor Mike had to redo it three times before the pump finally worked – again, typical of boat projects. Let’s just say that Mike & I each scrubbed our hands multiple times after handling that pump.

This reminded me of the time that I had to call a plumber out to my house to deal with some sort of clog in the pipes where he had to remove the toilet to snake the drain. I could not imagine that job, but the plumber had a really good sense of humor about it. He kept telling me stories about things that people had flushed down the toilet, including a pair of women’s panties. When he removed them and showed them to the homeowners, the wife went off on her husband because they weren’t hers! Too funny.

(2) Finding the smell

So, the next thing that happened was that we pulled into a new anchorage and our friends on Kini Popo rowed over for a cocktail. But, we noticed that right after we dropped anchor we started to get a ton of flies in the cockpit. These were just your basic, annoying house flies. They seemed to be concentrated around one of our fishing rods and rod holders on the stern of the boat. I had noticed a while ago that this particular fishing rod smelled pretty bad. I thought it was just from the fish, salt water, etc. and had been bugging Mike to get some soap and wash it off.
Once Dan and Susan left, I grabbed the soap to try and clean off the fishing rod to get rid of the flies and Mike got some bleach and water to pour into the rod holder. However, when Mike poured the water in the rod holder, he noticed it wasn’t draining properly and something was clogging the bottom of the rod holder.

Mike unscrewed the rod holder from the rail and stepped down our ladder into the water to try and wash out whatever was stuck down there. What was it? A dead bird! Again, gross! We have no idea how it got in there or how long it had been there, but it was pretty disgusting.

(3) Work, work, work

For those of you who just think we play all of the time, we do actually have to do a lot of work to keep the boat maintained and running. I have really laughed at comments I’ve gotten from some friends who say what we do looks “relaxing.” Hmph! Mike’s favorite saying is, “we still work, we just don’t get paid anymore.”

We really had quite a bit of maintenance to do, so we pulled into Marina Papagallo for a few days where it would be easier to work at the dock and with shore-side water available. I also had about four loads of laundry to do. The marina had coin laundry which was much easier and cheaper than taking it into town. Our friends spent over $60 having a couple of bags of laundry done in town.

So, about five days of work included: washing the boat, cleaning and treating all of the exterior teak, waxing the hull, cleaning the bottom, polishing the stainless and changing the oil. All of this was done in about 95 degree heat and working around the daily rainstorms that blow through almost every afternoon.

I love our life here on the boat, but in between the fun adventures we’ve got some hard work and sometimes crazy stuff we have to deal with. I’m definitely not complaining, but “relaxing” isn’t really part of the daily routine. But, today is Dan’s birthday, so we’re going to head into Tamarindo tonight to celebrate with some margaritas!

~katie

p.s. Remember that post from about a year ago when Mike got a crab in his ear cleaning the bottom of the boat? Well, it’s happened two more times here in Costa Rica! I’m not sure why he doesn’t just wear ear plugs