 Life is great! The opportunity to fly the Dancing Bones Spinnaker in a nice breeze off the coast of Costa Rica. |
Latest News (Updated 02/14/2007): We left you last month celebrating Jan's birthday (Slip Away) in Bahia Huevos, Costa Rica, after transiting some very challenging areas; One such area is known as the Papagayo region, which encompasses everything between the Gulfo De Fonseca (eastern El Salvador) to El Coco, Costa Rica. This includes the entire Nicaraguan coast. This time of year northerly winds are funneled from the Caribbean Sea into the Pacific side. But, it's not always that way! Sometimes you get a nice little breeze off the beam with flat seas. Out comes the multi-colored spinnaker for a beautiful, lazy day of sailing. Picture at left. After resting up a little in Bahia Huevos it was time to return to civilization, actually check-in to Costa Rica and make ourselves legal. Then head down the coast, slowly, towards the Gulfo De Nicoya. We made many stops in the gulf, then headed out of the gulf and back into another gulf; Gulfo Dulce. This was to be our last stop in Costa Rica. Background Photo: Squall producing clouds as seen from Isla San Lucas, Costa Rica. Lots of rain and lightning! |
Although
we had been in Costa Rica for a few weeks our first taste of Costa
Rican civilization was El Coco. El Coco is located on the southern
(actually eastern end since Central America runs primarily west to
east) of the Gulfo De Papagayo and is the first opportunity to formally
check-in to the country. It's a day long process of making multiple
copies of boat documents/passports, going to the Port Captain's office,
and immigration. Fortunately, we were with friends from Slip Away and
Loon III which helped ease the pain.Left: After the completion of our formal check-in into Costa Rica we decided to reward ourselves with a late lunch at Papagayo Seafood. A wonderful seafood meal was had by all. By the way, the blue containers by Carrie are water jugs to be carried back to Loon III's for drinking water. A sailor's work is never done.
Below Left: A day of civilization was enough, so once again in the company of The Loonies (Iain and Aly) and Slip Away (Jan and Rich) we decide to head out to a secluded little bay named Bahia Guacamaya only 7 miles away. Well, we had sailed through the Papagayo and survived so we were feeling pretty smug. So.... with dinghy in tow (normally deflated and lashed on deck) we set sail early afternoon. By then the wind had clocked around to the north and was blowing high teens to low twenties. This allowed for a pretty good sea to build. Well, we won't get into the details (too embarrassing), but suffice it to say it was the sail from hell. Once safely anchored in the tiny bay we licked our wounds and pondered our mistakes. Fortunately, the only damage sustained was to our egos. Very humbling indeed! Oh yeah, we could mention that Slip Away arrived about 15 minutes ahead of us. When we arrived we found Rich up on deck head in hand shaking. We asked: "What's wrong?" He replied: "That was the sail from hell." But, we won't mention it since it would probably embarrass them. We were rewarded, however, with this beautiful little bay!
Below Right: Our neighbor in Bahia Guacamaya waiting for the wind to subside. We found this type of fishing vessel throughout Costa Rica. All listing heavily to one side or the other. It amazed us that they stay afloat.
We
spent 2 nights in Bahia Guacamaya recovering from our grueling 7 mile
sail and then began the 24 hour sail to Bahia Ballena in the Gulfo De
Nicoya. The sailing was good; mostly light winds. We were able to
sail most of the way until we entered the Gulf. There the winds died
and we had to motor the rest of the way into Bahia Ballena. We were
once again accompanied by Slip Away. They kept following us.Left: Capes are notorious for unpredictable winds and seas and are always approached with a heightened level of anxiety. This picture is of Cabo Blanco which guards the entrance to Gulfo De Nicoya. By the sea state you can tell that this cape treated us kindly.
Below Left: After a very nice passage we anchored off of Heart's Beach in Bahia Ballena. Aptly named, Heart's Beach is the home for 'Heart', His wife Honey, and their family. Self proclaimed hippies, they sailed here in the early seventies and never left. "Heart" is a famous electronic designer for boat electronics. He founded Heart Interface. Yes sireee! We have a Heart Interface (DC to AC inverter) on board and it works great! The picture below is from the pier on the opposite side of the bay. Ballena is obviously a very beautiful place. No wonder the Hearts never left! P.S. Heart is still busily designing new goodies for us sailors.
Below Right: Known as the Ballena yacht Club, this little establishment provided cold beers and good food and a great place to meet other cruisers. Pat had the largest cheeseburger he had ever seen.
Below Left: The Ballena Yacht Club also houses the weekly farmer's market. The veggies were great so we restocked the frig which made for many great meals. You know, we really haven't touch much on cruiser cuisine. Well, cruiser's love to eat and love to share meals. So, it's common to have other cruisers over for dinner or to receive an invite to another boat. And the food is ALWAYS awesome! But.... stuff happens. The story goes like this: The Loonies arrived the following day and reported that they had the good fortune of catching 2 dorado. They offered the second fish to us and Slip Away. The plan was for Slip Away to clean the fish and for Carrie to make her now famous (to become infamous) Ceviche. Everyone, the crews from Hurrah, Sea Bird, Loons, Slip Away, were to meet on Terra Firma to enjoy Carrie's ceviche. It turned out to be her best batch. Yum! But there was a price to pay. Later that evening, Carrie became ill and as we found out later all who consumed the ceviche were ill. Fortunately, it was short lived, but Carrie received a great deal of ribbing. She has since made ceviche without further incident. This event was announced throughout the fleet.
Below Right: Every website update must have a sunset photo. This sunset is of the sun setting behind rain clouds taken from Isla San Lucas our next stop after Bahia Ballena.
