After
playing with the crocks in Puntarenas, partying too much at the yacht
club with the likes of Hurrah, Sea Bird, Loons, Sisiutl, Slip Away and
many others it was time to explore other areas of Costa Rica. So we
traded in our current zarpe for another internal zarpe. Zarpes are
formal permission slips given by the Port Captain to cruise Costa Rican
waters. The only reason we mention it is because it usually takes a
full day and is generally a pain. We departed on the high tide so as to
not go aground and sailed first to Isla Cedros for an overnight stay,
then on to Bahia Leona. Again just overnight. Finally, we sailed out of
the Gulfo De Nicoya and back into the Pacific Ocean headed for Drake's
bay. This time we were accompanied by The Loonies. This is about a 30
hour passage. We ended the first afternoon out with a beautiful
spinnaker run. FUN! In the middle of the night we were chased
by large shripmer. We think he was bored. We arrived safely in
Bahia Drake on December 23, 2006. Time to plan a Christmas celebration.Above: The Christmas Eve Party was held aboard Gary and Celeste's spacious catamaran Sol Surfin'. The group includes the crews from Last Resort, Sol Surfin', Slip Away, Loon III, Paladin, and of course Terra Firma. Everyone appears to be having a good time except for Rich (Slip Away) and Gary (sol Surfin). It appears we were keeping these old guys up to late.
Below Left: Well, those guys woke up as soon as they heard that the food was ready. Here we find Pat the first to attack the table. We purposely chopped off his head because he was drooling. We told you cruisers could eat and eat well!
Below Right: A gift exchange game was played after dinner. This game has been played by Celeste's family for eons. Now it's a tradition aboard Sol Surfin'. Terra Firma won a cool trivia game and explosives.
Left: A view of the Golfito 'skyline', one of the wettest places in Costa Rica. It sure looked that way to us.Below Left: Sailing past Golfito ocean front housing on our way to our mooring.
Below Right: Our final destination in Golfito. Land and Sea Moorings. The owners of Land and Sea, Tim and Katy are US expats that have settled in Golfito. Another one of those stories ; "we sailed in and just never left". They do a great job of catering to the needs of the cruising community. The photo shows Paladin side tided in front of Land and Sea. We had a great New Year's eve party at Land and Sea. Again, too much food and drink!
Below Left:Land and Sea encourages all their customers to paint their boat name and/or logo on their walls. Carrie, the artistic one on Terra Firma painted the dancing bones along with our boat name. Pretty Cool! For those that don't know, Terra Firma are huge Grateful Dead fans. The dancing bones are our tribute to them.
Below Right: We don't always want one, but we all have to have them. It was Carrie's time!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARRIE! We celebrated at a Chinese restaurant with Slip Away, Last Resort and Barefoot. Is Rich (Slip Away) licking the frosting off the cake again?? Next update Panama.
