We spent the month of February in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica. We settled into a beautiful calm bay called Bahia Luminosa. The bay has a lovely litte hotel also called Bahia Luminosa. It's a great out of the way place accessed only by dirt roads or water. In fact it's so secluded that in the month we were there, I think they only had a couple hotel guest! Most of the month we and our cruising friends Karl and Jan had the place completely to ourselves. We had a wonderful time getting to know George, the owner of the hotel and his manger, Fin. George is a wonderful old guy. He is a Merchant Marine Marnier, a laywer and has cruised his own boat around the world. He has an endless number of stories to tell. Karl our saling friend is also a Merchant Marine Mariner, a chief engineer. So the trading of sea stories was hot and heavy at times. We spent many enjoyable afternoons listening to tales of their past adventures. Karl has been on ships up in the polar cap for months at a time. He has gone on icebreakers threw the northern passage. In addition to being a great story teller Karl help us a hundred times durning the month as we would start into a boat project and weren't quite sure how best to proceed. Karl knows everything there is to know about a boat, so he would jump in give us a hand and taught us a bunch.
Karl and Jan spent most of the month of Feburary in Bahia Luminso with us. Mid month they were joined by their friend Jean. We had a wonderful time visiting with them. They are all from Canada...cold country! Jan was a molecular biologist, she did a bunch of research working to fine a cure for tuberculosis. Jean works way up in northeren Canada managing all the teachers of universities for adult native indians (eskimo's). The all had wonderful stories to share...very, very different than the Silicon Valley world we know.
We left Bahia Luminosa for a couple days to celebrate Vaughn's birthday. We sailed just a couple hours to Island Tortugas were we enjoyed snorkeling and walking the beach. It's a beautiful island. We then made a short hop over to Curu Bay and took a hike in the Curu Nature Reserve. The hike was beautiful, we saw lots of white face monkeys and Howler monkeys. Vaughn's birthday wish was to see Scarlet Macaw for the first time. He got his wish...we saw a whole folk of Scarlet Macaws. They are a big, beautiful bird. Course, Sharon really loved them, they are RED. We sailed to Bahia Ballean for Vaughn's birthday dinner, we had a great meal at Poncho's Resteraunt. After B-day fun we headed back to Bahia Lunimosa to finish up boat projects and do our good old U.S.A. taxes...even us world cruisers don't escape the long arms of Uncle Sam.