Panama!

We left Golfito for the 300 mile trip to San Carlos, Panama. With no wind and an adverse current, we spent three days slogging our way to Panama. The trip was relatively uneventful other than having to dodge some squalls (always at night, always on my watch!) and a few fishing boats.

As we got closer to Panama City and the Canal, the clearly marked shipping channel on the charts began to look like a super highway out on the ocean. We stayed clear of the shipping lanes, choosing to stay on the shore side of the channel. As we were making 5-6 kts, decent given the conditions, the container ships and tankers were making 2-3 times that speed. The last thing we ever want to do is play chicken with the big boys! But, it was certainly fun to see them light up the horizon at night and create multiple AIS targets all over our chart plotter.

We rounded Punta Mala and headed north toward San Carlos on our last evening at sea. There had been some debris in the water earlier in the day, which was mostly logs and other plant debris clearly runoff from the rains. But, just as we sat down to have some dinner in the cockpit that night, we heard a big thud on the bow. We started looking around and grabbed the spotlight. What we saw floating in the water was some kind of big white, metal box. It wouldn’t be until we got into the marina in daylight that we saw the huge scrape in our paint on the starboard bow. Ugh. There are hazards in the ocean you can see and some you can’t. It’s the ones you can’t see that are most worrisome. We’re just glad it was only cosmetic damage and not something more serious.

We arrived the next morning at Vista Mar Marina in San Carlos, greeted by our friends on Kya and Manatee, who we hadn’t seen since El Salvador. A couple of months earlier, we had decided to travel back to the States to attend a family wedding and started searching for a safe, and reasonably priced place to leave the boat while we were out of town. I had emailed Katie on Kya, who I knew was already in Panama, to ask if she had any suggestions in Panama. She let me know that they were at a new marina in San Carlos called Vista Mar with Manatee and sent me the pricing info. The price was right, so we made a plan to head to Vista Mar.

We were happy to see our friends on arrival and started preparing the boat to leave for 10 days. Rob on Manatee was nice enough to volunteer to look after Adagio while we were gone. This was such a huge benefit to us, as the big tides in the area create a large surge into the marina. The dock lines have to be checked and adjusted daily to try and keep any chafing to a minimum. Also, given the humidity in the rainy season, we really needed someone to open the boat for a couple of hours each day to air it out and try and prevent any mold from growing.

We got everything situated and packed in two days and made our way two hours to Tocumen airport in Panama City. After a fabulous 10 days in New York, Connecticut and Vermont with family, we were ready to get back to Adagio.

Upon our return, we were introduced to a new group of friends that Becky on Manatee had made while we were gone. We met a great group of expats from the US, Canada, Mexico and Argentina who were living in the area and happy to show us around and throw a few parties. Vista Mar is a really nice marina with a golf course and beach club, but there is not much of a town that you can walk to if you want to get to a store or restaurant. As much as we loved the fun times and great company, I could not thank our friends enough for running errands for us like taking us to grocery stores and letting us do laundry at their house. Seriously, thanks again Aurora, Marcelo, Janet, Judie and David!

Golfing in Panama…

While in Vista Mar, we took a few trips into Panama City, played golf at the local golf course and rented a van to drive up to El Valle de Anton. El Valle is up in the mountains about 45 minutes from Vista Mar and a completely different climate. The city is actually in the caldera of an extinct volcano! After piling in the van, we stopped at a hiking trail that took us through the rain forest to a beautiful waterfall and natural swimming pool. Very cool!

After our hike, we stopped for lunch at a beautiful hotel and started looking for some other sight seeing activities. Janet had the driver stop at another little restaurant off the road while the rest of us waited in the van. She came back a few minutes later and told us all to follow her as she handed us each little bags of dried corn kernels.

We walked through the restaurant and across the street to a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence were ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys. As soon as they saw us with the bags of corn, the entire flock of birds came rushing towards us. It was hilarious. We all acted like kids throwing the corn at the birds who quacked, squawked, chirped and clucked at us. So funny.

We’d had a great time at Vista Mar, but it was time for us to move on. So, we said our goodbyes and assurances that we would keep in touch and left Vista Mar for the big city of Panama!

~katie

Flying High

We were on a bit of a time crunch now to get to Panama. So, we scooted on down south to Bahia Drake (pronounced DRAH-kay), where we once again met up with our friends on Kini Popo. Drake is on the Osa Peninsula, which has its own weather systems. The books describe the two seasons here as wet, and wetter. It was definitely that…

We headed in towards shore and decided to check out the estuary to see if there was a place to tie up the dinghy rather than go through the surf and do a beach landing. We found an awesome eco-resort with their own dock who were very welcoming and let us tie up. We returned the favor by sitting in their open air bar with some mojitos just as it started pouring rain.

One of the reasons that we wanted to stop at Drake was that Isla Cano is not far off shore and supposed to have spectacular diving. But, as we were approaching Drake from miles offshore, everywhere we looked was green, silty water. Because it is the rainy season, there is so much runoff that the silty, brackish water travels miles from shore and sits on the top of the water column. Concerned that there would not be too much visibility until perhaps we were fifty feet down or so, we nixed paying to go out there. (Dan and Susan eventually went out there after we left, so hopefully we’ll here the water clarity was better than we thought at the time!)

Diving off the table, we decided to see what else we could do in Drake. The little town was great with dirt roads and small outfits offering eco-tours. Mike and Dan disappeared into one of these little shops and came back to tell us that we were signed up for a Canopy Tour the next morning. If you don’t know what a canopy tour is, you are in good company. It is a series of zip lines that take you over the canopy of the rainforest.

The next morning we piled into the back of a pickup that took us down those dirt roads and even through a (shallow) river (apparently the bridge was out), until we arrived at the Corcovado Canopy Tours. Corcovado is a national park of rainforest that covers most of the Osa Peninsula.

Once we were suited up in our helmets, harnesses and gloves, we marched off into the rainforest to ascend the first of THIRTEEN platforms that would take us high above the trees. Mike had the GoPro, so we got some great pictures and video of the four of us flying over the rainforest. It was so much fun, and a great way to see the rainforest from a completely different perspective.

The next day we decided to take some of the trails that began right outside the eco-lodge and headed along the coast into Corcovado. We were doing so much hiking at this point, that a few hours traversing mud and rocks was not all that physically challenging but allowed us to really take in the beauty of our surroundings in nature. I know I’ve said this before, but it is amazing how much healthier a lifestyle we have here on the boat!

We had packed as much into Costa Rica as we could in two months, but we really had to go. We said goodbye to Kini Popo and departed for Golfito. Golfito is the last port of entry in Costa Rica and where we had to check out of the country.

Our sixty mile trip to Golfito was an all day trip, as there was no wind and we were fighting an adverse current. We arrived in Golfito at dusk, just as the rain came pouring down. It was hard to see through the rain, as I stood on the bow looking for hazards and trying to find the anchorage. But, we were able to anchor just fine and get a good night’s sleep.

The next day we set off to provision for our passage to Panama and to see all the officials to check out of the country, as we planned to leave early the next morning. Those plans changed a bit when the immigration official told us we had to come back the next day. But, we got our groceries and filled up with diesel. The forecast (and season) did not look great for wind, but we had to go. Topping up with diesel was an imperative.

After finding the immigration office, customs, the bank (to pay for the exit zarpe) and the port captain the next morning, we finally had our zarpe to leave Costa Rica. We pulled up anchor around noon and departed for the three day journey to Panama! But, more on that next time…

~katie

Don’t Drop Your Keys!

I’m a bit behind on the blog, but I have a few posts to catch you up…

After leaving Islas Tortugas we spent a couple of days at Bahia Herradura reprovisioning and getting some laundry done. Then, we were off to Punta Quepos. We really wanted to go to Manuel Antonio, which is probably the number one tourist attraction in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful National Park and wildlife refuge right on the water. I had visited Manuel Antonio over 15 years ago, but Mike had never been there.

You can anchor at the park, but you get charged for anchoring. The fee wasn’t really the problem though. Because we would be anchoring inside the park, you are supposed to get the permit and pay the fees before you get there. In order to do that, you would have to go into Quepos, bus over to Manuel Antonio, pay the fees, and then move the boat from Quepos to Manuel Antonio. That seemed a bit ridiculous to us, so we decided to anchor around the corner about 6 miles away at Punta Quepos.

Punta Quepos was a beautiful little anchorage away from the town of Quepos. In order to get to the small beaches around, you either had to hike in or come by boat. The first day we were there the anchorage was nice and calm. We had a fun time paddle boarding around and checked out the beaches. We asked some locals who were renting kayaks on the beach how we would get to Manuel Antonio. They said we could hike out, walk to the main road and easily catch a bus. So, that became the plan for the next day.

We dropped the dinghy in the water the next morning and rowed to shore. The “hike” out of there was definitely that, with a rough and ragged trail up to a road. From the road we started walking in the direction we were given to get to the main road to catch the bus. What we didn’t know was that this was about a mile and a half of a windy, uphill road. By the time we finally made it out, we were a hot, sweaty mess.

We stood on the corner for a minute looking for a bus when Mike suggested we try and hitchhike. We’d had pretty good luck with hitchhiking in Costa Rica so far, so it was worth a shot. Immediately a car pulled over and we piled in. Our new friend was a 20 yr old college kid from New Jersey named Mohamed who was on vacation by himself and also headed to Manuel Antonio. He seemed glad to have the company, and so off we went to explore Manuel Antonio.

It is amazing how many people visit this little park, which is a well protected piece of rainforest that opens up onto a beautiful beach. It is also a wildlife watcher’s paradise. We saw all kinds of monkeys, sloths, iguanas, coatis, raccoons and birds. There are beautifully marked trails that take you to waterfalls and overlooks that give you fantastic views of the ocean.

After roaming around in the park for a few hours, we grabbed some lunch with Mohamed and invited him to come back to the boat with us to hang out for the afternoon. We hung out for a while and Mike jumped in the dinghy to row Mohamed back to shore so that he could find his hotel before it got dark.

I was starting to think that it was taking an awfully long time to get him back to shore when Mike suddenly appeared and said, “We’ve got a problem…” Apparently, when they were about 20 feet from shore (in about 7 or 8 feet of water), Mike suggested that Mohamed take his phone and wallet out of his pocket and set them in the dinghy, so that when they jumped out to pull the dinghy ashore they wouldn’t get wet. (There was a bit of surf on this beach and we definitely got wet getting in and out.)

When Mohamed went to pull the phone out of his pocket, the rental car key flew out and plopped down in the ocean. They quickly borrowed a mask from someone on shore, but they weren’t having any luck finding the key. So, Mike rowed back to grab his mask and fins. I grabbed mine as well and we headed back to shore.

All three of us began frantically diving down looking for the key. The main problem was that because of the surf, the sand and silt were stirred up and there was zero visibility that close to shore. We would dive down and really were only able to see the bottom when we were a foot above it.

Mike and I looked at each other thinking this was a pretty futile exercise. It was a needle in a haystack, and we had no idea what Mohamed was going to do if we didn’t find this key. He had rented the car in San Jose, hours away, and all his luggage was in the car. So, we had to find the key.

Just when we were about to give up, I made one more dive down and Voila! The key magically appeared on the ocean floor a foot away from me. I popped up and yelled, “I found it!” Mike and Mohamed both looked a bit shocked, but we were all pretty ecstatic that it turned up. Mike kept shaking his head at me the rest of the night saying, “I still can’t believe you found that key…”

So, the moral of the story is, make sure I’m around if you lose something in the ocean. Just kidding…

~katie

 

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

Dive Mojo

We’re in Costa Rica!  What happened to Nicaragua?  Well, we were only there for a week and it wasn’t too eventful. Maybe I’ll get around to writing about it eventually…

So, we’re in Costa Rica! We checked into Playas del Coco and have been bumming around Bahia Culebra in the anchorages.  After arriving, we met another boat named Kini Popo with Dan and Susan on board.  We quickly discovered that we had a lot in common.  Mike & Dan even figured out that they were at Disneyland on the same night in 1985 when they both attended “grad night” for the Southern California graduating seniors their senior year of high school.  Too funny!

Both boats started talking about all of the potential dive sites nearby and that developed into a plan for a week of diving.  Dan and Susan had heard that there was a dive out at Isla Murcielagos (Bat Island) to see bull sharks. (Check out my post about Diving Cabo Pulmo last year when we saw bull sharks in the Sea of Cortez.)

We didn’t really know anything about this dive site.  We checked at a dive shop and discovered that this was an advanced dive due to depth and current, and their price was over $200/person.  (This sounded a bit over my still level, so I planned to just snorkel while the others did this dive.)

We have the boats and the gear, so all we really needed was a dive guide.  We found a guy selling tours on the beach and asked him.  He made a phone call to his buddy who was a dive guide who agreed to go on our boat for $75.  Unfortunately, it was a bit too good to be true.  Our dive guide did not show up the next morning.  We weren’t going to let that ruin our day, so we made a plan to do another dive on some islands right outside Bahia Huevos.  Because this wasn’t going to be an advanced dive, I was in!

I had to shake off some nerves on that first dive –  I hadn’t had the dive gear on since last summer.  We anchored Kini Popo in about 45 feet of water and descended down the anchor chain to the sand bottom.  It took me a few minutes to shake off that initial anxiety, but I was finally able to relax and marvel at the underwater world.

Although we initially descended onto a flat sand bottom without many fish, there were round, white jellyfish all around us.  The jellyfish didn’t sting at all, they just sort of drifted around like in some alien world.  Very cool.  We then swam underwater to the rocky reefs surrounding the island to check out all the cool reef fish.

Me, trying to get my dive mojo on…

The next day was try #2 to meet the dive guide for the Bat Island dive.  (We were told he had car trouble the first day.) But, again, he was a no show.  So, we decided to make the most of getting up super early with all our gear and get another dive in.  This time we anchored out by the “monkey head” rock just outside Bahia Culebra.  We did a cool circumnavigation of the monkey head that had lots of underwater rocks and reef fish.

Can you spot the moray eel…

After those two dives, we were really getting into the groove.  So, we decided to both head to some bays a little south to check out some more dive spots.  We first anchored at Bahia Guacamaya, which was an absolutely gorgeous spot with white sand beaches and not too much development, just an eco-lodge on shore.  We did some initial snorkeling to find a good dive spot, and then piled the dive gear in the dinghies to dive on a nearby rock.

Mike with the dive gear in the dinghy…

We had an awesome dive.  One of the most interesting things was the difference in water temperature.  At 50-60 feet, it was cold!  But, as soon as you hit 30 feet, it was a good 10-15 degree temperature difference.

Here is a really cool ray that we saw on the dive…

Looking for our next stop, we found the Islas Santa Catalina, which were supposed to have good diving.  The only problem is that these small islands are mostly pinnacle rocks, and there are supposedly lots more uncharted pinnacle rocks underwater.  Those rocks are great for diving, but terrible for sailboats that draft 6 feet!

We decided to anchor at Playa Conchal in Bahia Brasilito, about four miles away from Islas Santa Catalina.  We waited for a calm morning and buzzed out to the islands in the dinghies with handheld GPS devices and depth sounders to do some reconnaissance.

One of the pinnacle rocks…

Dan and Susan checking out more of the islands…

When we got to the biggest of the islands, we anchored the dinghies to do some snorkeling.  We found a sandy spot about 40 feet deep where we could anchor the sailboat and dive around the point of the island.

Dan doing reconnaissance snorkeling…

Our exploration day at the islands also happened to be my birthday, so that night we took the dinghy over to Playa Flamingo to find a happening spot to celebrate.  We found a great spot right on the beach called Coco Loco.  And, we made quite the entry, as we had to negotiate the surf landing of the dinghy right in front of the restaurant.  Thankfully we timed the waves right and looked like pros!

Having the signature Coco Loco drink for my birthday…

After a recovery day, we were ready to take the sailboat to Islas Santa Catalina to dive.  We decided to dive in pairs, so we would have two in the water, one person on the sailboat and one in the dinghy to do pick up if necessary.  Dan and Susan went first and said they had a great time.  They even saw a white tip reef shark!

Next, Dan dropped Mike & I off around the point, and our plan was to swim back around toward the sailboat.  As soon as we descended, we came upon a school of spotted eagle rays.  Absolutely amazing!

We kept heading around, keeping the rocky island on our right side, and saw all kinds of reef fish and big schools of fish.  Some of the fish were ones that we’d never seen before!

I think this guy was trying to give the camera a kiss!

We’d had a amazing dive, and it was time to find the surface.  We came up and looked around and Mike said “where the heck are we?”  Total underwater navigation fail.  We do have compasses, but clearly we did not use them well.  Somehow we ended up back where we started.  The best we can guess, there was a split in the rocks underwater, and where we thought we were following the island around we actually did a 180 turn around some other rocks.

We realized it was going to be a long swim.  Dan and Susan were expecting to see us on the other side of the island.  There was a panga nearby fishing that was just pulling up anchor, and I joked to Mike, “maybe they can give us a ride.”  Just then the panga turned toward us and I waved at them to make sure they saw us in the water.  The guy smiled at me and said, “do you need a ride somewhere?”

We climbed in the panga and headed back to the sailboat.  Just as we were heading around the corner of the island, Dan was coming to look for us in the dinghy.  So, it all worked out but lesson learned.

After a fantastic week, we headed back to Bahia Culebra to do some much needed boat maintenance and cleaning.  But, we have the diving bug now and can’t wait to get back out there.

Thanks Mike, Dan and Susan for helping me get my dive mojo back!

~katie

Discovering the Ancients

We didn’t take our boat into Guatemala because the fees to do so are quite expensive and there is only a commercial port on the Pacific side.  However, we really wanted to travel to Guatemala.  The boat was safely in the marina at Bahia del Sol in El Salvador, so now was our chance to go.

We don’t have unlimited resources and have to watch our budget in order to keep on going, so planning our trip from El Salvador to Guatemala was a bit interesting.  We REALLY wanted to go Tikal, one of the most famous sites of Mayan ruins.  Tikal is in the northern part of Guatemala, almost to Belize.  It is quite far away from where we sat in El Salvador.  We could have flown from San Salvador to Guatemala City and onto Flores (near Tikal), but the prices for flying the next week were way out of our budget.  So, that meant one thing…we were taking the bus.  Well, multiple buses.

Our first step was catching the chicken buses from Bahia del Sol to San Salvador.  (Read my previous post about the chicken bus.)  We got a bit of help from the locals about where to get off and switch buses, which required walking up a hill and over a highway, but soon we were at the bus depot.  We then took a taxi to a hotel where the long distance bus from San Salvador to Guatemala City would depart.

This bus was great.  We had reclining leather seats, movies to watch and were fed snacks and drinks.  We didn’t even have to get off the bus at the border crossing.  The officials from both the  El Salvador side and the Guatemala side came through the bus to check and stamp our passports and collect our customs declarations.  After about five hours, we were in Guatemala City.

We were immediately impressed with Guatemala City.  It is MUCH larger than San Salvador.  And, the section of the city where the bus dropped us off was extremely clean and modern.  But, we now had to find the bus from Guatemala City to Flores.  Unlike the first long distance bus, you couldn’t get much information online about the buses or buy tickets.  I had the name of one bus line and knew that they had overnight buses leaving around 9pm, so we had to wing it.

We found a taxi driver to take us to the bus station, which was in the downtown section of the city.  Like so many big cities in the States, the downtown area was not exactly the high-class section of town.  It was after dark and we were walking down dirty streets with bars on all the windows.  It was a bit…sketchy.  The bus station was pretty drab as well.  There were two buses departing that night for Flores. The first one was full, and the only seats available together on the second bus were at the very back.  But, we plunked down $50 for two tickets on this nine hour bus ride to Flores.

When we finally got on the bus and took our seats at the very back, right next to the toilet, we both looked at each other with our favorite expression…”it’s all part of the adventure.”  The bus had no attendant, the seats were uncomfortable, there were no lights on in the bus all night, the toilet door wouldn’t stay shut.  It was a long nine hours.

We had booked a hotel room inside the Tikal park, which is about an hour away from Flores, the only other place you can stay nearby to see the ruins.  We found a shuttle to the park and were already in awe.  The Tikal ruins are inside a jungle, and the entire area had been made into a national park.  There are monkeys, toucans, wild turkeys, crocodiles, deer, coatis, jaguars, and many more all living in the park.

Wild turkey…

Our hotel was a set of bungalows just a 10 minute walk from the ruins.  (If you go there, be sure to have plenty of cash (quetzal, not dollars).  That is another story, but it would make the blog post even longer than it already is.  The bungalows are sparse, but adequate.  However, what we didn’t expect is that all of the buildings in the park run power on generators.  Power and hot water were only available in our rooms in certain three hour blocks during the day and completely turned off at 9pm every night.  When we arrived it was HOT.  The temperature in the heat of the day was between 105-110 F. The bungalows had no air conditioning, and when the power was out there was no ceiling fan.

We were so exhausted after traveling for almost 24 hours, and it was ridiculously hot out, so we decided to rest up in our bungalow and head to the ruins just before sunset when it started to cool down a bit.  The ruins are impressive.  Towering pyramid structures rise out of the jungle like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.  We wandered around until the light was fading, but we decided we would get much more out of the ruins if we spent the next day visiting with a guide. We immediately went back to the hotel and booked the sunrise tour for the next morning.

At 4:30 am, in the dark with flashlight in hand, we met up with our guide Ronnie and one other guest for the sunrise tour of Tikal.  It certainly is something wandering around in the jungle in the pitch black.  I was glad Ronnie knew where he was going.  Ronnie explained lots of the structures we passed and gave us a history lesson of the Mayans and Tikal. But, soon we arrived at the tallest tower in Tikal.

We hiked up the steps of the tower to sit over top of the jungle canopy and wait for sunrise.  I would say we waited in silence, but there is nothing silent about the jungle.  As the jungle starts to wake up, you first hear the birds and then the howler monkeys start up.  The howler monkeys aren’t huge in size, but their vocal antics sound like herds of lions roaring.  As it began to get light, the overcast morning prevented us from actually seeing the sun.  But, the haze over the park gave it an eery feel as you could just see the tops of the tallest towers sticking up out of the jungle.

We enjoyed our tour so much that we asked Ronnie to give us another tour at sunset to see the rest of the ruins.  (There was no need to be out in the heat of the day.)  We saw the rest of the ruins late that afternoon as most of the tourists on buses were departing.   It was fascinating to learn that Tikal was not actually “discovered” back in the 1850’s.  The first Europeans that stepped foot in Tikal were led there by ancestors of the Mayans who built it.  For centuries after Tikal was abandoned, even after nature had reclaimed the buildings covering them in dirt and plants, the locals still made pilgrimages to Tikal as a sacred site.  Even today, the locals of Mayan heritage come to Tikal to perform spiritual ceremonies.

It’s difficult to put into words the amazement of visiting a place like Tikal.  Imagining the ancient culture that lived in that inhospitable place, taming the jungle to survive, and what happened to them?  The horrible history of what the Spanish and the Catholic church did to the local populations, long after the people moved away from Tikal to other cities, still lingers and stings when you listen to the local guides tell the story of how so much of the Mayan culture was lost.

After leaving Tikal, we took another very long bus ride and ended up in Antigua just outside of Guatemala City.  Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as one of the original Spanish colonial cities that retains the architecture.  A stark contrast from Tikal.

We loved Antigua.  It is a truly international city.  Tourism is big, of course, but we met people from multiple countries who had just moved there.  There were also two things in Antigua that made Mike get a huge grin on his face…coffee and chocolate!  There were small coffee shops on every corner that roasted their own Guatemalan grown beans.  We also visited a couple of shops making their own chocolate.  Of course we ended up bringing an entire backpack full of coffee and chocolate back to the boat.

Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, and one of the popular activities is hiking up the volcano.  So, we hooked up with a tour to take us up the Pacaya volcano.  A van picked us up at our hotel and dropped us off at the base of the volcano, where we were met by our guide.  One of the first thing we noticed were all of the saddled horses at the entrance where each guy holding a horse’s reins was shouting “taxi, taxi.”  It took me a minute to realize they meant the horses!  You could pay to have a horse “taxi” you up the trail rather than walk.  Funny, and ingenious.

The hike was moderately difficult, but it would have been easier if I had worn different shoes.  Lesson learned.  Anyway, we got to the lookout where we had a view of several other volcanoes.  Unfortunately, it was not safe to hike to the caldera, as we could see smoke billowing out of the top.  There was a large lava field of lava stone where the volcano had erupted in 2014.  It is pretty cool to walk across a lava field!

At one point we stopped and our guide broke out some skewers and a bag of marshmallows.  There was a thermal vent with people huddled around, and we got to roast some marshmallows on a volcano.  Pretty cool.

Overall, we loved our trip to Guatemala.  I wish we’d had even more time to explore, but it was time to get back to the boat to get it ready to head further south.

~Katie