10:30 Everything stowed and we're on our way, this time to say goodby to Mexico at least for a while. Panache was leading the way and we had an interesting time getting out of the port. Two things made it a spooky exit: (1) The dredge was right in the middle of the channel churning up the bottom and spewing crap out both sides; and (2) It was almost low tide, but with still an outgoing flow meeting the big Pacific swell, and the rollers were breaking on both sides of the channel almost to the center. Doran did one 360 before screwing up his courage and running past the dredge. We did the same, passing both it and him as I tried to keep good way on in the center of the channel. The bow came down a bit hard a couple of times as we'd climb one of the steep waves and then have it drop us, but it never dug in and we were soon out of the real steep stuff. It would have been a great place to surf - steep waves that never broke!
Once out of the channel things settled down and we turn our noses east toward the Guatemalan border. We were in the lead but trying to pace Panache and soon found ourselves back to 800 RPM in order to keep from running away. Later when the wind picked up a bit they were able to sail at about seven knots, but still couldn't make good more than about five in the direction we wanted to go. The rest of the day and night could best be described as "jiggly". We had at least three different sets of swells coming from three different directions plus a nice wind chop, first from the south and later, after the sun went down, from the north. It wasn't particularly rough; we just seemed to jiggle along in a way that made it difficult to keep our sea legs. Since we were running so slow anyway, I finally dumped the parafoils in the water which made things a bit more comfortable.
13:30 South of 14 degrees, 30 minutes and into Guatemalan waters - the first time the boat's been out of Mexico in a year and three months. You can't tell much difference in the shore line, still low sandy beach backed by green vegetation. Not any shrimpers though, they all stayed north of the border. Lois spent a couple of hours making a Guatemalan flag out of the legs of a pair of my faded jeans and an old sheet. Luckily, it's a simple three band flag, blue-white-blue. GOODBY MEXICO!
13:30 South of 14 degrees, 30 minutes and into Guatemalan waters - the first time the boat's been out of Mexico in a year and three months. You can't tell much difference in the shore line, still low sandy beach backed by green vegetation. Not any shrimpers though, they all stayed north of the border. Lois spent a couple of hours making a Guatemalan flag out of the legs of a pair of my faded jeans and an old sheet. Luckily, it's a simple three band flag, blue-white-blue.
We talked to several of the other travelers today. Norena and Donna Jean are leading the way - they left yesterday; then Felix and Seabiscuit who pulled out before the navy woke us up this morning and who are on a rhumb line for Costa Rica, then the two of us, then Margorie Grace about five hours behind. Sailorr and Akavit will be coming tomorrow. We are the only ones planning on stopping at Puerto Quetzal so the others will pass us. Some were catching fish, quite a few sierra mackerel which is very good; but we drug our lines all day with no success.
05:00 With the first light of day we are treated to a spectacular sight - the symetrical cones of twin volcanos rising 13,000 feet behind San Jose. They are Volcan Fuego and Volcan Aqua, both active with little plumes of smoke coming from their craters this morning. I guess it was a special treat to see them in April - the book says that they are usually obscured by smoke from burning crop land in this month.
08:00 I call the Puerto Quetzal Port Captain and ask permission to come into their harbor. The man on the radio spoke fairly good English and asked a few questions including whether or not we had an emergency, and finally told us to come on in, saying that there would be a $10.00 fee.
09:05 North 13 55' West 90 98' We round the breakwater into a first class, modern, and surprizingly clean port. On the right are berthing facilities for several ships with three occupied; on the left is a smaller basin in which, we are told, is the navy base and the anchored shrimp fleet. We are instructed to go to the navy base near the "Battle boats" and tie along side - thus began one of the most frustrating fiascos of my boating career!
We are at low tide and the concrete sea wall towers about 15 feet above the water with huge black rubber tires hanging down for fenders. Most of the other boats are "Med" tied with sterns to the quay so I decide to do likewize even though I've never tried it before. I got the hook down OK and started backing for the dock where there were people waiting, but I hadn't let out enough chain so we were soon stopped and drifting sideways far from where we could throw the lines. Also, I hadn't helped set up the lines for Lois, and we had the long ones out which are clumsy to handle. Well, I let out more chain and tried again. This time we did manage to get lines ashore and get somewhat into position, but we were all cockeyed - I'd misplaced the anchor and it would have been difficult getting ashore. Two young men from the Port Captain's office did manage to get aboard and immediately pitched in to help with the line handling. That was nice; but if anything it caused more confusion. It's hard to hollar orders to Lois - even worse to a couple of officials who don't speak English. Finally, we decided to start all over. We cast off the lines, hauled anchor, and tried again; this time doing a port side tie. That worked out pretty well, the only damage being to my wounded pride and our nice white fenders which are now black from rubbing on the big tires.
The officials were very nice, asking a few questions, taking some data from our passports and document, and taking a sightseeing tour of the boat. They poked into nothing and, like everwhere before, did no real inspection. In the meantime Panache arrived, rafting to us, and the uniformed boys looked their boat over. The $10.00 fee we'd been told about turned out to be $25.00, ten for the port fee plus $15.00 for a "Zarpe" from Guatemala which we had to pick up in San Jose. So it goes!
With a rising tide we had to keep adjusting the fenders so I didn't feel I could leave the boat, so Lois, Donna, and Doran took some money and headed off to do the paperwork. It took them most of the day, mostly waiting for the Port Captain to get back from lunch, but they managed to get squared away and, in the meantime, had a nice tour of the town. They said the old city pier is an exciting place, built out into the twenty foot surf and still being used for launching pangas.
I spent the afternoon rearranging lines and fenders, cleaning up the boat, and doing a few maintenance chores. I decided to disconnect our engine generator; the regulator is very erratic and I don't seem to be able to get it adjusted properly. I think the battery charger will do a better job.
The crew got back to the boat about 5:30, hot tired, and dusty. I fixed up a batch of Margaritas and by the time the sun went down we were feeling better. Instead of fighting the lines all night we moved off the dock, with Panache still rafted, and anchored out in the harbor. Nice quiet night, if a bit on the warm side. By midnight a cooling breeze made for good sleeping.
I spent a couple of hours cleaning the black off of our fenders where they had rubbed on the big tires on the dock - that's a real job! I seem to remember thinking that it might be easier to clean up the boat than the fenders. Oh well, it gave me something to do while waiting.
All day long we ran down the coast of Guatemala with our fish lines in the water but it wasn't until we'd just crossed into El Salvadorian waters that we got any action. It was about 5:30 and I'd just fixed our evening martini when all hell broke loose behind the boat; the port line was whipping back and forth, crossing the other line. 'Bout then the fish jumped, trying to shake the hook - a Dorado about four feet long. Our shock cord which is tied to the boat was stretched out and bouncing like mad as the fish struggled to get loose. I wasn't about to try to bring him in until he was tired out; so I pulled in the other line, poured us another drink, then just sat back and watched him fight. And fight he did, for about fifteen minutes, leaping high in the air and shaking his whole body trying to throw the hook. When he finally wore down and lay being towed on the surface I tried pulling him in - no way, he went to fighting again. When I finally pulled him in (using heavy gloves to brake the 300 lb halibut line) and swung him onto the deck I was a bit surprized that he wasn't bigger - the fish scale showed 12 pounds. A real game fighter! He'll make about six meals for us. A nice welcome to El Salvador.
That wasn't all the excitement for the day. We tried three hour watches tonight with Lois taking the first from 7:00 to 10:00. I started my watch with calm seas and almost no wind, motoring along behind Panache. About 11:00 we started to see lots of lightning flashes out in front and it wasn't long before we were picking up heavy rain cells in the squall line in our path. Then, the wind started to build. The squall line appeared to stay about six miles off the shore, so we turned and took a heading which would put us between the coastline and the rain cells.
The rest of this day was about as uneventful as could be. We idled our way along while watching Panache sail off in one direction and then another. There was a fine little breeze but unfortunately it was exactly from the direction we wanted to go, so Doran and Donna spent all day tacking back and forth getting almost nowhere. We averaged less than three knots made good for the day. It wasn't until almost dark before Doran finally gave up, started running his engine, and making about six knots headway. By then we were at North 13 00' and West 88 25', nearing the shoal areas south of San Sabastian where the chart shows one detached rock about fifteen miles off shore. Of course, this is the time that our Satnav, Tex, refuses to give us an update. With all the heading and speed changes of the afternoon I wasn't very confident of our dead reckoning position, so decided the best strategy was to go between the shoals and the rock, using the radar to judge our didtance off the beach. That was working fine until we reached the big, low lagoon area around San Sabastian and the beach disappeared from the screen! Fortunately, Panache could still see the highlands on their 24 mile radar so I held my breath and followed them. We went from three in the afternoon until ten thirty PM without a fix and, naturally, that one came in just after we'd cleared the rock. First time I've ever felt the need of a longer range radar.
05:00 The dawn breaks as we run SE on calm seas. There's a squall line out in front of us but it looks like it's just about to fade away. I drew a line twelve miles off the Nicaraguan coast and we'll run on the outside of that.
09:50 Lois is napping as I see a big Dorado chasing a flying fish across the glassy waters. Both leap high into the air, the hapless flying fish only about ten feet ahead of the big, bluntheaded male Dolfin fish. He's about the size of the one we caught yesterday - or was it the day before? It's sure hard to keep track when you run 24 hours a day.
12:05 I'm napping when Lois spots a whale breaching directly in front of the boat - first we've seen since Zihuatanejo. We are at North 12 14' West 87 17' off the coast near Puerto Corinto, the largest port on the west coast of Nicaragua. A big car carrier, the Hyunde #102, tried to run us down this morning on its way into port and now it's again got us in its sights coming out. Another freighter is closing off our starboard bow. I come back on the speed while we figure out where they are going. Both pass within a quarter mile. Glad it's daylight!
We ran all afternoon with light winds; first off shore then, as evening approached, from seaward - just backward from what you would expect. By dark we were well past Lago de Managua, the first of the big inland lakes over which the trade winds from the Atlantic blow. I was beginning to think that we might get home free when the wind picked up again, this time from the shore. It built quickly to 20 knots and stayed there the rest of the night. Now twenty knots is not a lot of wind, but after a couple of hours of blowing over a twenty mile reach it builds about a four foot sea which is pretty short and sloppy. At first it was at a nice angle to our course and we could drive into it without much roll, just lots of splash and spray. Later, as we got closer to Lago de Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America, we had to put down the flopper-stoppers as the seas swung more to our beam.
07:00 I put out a call to any boat in Bahia Elena and Sailorr came back. They'd gotten in last night at dusk after fighting the same winds all day. Said it was calm in the anchorage, even though gusty. We feel better just knowing the end is near.
09:30 Into the beautiful Bahia Elena! (N 10 55.10', W 85 47.46') During the last hour the winds had built to 35 knots and we splash our way thankfully through the entrance into what looks like paradise to us, a two mile long, mile wide, land locked bay surrounded by steeply rising hills and with green trees along its shore. Except for the shape of the trees it could have been a harbor in the northwest. Four other boats are here: Tortuga, Moon Dancer, Margorie Grace, and Sailorr. Two others, Felix and Seabiscuit, are on their way in. There's lots of room and we anchor a couple of hundred yards from the others.
The rest of the day was spent resting up and cleaning up - mostly resting. It's obvious that the wind is still blowing outside because, although the water is flat in here, we get 30 knot gusts which cool us off and blow away anything we fail to tie down in the boat. When I start Gennie for dinner her water is plugged up again, so we have a tuna fish sandwich and go to bed. I'll go swimming tomorrow and clean out the thru hulls.
We spent most of the day on maintenance chores. Lois cleaned house and did a couple of loads of wash - it's so dry and warm that, with the breeze, clothes dry on the line in a matter of minutes. I did a little work in the engine room, washed the filters on the watermaker, braided the new line Nan sent down onto the Metz lines, then went over the side into the eighty degree water to ream out our thruhull fittings. The water isn't sparkling clear, I suppose you have to get out on the islands for that, but there's about six to ten foot visibility and it's clean, not dirty and oily like the last several anchorages we've been in.
In the evening Felix organized an hors d'oeuvres potluck for the remaining boats in the anchorage. Moon Dancer and Tortuga left this morning and tonight, just in time for the party, Bob on Akavit showed up after a long singlehanded trip from Puerto Madero. Quite a crowd: Mark and Mary from Felix, Arthur and Dina from Seabiscuit, Bill and Debbie from Margorie Grace, Bob and Verna from Sailorr, Bob from Akavit, ourselves, plus the four kids from Felix and Seabiscuit whose names I never got. Felix is an interesting boat; steel, about forty feet, with a real engine room housing a little Pugot diesel. Mark's engine room makes ours look like a mess - everything is nicely painted in a cream color and all the stores are neatly put away in containers. How he keeps the whole place rust and oil free I can't imagine.
We had Bob from Akavit over for dinner, kind of an interesting guy. He's from England and speaks with such a pronounced cockney accent that I often have trouble understanding him. A photographer, he got a chance several years ago to come to Montreal where he worked for several years. He left there when he got tired of the government trying to make a Frenchman out of him and went to Calgary and started his own business. Ran that for ten years before selling out and going sailing. He's a tall man, 'bout forty, with a bushy beard, and he loves to talk. I think that may be his trouble in finding crew - he's a nice guy but he considers a moment of silence a vacuum to be filled with words.
Tried again to call Nan tonight - no luck. Can't seem to raise either KMI in San Fransico or WOM in Miami. May have to wait until we get to a landline. Oh well, maybe Doran can get through a HAM patch if he's willing to cheat a little. His Mexican licence is no good here, and his US technician licence is only good for morse code. Ain't that rediculous!
Panache got in about 9:30 this evening. We'd talked to them this morning on the single sideband when they were 65 miles out. That means they made about 5 knots, pretty good time for them. We'll get their story tomorrow.
I managed to get in a little work today, changing the oil in the transmission and checking off a few more things on my maintenance list. Got a good call in to Nan, the first in several weeks. She said Howard wanted to know where the closest airport was for the next couple of weeks. I told her San Jose. That's not quite right; there are several small airports closer to us but I have no idea what transportation might be available. A little town called Liberia is the closest place to where we are now. A visit from them would be fun, but it ain't easy!
Some fishermen came by this afternoon while Doran and Donna were here and gave us a nice cabrillo, kind of a sea bass. The "kids" stayed and we had it plus half a chicken for dinner. All in all another very nice day!
I accompanied Doran and Donna on another expedition up the rivers this morning - nothing new. We saw lots of parrots but they seemed to be more spooky this morning. Still no monkeys, but it was a nice trip anyway. When we got back I tried to help Doran with his refrigeration which has gone out but didn't have much luck. He has two systems, one with an engine driven compressor and the other with a 120 volt electrical compressor like ours. He's got a massive leak in the engine driven system which we couldn't find, and the compressor on the electrical system is overloading, a symptom of a bad unit. I'm not enough of a refrigeration man to fix either, so we took their fish home to our boat.
Got one more of my oil changes out of the way; the watermaker was due for its 500 hour change. Seems like a lot of jobs came up on the schedule here, but I can't think of a nicer place to do my maintenance. I'll do Gimmy tomorrow and I'll have all the changes done for a while. Incidentally, when I was scrubbing up the water pump this morning I found the casting number on the adaptor plate - Nan needed that to make sure she's talking the right parts to Emerson Diesel. It's 5161016. Mark on Felix said he'd try to get that number to Nan on the HAM net. Hope so, I hate to make a $15.00 call for just that number.
Dinner of fish, fish, and more fish, done to perfection by Lois. We then watched a dumb movie called "Throw Mama from the Train" and Lois got mad at me 'cause I didn't like it. I lean more to the Mary Poppins type, but it was a nice way to end April anyway.
I shut Gimmy down and checked the sea screen. Yup, it was blocked; we'd been idling for close to an hour with no water. I flushed it out and started again - some flow but nowhere near normal. I went ahead and changed Gimmy's oil, then went snorkling before coming back to the pump. When I did I found what I'd expected, one of the impellers chewed up and off the hub. I'd hoped to wait until we were in Puntarenas before tearing into the pump again; but I went to work on it, this time taking it off the engine and tearing it completely down. What an atrocity of a design! The packing glands, which are undersized and continually immersed in salt water, had been over tightened in spite of my living with a bigger than acceptable drip just to avoid that predictable problem; so, the shafts were both scored. By now, however, the glands were both frozen, so any tightening I've done in the last months, or years, has only bent the ears of the glands. One impeller was still good; so, in a move of desperation, I took one of the old hubs, which was a slightly different shape, cleaned up the loose neoprene on the bad impeller, and glued it on with contact cement. The chances of it working are next to nil, but I had to try. I put the whole thing back together (with the same old gaskets 'cause I didn't have new ones) and left it overnight for the glue to set. I'll try it in the morning.
Our snorkling trip was interesting, lots of fish in these waters. We went out to a little island at the entrance to the bay. We have so much fish from the fishermen that I wasn't working very hard at hunting although I had the gun with me. I only took two shots, one at a big parrotfish which I missed and the other at a large round fish with big eyes. It hit him but he must have had very tough scales because the spear just bounced off his side. Doran got a big parrotfish, about ten pounds I'd guess, which we all ate for dinner. It's a very, very white meat which looks sort of like lobster although it's not as sweet. Had Doran, Donna, and Bob for dinner, then watched another movie; Crocodile Dundee this time, which I enjoyed much more than last night's show.
Did have some good news this morning - the raw water pump works, at least for a short trial run. It still leaks a stream but maybe it will hold together until we get to Puntarenas. I still put in another call to Nan to make sure she had the info to work the problem. As usual, she was way ahead of me, having found someone who knew the pump we needed. She said a replacement pump would be about $500 or a rebuild kit $250 - I told her to get both. I sure hope that the replacement is a completely different type of pump. I'll have her check before she ships it down. If it's just a duplicate of the abomination we have I don't want it!
I also tried again to help Doran with his refrigeration. I took my little paint compressor over to Panache and we put air in the discharge line. We found his leak alright - he'd blown a safety plug in the top of the accumulator. We put a Micky Mouse plug in the hole and tried charging the system but by the time it hit about 80 PSI the plug blew out. The system also seems to have some obstruction in the lines because it pulls down to vacuum much too quickly. Doesn't act at all like the books say it should. I'll be interested to hear what was the basic problem if and when he gets it fixed by a pro. In the meantime he and Donna have to be satisfied with warm beer.
They, Panache, took off today headed in the general direction of Coco - I think Doran was getting bored with paradise. Sailorr, Akavit, and Margorie Grace also headed out, but in a different direction. They had planned on going to the next little cove four miles to the east for a little exploring and an overnight stay. By five o'clock they were back - they'd been run out of the bay by gun shooting men in fatigues. They were evidently just a little bit too close to the Nicaraguan border. Said the gun toters were quite friendly, just shooting in the air to get their attention, but were quite insistant that the yachties return to the park, the border of which they said was "dos y media kilometres" to the west. Costa Rica is supposed to have no military; maybe these guys are some kind of a border patrol?????
While the rest of the crew were out sailing I reinstalled our Polaris radio which I like a little better than the new one - it's bigger and easier for an old man to see. The only difficulty I had was the Roosterfish, the dang things started feeding around the boat and I'd have to drop what I was doing and go try a few casts. I never hooked one but it was fun trying. They feed on the surface forage fish, their long dorsal fins breaking the water as they go for the little guys. Josh on Sloop d'Jur who is a pro fisherman, caught several by casting a lure across the mass of feed fish. I don't no what we'd do with a big Rooster if I caught it. We had steak for dinner tonight. We're trying to empty our freezer because we'll probably have no place to store food if we haul out in Puntarenas. We've still got quite a bit of meat from the Price Club shopping I did last fall, as well as several meals of Dorado left. It's a tough life we lead!
There was a wind of about 20 knots blowing at the entrance, kicking up three to four foot seas, but as soon as we cleared the west point it was on our quarter and easy riding. We ran down the side of Punta Blanca past two or three fishing boats, then headed for Cabo Elena. On the way we were passed by a Costa Rican patrol boat which looks very much like the small U.S. Coast Guard cutters except for the Costa Rican stripe on the bow. He went booming by us doing about 20 knots and didn't even wave. As soon as we cleared Cabo Elena we turned southeast and were in the lee of the cape where the waters were calm. Ahead were the Islas Murcielagos, or Bat Islands, barren and brown here at the end of the dry season, looking very much like those in the Sea of Cortez or Southern California.
12:15 Anchored between the two most easterly islands of the chain (North 10 51.49, West 85 53.52) along with Panache, three fishing boats anchored out, and half a dozen panga type fish boats. The water is so clear here that I could see our hook go down in thirty feet of water - the clearest we've seen since leaving the Baja. Our water pump worked the whole way, a pleasent surprize.
We got down the Metz, put up the awning - it was very warm with practically no wind - and I went for a swim to cool off. I was just about to dig out the snorkling gear and go see some of the "thousands of fish" which Donna had raved about, when the wind picked up, the sky clouded over, and it started to RAIN! It didn't last long but it came down hard for a few minutes, enough to give our decks a quick fresh water rinse. According to the local fishermen, the rainy season will start on the tenth of May so this must have been a trial run. The wind stayed squirrely and the water choppy for the rest of the afternoon so I never did get to my snorkling. I'll do that tomorrow.
By four o'clock the whole seven boat fleet was in, putting on quite a show for the fishermen. One kid on one of the better boats; a sturdy wooden craft with a cabin, a good sized fish hold, and after deck; is pretty good at blowing a conch shell. He can make it sound like an air horn - which I guess is what it is - all over the bay. I tooted back at him and all the fishermen shouted and laughed. I doubt if they've seen this many yachts in here for quite some time.
Doran and Donna came over for a drink before dinner. They had climbed to the top of the island on the east side of the cove where Donna said she saw a lizard the size of a dog, a big dog! I might just put on some long pants and my boots and try that tomorrow - if the sun isn't too hot, that is.
Once I was sure we had a good hook we went looking for fish, and did we ever find them. I'm not sure which was the most impressive, the reef where thousands of brightly colored fish of dozens of species, more than we've ever seen in one place before; or the seven foot Sailfish which cruised up to within two feet of the Metz with his sail raised high before veering off to show us the pretty blue stripes on his sides as he passed by in search of a meal. He stayed near the anchorage for over an hour and only disappeared when I went back to the boat to get the camera, naturally!
Back at the boat, we decided that it might be a good idea to keep open the option to check in at Coco and replenish our supplies before the weekend - we're out of all fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as beer; so, we put up the awning and the Metz and got ready to go.
11:50 Anchor up, and we're on our way again. We checked a couple of other anchorages on the way down to Bahia Huevos; Parker just on the other side of Bahia Murcielagos which didn't look like a place for overnight - lots of swell; and Bahia Potrero Grande about six miles to the east which looked better but which still was open to the westerly swell. One little corner on the most easterly point could have been a good anchorage, but it looked like landing the dink anywhere else would have been a great challenge. So, we moved on.
14:00 We catch a couple of big turtles mating. Didn't realize what we were seeing until we were very close and had interrupted their fun. Sorry about that!
16:00 Ushered into Bahia Huevos by a couple of dozen dolphins, leaping and playing as if they were very happy and excited to see us. Huevos is a very pretty cove formed by a small penninsula and two islands. It is open to the southwest and; unfortunately, a southwest wind sprung up about a half hour before we got there. As we came in the wind was up to 25 knots and some two to three foot seas were in most of the anchorage. Not to be scared away, we found a somewhat protected spot between the two islands in front of what appears to be some kind of a resort. One nicely painted, modern, single level frame building, too large to be a residence, sits under some spreading green trees behind a nice sand beach, the whole lovely scene tucked into a nook under the high rock walls of the island. As we anchored, two young men and a woman with a baby watched from the beach.
Once we'd gotten settled, the two young men paid us a visit on a sailboard. They had no sails so the younger boy sat and paddled with a home made paddle while the other stood on the board. Their names are Omar and Wilber. Omar, whom I'd guess to be between twenty and twenty-five, is the husband and father. I didn't get the relationship of Wilber, about fifteen. Omar told us that the lodge is for "Costa Rican citizens" and that they are brought here and landed on the beach by heliocopter. Must be some VIP's for that kind of treatment! He invited us to shore, but with the wind still blowing pretty hard and the tide going out rapidly we took a rain check for tomorrow. A little later a open boat came by with three fishermen. It was considerably more sophisticated than the pangas of Mexico, with a large fishbox in the center where they stored the fish under real ICE! I asked them where they got the hielo and they indicated Coco. Lois gave them some leftover cake, and they insisted on giving us a small red snapper - very good for ceviche.
The tides here are starting to become significant again, with the spring range up to 11 feet. Tonight when we got to checking we calculated that we might have as little as one foot below the keel at the -0.7 low. As it turned out we never had less than three feet, but that still isn't as much as I'd like. With four and five foot ranges I'd gotten out of the habit of checking, just subtracting that much from whatever depth we had; but with greater ranges, which I guess we'll have until we get to the Atlantic, I'll need to be a bit more careful.
The tide was well on its way in when we hit the beach together, taking with us an offering of some of Lois' brownies. Omar and Wilber came out to meet us, accepted the cookies, and invited us in. I was wrong about the house; it's big, but not too big to be a single family residence. In fact, it's a single family beach house owned by the Toyota representative for Costa Rica, Javier Quiros Ramos de Anaya, and what a house it is! As I said yesterday, it's a modern frame building with a white roof of a tile like corregated material painted a dark brown with a bluegreen wainscotting. There's probably four to five thousand square feet under the roof, all floored with terrazo tiles. It's laid out in the shape of a boomerang with the main living area and open kitchen in the center, the master bedroom area in one wing, and the guest bedroom areas in the other. I say areas because everything is open, with few doors to close. The bath areas are tile lined three quarter rooms with shower heads and tile tubs, very large and very open. The kitchen has a big gas range and a monster sized freezer/refrigerator which I would guess is also gas because there was no generator running while we were there. I didn't think to ask about the water supply, it might be a well or a desalinization plant. With few exceptions, it has all the conveniences of a modern U.S. suburban home.
The real surprize came outside when Omar led us to one of the out buildings. Inside a matching frame building about the size of a double garage were a nice work shop, two Kawasaki jet skis, all kinds of dive gear including eight or ten dive tanks, a dive compressor, several water skis, three or four sailboards, a small tractor, and I don't know what else, all the toys a rich man might want at the beach. In front of the shop are dozens of cases of soft drinks stacked on a concrete ramp. Behind the shop, sort of hidden in the trees, is the caretakers house, again a modern frame with aluminum window frames and painted like the other buildings.
Omar Navarrete Noguera (23) told us that the place is called Nacascolito and that the buildings are only about two years old. He came here from Nicaragua and has been caretaker about a year, living here with his wife, Damaris Perez Aviles (20), her brother Wilbert (15) and, recently, his six month old son, Omar the second. The owner visits every month or so, sometimes bringing guests and staying a week or more. The rest of the time the place is theirs, a paradise to enjoy. And what a paradise it is! It's the first place I've seen where I think I could settle down and live happily ever after. There is no road access so all supplies are brought in by boat. They have a good sized one, about 15 feet with a 15 horse outboard, which they tie to a buoy off the beach. It's about a half hour run to Coco where almost everything is available. When the owners come they bring fresh stuff from San Jose by heliocopter.
After being properly impressed by our tour we brought the four out to the Sea Raven for a tour of our own. They also seemed impressed, especially Omar junior who swizzled up the Coke we gave his mother as fast as she could pour it in a glass for him. They stayed for about an hour while we chatted and showed some photos of Alaska. Omar gave us his address:
Omar Navarrete Noguera
P.O. Box 187
Playas del Coco, Gte., Costa Rica, Central America
Later Lois and I went exploring in the Metz. We found a good sized river at the head of the bay, wandering off into the mangroves again. We could only go about a half mile however before a fallen tree blocked our way. There were lots of Kingfishers and a snowy white bird which resembled an egret but which had shorter legs and tended flock, a thing I've never seen egrets do. We need a bird book for Central America! We also made a circuit of the bay but, as I said earlier, the very high tide covered most of the interesting things, including the lovely beach on the other side of the bay.
The rest of the day was spent just lazying around, reading or enjoying the scenery. The high rock islands are covered with trees, most of which are bare now except for one variety which is in bloom, with huge white flowers at the end of its otherwize bare branches. It is scattered over the islands, the first decoration of spring. I suspect that with the rainy season all of the bare trees will turn lush with green.
We went out at low tide this morning, I doing a little snorkling while Lois rode shotgun. Didn't do very well. We tried several places, all of which had quite poor visiblity and few fish. I guess we'd have had to have gone outside the islands to get decently clear water, and the surge out there is pretty strong. Even inside you get pushed around a lot. It's not a nice for diving as the Murcielagos. We did find one little low tide beach tucked back behind a reef. All nice fine sand under an overhanging rock wall covered with the flowering trees. The beach was teeming with hermit crabs, each with a different kind of shell on its back; and pretty shells they were. These crabs have real class! I managed to climb up and get Lois a branch with one of the white blossoms on it. The flower is made up of a half dozen five petaled blossoms about three inches across, each with a yellow center, protruding from a bright green stalk of new growth at the end of a long branch of the tree. This season's leaf growth is coming right behind it. We took it home and while it was a bit droopy the next day, it still made a nice Mother's Day bouquet.
Back at the boat, we tried calling Kris and Dick for Mother's day. Got through to Kris but she couldn't hear what we were saying so we had the operator cancel the call. I guess we'll have to wait until we can get to a land line for Lois to talk to her kids. Later in the day I managed to get through to Nancy all right, but I think that's because she is getting used to the noisy connection. Still no word on a visit from Howard and Judy. I'm about ready to give up on those guys! That's about the time they'll show up unannounced! I did finally get through to Nan the idea that I don't want another water pump like the one I've got. Now all she has to do is figure out what I've got - I know she'll manage somehow.
In the afternoon we decided to move over to Bahia Culebra where we will be close to Coco. Tortuga and Moon Dancer spent a couple of days over there in what they said was a beautiful anchorage. When I started Gimmy the alarm first went on, then off, then on again and stayed on. Our good old pump has quit again! I went down and engaged our backup pump and we ran on around into Culebra, but it looks like we'll be spending a bit of time near Coco. I'm not about to head off around the Nicoya penninsula without a backup for our raw water pump, and now we have none! Oh well, this is really a pretty nice place.
It took us only about an hour to go around Punta Mala to our new anchorage (N 10 37.55, W 85 40.47) which is only about a mile across a little hill from Nacascolito. Here there is another, much older and less attractive group of buildings, called Nacascola. The anchorage is more open with a full view of the big bay which is about four miles long and two miles across. It is totally protected from the Pacific, but you can build a pretty good chop across two miles of open water if the wind is strong. It started blowing fifteen or twenty knots just after we anchored, so we never did get a chance to get off the boat. The tide was so high that the beach disappeared, and the water was too choppy for comfortable exploring in the Metz. We'll look around in the morning when the wind is down.
Bob and Verna invited us to join them for lunch in the hotel; so, especially since it was Mother's day, we went in with them. Landing here is Zihuatanejo style, through the surf next to the pier which seems to be used more as a swimming platform than as a boat landing, at least on this Sunday afternoon. You have to be prepared to jump out and get your feet wet, or you may get a bit wet all over. Once over that hurdle though, you're there! The hotel with its very nice open air bar and restaurant is just on the other side of the walk. We had a very good lunch, and some very good Costa Rican cerveza called Imperial which to my taste is better than the famous Mexican Corona. Our waiter, Ramon, spoke quite good English which he said he had learned in a Nicaraguan school. Seems like there are a lot of Nicaraguans here. No problem on money. The hotel gave us 82 colones per dollar - we're told the black market in San Jose gives 84, hardly worth a four hour bus ride.
After lunch we walked around town a little. It's very much a small beach resort town with lots of what are called "Sodas", quick food joints where you can get a pop and a hamburger. But there is also a Post Office, the Port Captain's office, a Migracion office, a bus station, and public telephones which we are told work - that will be a pleasent change from Mexico. There seems to be a fairly good sized community of U.S. retirees living in houses along the beach front and on hills behind the town. An eighty-four year old guy named Maury who is always on the radio seems to perform the same functions for the yachties as Len did in Acapulco. We'll learn more about that later. Most of the few stores were closed on this Sunday, but we found one small grocery where we bought some tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and bananas.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the boat, reading and loafing, then had Bob and Verna over for popcorn and a movie in the evening. Watched "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" - lots of fun! Tomorrow we'll see if we can get officially checked into Costa Rica.
We walked around a bit, bought a few groceries at the "Super Mercado" which isn't quite the size of your neighborhood 7-11, and then went to the hotel where Lois could wait with the goodies while I went back to Migracion. I'm beginning to suspect that Costa Rican time is about like Mexican time because when I got there 45 minutes later the passports hadn't been touched. The lady went right to work on them, though; muttering something about the telephone being "Mala" she disappeared to another room for fifteen minutes, then came back with our passports all stamped and signed. There's no expiration date on the visa, just today's date - I'm not sure how you're supposed to know that it's good for only 30 days, but that's what we've been told.
Now that Lois and I are officially here, all that we have to do is get our boat checked in - still no Aduana, but there are four guys from a couple of big sportfishing boats who also want to check in and who are very much in a hurry. I guess they can't wait to get out there and hook some of the sailfish and marlin that we hear about on the radio. Anyway, they hire a taxi to go to the airport and bring back the Aduana, so we relax and go along with the flow. After about an hour the proper young man shows up, so we head back for the boat. After about another hour (lunch I suppose) the sportfisher's inflatable heads out with nine people aboard. Good thing it's a big Zodiac! Four of the people are officials.
It took them about another hour to inspect the two sportfishers, after which they were delivered to our boat. One guy was the Port Captain, one the Aduana, and the other two from what the one English speaking man said was the Drug enforcement arm; in fun he called it "Miami Vice". The Port Captain and Aduana were interested only in paper. They took our Zarpe from Mexico, never questioning the fact that we'd been in Guatemala, took two copies of our crew list, looked at our boat Document, and wanted the engine serial number. Then the Aduana gave us a "Certificado de Entrada de Vehiculos" which allows our boat to be in Costa Rica until August 8th. One of the drug enforcement guys did a cursory inspection of the boat, opening a few doors and drawers but not really hunting for anything. That was it! I asked about check out and the Port Captain said I'd have to come ashore and pay a fee for my Zarpe Nacional. Because, as I said, I wanted to find out the whole procedure, I paid the grand sum of 10 colones (about eight cents) for a paper saying we are leaving for Puntarenas tomorrow. I'll revise it in the morning.
Since we were ashore and hungry, we had a late lunch/early dinner at the hotel restaurant - good fried chicken, and lots of it. The rest of the day we goofed off. Tomorrow we'll get serious about doing our research on parts shipments to Costa Rica. We did learn today that there is a Federal Express agent in San Jose, JETEX. Maybe Maury can tell us more.
After breakfast we ran in to the beach and took up our vigil for the beer truck which is supposed to come on Tuesdays and Fridays. We sat in the Hotel Casino open air restaurant and bar where you can see everything and everybody going by. Before long our young Nicaraguan friend Omar and his brother-in-law, Wilbert, showed up on their weekly run for diesel, gasoline, groceries, and this time, beer and pop for Bill on Margorie Grace, who is in Huevos and who had conned them into buying it for him. We bought Omar a pop and we talked for a while. He says that the local Migracion representative, our cigarette smoking lady, gives he and his family a very bad time. Only with the help of his "owner", the Toyota man, is he able to stay in Costa Rica and out of the refugee camps. With 40,000 refugees, I guess Costa Rica does have a problem. There's a poster in the Migracion office urging voluntary "Repatriacion".
We accompanied Omar and Wilbert for a little way while they did some of their grocery shopping, but found nothing that we hadn't already seen. Coco doesn't have much in the way of produce for sale anywhere. We still hadn't found the beer truck so we bought a couple of six packs and a few bottles of $2.50 vodka from the liquor store, then went back to the hotel where I got though a landline call to Nan. We'd tried again to get Kristie but got only an answering machine. Nan said Bob is trying to find out if we could have our water pump parts sent to, or though, United Fruit, one of his clients in San Jose. One of the other boaters here had good luck and four day service with Federal Express. In any case we'll stand by here for another few days until Nan has the parts in hand. I'll call her again on Friday.
We were about to give up on the beer truck and leave the hotel when we were approached by a man of maybe seventy and invited to have a beer and chat with he and his wife, who he said would enjoy speaking a bit of English. Ken Fletcher and his wife, Wanda, are retirees from the U.S. Air Force who live with their daughter, Susan, on a farm of about twenty acres just across the hill near the bay we mistakenly thought was Coco. He's really sold on Coco as a place to retire. We chatted for quite a while and they invited us to come back into Culebra, park in their bay which they call Bahia Panama, and come visit their farm. Nice people!
The tide was out, and the wind was up, so we finally did give up on the beer truck and went back to the boat. Of course it was then that the truck showed up. The wind by now was blowing about twenty knots and Lois said, "No way!"; so, I went back alone and got a couple of cases. I only got a little wet, and got some very good cerveza in throw-away bottles for about $6.50 a case. Now that we've got our essential supplies we can move to a little quieter anchorage. This isn't bad most of the time, but when the northwest wind blows, as it did today, it gets pretty rolly.
Akvavit and Shaharazade left this afternoon for Flamingo down the coast a few miles but were back, running before the wind, in a couple of hours - too rough! Then Pandrea, with Dick and Penny, a couple we'd met in La Paz, came in after a long passage down the coast. They're also friends of Sailorr so Verna invited us over for Happy Hour and we had a nice visit. Dick and Penny had a tale to tell about being directed into a Honduras port by a gunboat crew who wouldn't take no as an answer. Between here and Mexico is indeed a "Troubled Coast". I'm glad we're past it!
We decided to go ahead and move out of Coco for a few days while we're waiting for things to shape up on our pump parts. Maury, who normally provides a mail holding station for the yachties, is going to San Jose for a week to have a lens implant in his eye, so I volunteered to hold the mail while we're in the vicinity; so I went in this morning to meet him and get the mail he's been holding. He's a nice old gent, eighty-four years old and still a very active HAM radio operator. He and his son have the Pizza Hut franchize for Costa Rica and have done very well with it. He has a nice home on the beach about a half mile from town, and loves to have the yachties visit. I was sorry that I didn't have time to get better acquainted, but we may still be here when he gets back.
The mail on board, we hauled anchor and headed around the point and into Bahia Culebra. Our idea was to anchor on the south side in the cove Ken Fletcher called Panama and see if we could contact them; but the wind had started to pick up from the west and it was pretty obvious that getting ashore this afternoon would be a splashy adventure, so instead we ran across to the north shore to Nacascola again, where the west wind can't do more than cause a ripple. We anchored there, packed the little cooler with beer, and went ashore to check out rumors of good shelling beaches. The beaches are long and flat, and we did find some nice shells, but none as nice as those that the hermit crabs at Huevos had found. Perhaps there are more on the other side where the bottom shoals more slowly and where there is more surf to throw up the shells.
There seem to be two or three families living in one of the two houses at Nacascola; the other appears empty although it is in good repair. It might be the beach home of another wealthy city man. Two fair sized open wooden boats are used for fishing and transportation, one of which sports an ancient inboard engine and nicely painted Costa Rican colors on the bow. Again, the contrast with Mexico, where every fisherman has a fiberglass panga and a fifty horse outboard, is striking. These guys seem to catch as many fish, though, and they throw much smaller wakes.
We took advantage of the low tide to do a bit more beach combing this morning. The temperature was down a bit, and there was a nice breeze, enough to cool the sand so that we didn't burn our feet. Again we found that the very best shells were all occupied, and not by their original owners. Here at low tide the beach is alive with scurrying shells, from tiny things a quarter of an inch across to heavy murex three inches long; and there almost seems to be a competition to see who can wear the nicest shaped and colored house. The problem is that Lois is so soft hearted that she can't bear to dispossess one of these little squatters. Other than for the hermit crabs, and their friends the little sand crabs that scurry across the beach on tippy-toe, there's not a lot of life on the shore. We did see the tracks of what are probably iguanas wandering across the sand, just a deep groove like a child might draw with a stick with tiny claw marks on either side. They came out of the woods, seemed to wander aimlessly, then led back into the brush.
Surprizingly, the rocky tide pools are almost empty. A pool which in more northern waters would be full of anemones, barnacles, sea urchins, tiny crabs, and fish, is totally empty of life. Perhaps it's the temperature; tide pools on black rocks can get so hot it hurts to put your feet in them. While the beaches and tide pools seem somewhat barren, the sea is anything but! You can never look at the water without seeing fish of some sort. It's usually what are called "forage fish" such as the sardines or anchovies you see in northern waters. But here it isn't just in an occasional ball that you see them, they are everywhere by the thousands, continually stirring the surface or forming a silver arc above the water as they try to escape the larger fish chasing them.
With such a repast laid out before them, it is surprizing to me that there aren't more sea birds. Not that there aren't any - the great frigatebirds swoop down and snatch their dinner on the fly, and the occasional pelican drops out of the sky with a huge splash - but there aren't the great masses of gulls squalking and fighting over a ball of fish. The limiting factor must be something other than food. I sure wish we had a bird book for Central America! Yesterday a huge, hawklike bird with all the markings of the California Condor circled above our boat for a while giving Lois the shivers. He had white wings with black tips, was twice the size of the turkey vultures which are always in the sky, but shared their bald red head.
So much for the nature lecture! I changed Gennie's oil today, and fiddled around trying to get her Elapsed Time Indicator going again - no luck. It gets so hot in the engine room that I can't spend more than a few minutes at a time down there. Oh well, if she keeps running we can live with manually recording the time - if I can remember to do it. I also reamed the through hulls, and scraped the crud off the bottom down to about three feet. Stuff doesn't seem to be growing quite so fast as it did for a while even though the water is warmer. We were going to go over to Panama cove but somehow just never got around to it. Posible en la manana.
After that bit of fun we hauled anchor and ran into Coco so that I could call Nan about our waterpump parts. They have a good telephone in the hotel and the girl at the desk is very friendly and helpful, but it's still a bit of a hassle getting a call through. First there was no answer at the shop, although it was 10:30 Seattle time, then the international operator was busy. It took four tries before I got through. In the meantime, Lois went grocery shopping, I checked in again with the Port Captain, and we had lunch with Dick and Penny from Pendrea. When I finally made it, Nan had some good news. (1)
GMC does have a better pump than the one we have and, although it is more expensive, it should stop the mess I'm so disgusted with. (2) Tuck has volunteered to bring down our parts. She says it's $400.00 to ship a 40 pound package to San Jose by Federal Express; Tuck can fly down for about $100.00 on a 90% discount fare. That might also avoid a customs hassle if he can get our stuff into some Salvation Army suitcases. I'll call again next week to get the final schedule.
We'd picked up a few things for Sailorr in town so instead of going back to Culebra we ran back out to Nacascolita where they are anchored with Margorie Grace. On the way we got a call from Bill saying that some local divers were there selling lobster. He bought a kilo for us which will be a real treat - haven't had lobster since Zihuatanejo. Margorie Grace and Sailorr have been at Huevos several days and have been having some pretty good luck spearfishing around the islands. Omar isn't there, having gotten word that his mother was being allowed to come to a Nicaraguan border town for a visit. We anchored in about the same place we did last week, went ashore for a bit of beachcombing, then had all the folks over for a movie after dinner. Pretty nice bunch!
I saw an interesting thing this morning just after dawn. An animal which looked like a coyote but which was bigger, appeared to be trying to get from the beach at Nacascolita to the innermost Huevos island. It walked far out on the reef, was driven back by the surf, then walked the entire length of the beach and out onto the rocks behind where we were anchored where it stood gazing at the island in front of us. After a while it went back across the beach and out onto the reef again. There it waded out into the water and started to swim toward the island but was swept back by the surf and disappeared from view. I'm quite sure it was no domestic dog. Ken Fletcher says there are wolves around which are smaller than our northern variety might have been one of those. Hope he got wherever he wanted to go he shre worked hard enough at it!
It was pretty rolly in the anchorage this morning. There was no wind and as we approached high tide the swells were coming from every which-a-way causing us to flop around like a drunk on Saturday night, so we decided to haul up and go over to Culebra. This time we went to Playa Panama with the idea of looking up our friend Ken. To our surprize, when we got there we found that, far from being the deserted beach we had imagined, Panama was a jumping place. Behind a long, curving, black sand beach is a spacious park made by clearing of the underbrush. One large group of people, which we later learned was group from Liberia having an organization picnic were on the beach and in tha water. They had two buses, a couple of pickups dispensing beer and pop, and in the back of another a Marimba band playing very good music. We took the Metz ashore in front of a small cantina, the only business establishment on the beach, and started walking down the beach saying, "Buenos Tardes" to people as we went. We soon found that there were several groups of people here, as well as a number of individuals and families, enjoying this remote and quiet spot. We met a young lady named Carla who had spent several months in Denver and who spoke quite good English, and were given a mango by one of a group of teachers on weekend outing.
We had asked several people and all the locals knew Ken Fletcher who, they said, lived about two kilometers away. Since he has no phone, and there wasn't one on the beach anyway, we weren't sure how to let him know we'd come to visit. We were sitting in the cantina sipping a beer and considering this problem when a beatup Toyota pickup drove right up to our table who else but Ken. Well, we bought him a beer, then he bought us a beer, then Bob and Verna from Sailorr showed up so we bought them a beer, then Carla and her family showed up, then the group of lady school teachers. Before long everybody was having a very nice time. Ken had offered to show us his place, so after a while, Bob and I climbed into the back of the Toyota leaving Lois and Verna to ride in the cab with Ken, and we set off down the dirt road into the hills. There's quite a little farming community here at Panama. We passed plowed fields, pastures, and of course, lots of cows, pigs, and chickens.
The Fletcher's farm is set on a bit of a hill overlooking the bay and it's got all the things that you might expect on a papaya ranch, plus many that you wouldn't. Wanda is quite crippled by arthritis so their house is built to serve her needs. They first built a swimming pool and Jacuzi, then built the house around it. It's large, and open, with hardwood beams supported at the ridge by three concrete columns. The pool occupies about one third of the house and is to the left just inside the front door. The living and kitchen areas are at the far end of the pool, and the bedrooms and bath are to the right. The floors are of a beautiful, locally made, nonskid tile and indoor/outdoor carpeting. The house is far from finished, but all the essentials are there. The pool is beautiful and it took only a hint from Ken before we were all in it, enjoying the cool 81 degree fresh water.
Outside there's a full compliment of animals; a Great Dane dog, four or five geese, lots of ducks and chickens, and a peacock. There are several thousand young papaya trees which Ken says must be imported from Hawaii. In addition, there are several 100 year old trees which are fairly dripping with long strings of thousands of mangos. They are so big maybe a hundred feet high that they can't be harvested, but Ken says they feed dozens of monkeys living in their branches, as well as pigs and other animals.
Well, we spent a lovely afternoon swimming and talking and looking at all the sights. It's fun to see something that isn't on the shoreline once in a while. By the time we got back to the beach it was almost dark and the Metz was full of black sand, put there by little feet as they used it's inflated tubes as bouncing platforms. No matter, we took it back to the boat, unloaded the oars and other stuff, and washed out the sand. It needed cleaning anyway.
Lobster for dinner Great! and then another movie night. That's getting to be a habit. Click here for MORE.