March was the month for visitors.

We finished up our boat projects and shopping during the first week of March so everything was "ship-shape" in preparation for our visitors.

Curt and Sheri our friends from North Carolina arrived on Sharon's Birthday. So we made a day of it, we rented a car and drove into San Jose to meet them. We all spent the night in the beautiful hotel Villa Dolce near the airport. The hotel owner is Italian. Sharon and everybody had a wonderful Birthday Dinner of seafood pasta, authentic Italian style. We enjoy lots of talking and started to get caught up on each other's lives.

Bright and early the next morning we did the 2-hour drive from San Jose back to Punteranus. Curt and Sheri got a kick out of the Costa Rican countryside. We turned the rental car back in, then took the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya back to Bahia Luminosa where "Reality" was waiting. We got Curt and Sheri settled into the boat and then went to introduce them to old George and have some dinner.

The next morning we set sail and head around the corner to Isla Tortugas. We enjoyed snorkeling. The boys worked at spearing up dinner. We had a wonderful day enjoying the sun, water and catching up on stories. In the afternoon we headed over to Curu Nature Reserve. We had a nice hike. We were escorted on the first kilometer of our hike by "Pepe" the Reserve's pet (rescued) spider monkey. He was a kick and quite photogenic.

Pepe the Spider Monkey
Spider monkeys are quite large. When they stand on their hind legs their arms can reach up to your shoulders. Pepe would pose for us to take his picture. Then when we walked away to continue our hike, he would coming running up behind us and slap us on the back. He was a lot of fun to watch. He finally got bored with us and headed back to park head quarters. During our walk we saw howler monkeys, whitefaces monkeys and scarlet macaws. Curt and Sheri really enjoyed seeing the different plants and animals.

Vaughn catches a Sierra and Curt and Sheri enjoy Costa Rica
The next morning we went Scuba diving. It's the first time we have actually put our tanks on in Costa Rica. There was a lot of surge so our dive was short. We saw a tremendous number of fish. There was a huge school of several thousand Jack Cervals all about 2 to 3 feet long (big fish) that we were all around us, as they pasted overhead they practically blocked out the light.
We spent a couple days in Bahia Ballena. Enjoyed another great dinner at Poncho's. Then we had a beautiful sail back to Bahia Lunimosa. Curt and Sheri then took the ferry and then the bus to San Jose to fly home. It was wonderful visiting with them!
Next Sharon's sister Sydney, her husband Ralph and their friends Vinnie and Anne came to visit. They flew into San Jose then took a little 6-seater plane to Bahia Ballena. They said the flight was quite a thrill and once the actually landed safely, they could say they enjoyed it. They all checked into Tambor Tropical Hotel. It is a beautiful little resort built completely in tropical hardwoods. Everything in the place is beautifully varnish finished hardwood, the floors, walls, balcony, tables and chairs, everything! We all went to dinner at Scruffy's and of course talked a million miles an hour catching up on all the news.
After 2 days enjoying the Hotel Tambor Tropical every came onboard to enjoy Hotel "Reality". We all enjoyed the sail from Bahia Ballena to Curu. We took everybody on the hike at Curu. We all got to see howler monkeys, whitefaced monkeys, scarlet macaws and of course "Pepe". Everybody enjoyed the wildlife and plants of the jungle. Sydney decided to test her jungle skills by swinging on a "George of the Jungle" vine. Her first swing was great (hope the pictures turn out) but on her second swing the vine broke and she fell right on her butt. The bruise turned a perfect eggplant color and had her sitting very carefully for days.
After hiking Curu we took the boat to Isla Tortugas just as sunset was approaching. We enjoyed the evening on Reality, sipping Rum Punch, feeling very tropical!

The Boys (Vinnie, Vaughn, Ralph) The Gals (Sydney, Sharon, Anne)
The following morning we all went snorkeling. Everybody enjoyed to huge number and variety of fish. After snorkeling we set sail for Bahia Herradura. We arrived late afternoon after a mellow combination of motoring and sailing. The ladies all jumped in the water to check out the snorkeling. The visibility wasn't the best but we saw several large schools of fish. The men headed off to the big Marriot Mega Resort in search of good Cohiba cigars. The Marriot is the only hotel we have seen in Costa Rica that is a huge U.S.A style conference center total environment. It's nice I suppose...but quite an eye sore compared with the lovely little blend into the jungle type of resorts that are the norm throughout the rest of Costa Rica. The boys were successful and came back to the boat with cigars in hand...just in time for sunset cocktails.

The End of Another Lovely Day
The following day the ladies started the morning with a wonderful snorkel excursion. Then we all set sail and had a lovely all day sail to Quepos. Ralph and Vinnie enjoyed taking turns reeling in fish. They each caught several Bonitas, great fighters, but poor eating so they got thrown back. Ralph got the pleasure of fighting a big 15lb Jack Cerval they are one of the very best fighting fish; it gave him a good work out! Ralph won and landed the fish, but they are even worse than Bonita to eat so back to the sea gods it went also. We ended the day with out catching dinner. But it was a great sail and good fun fishing.
We arrived in Quepos with the setting sun. Syd, Ralph, Vinnie and Ann all check into their hotel and then we all had dinner together. The next day they went and check out Manual Antonio Park, they had a wonderful time. We got together and enjoyed a lovely sunset dinner on the cliffs over looking Manual Antonio Park. For their last day in Costa Rica they all went on a canopy tour and had a lot of fun. We joined again for dinner. We had lots of laughs and really enjoyed everybody's company. We gave our hugs goodbye for the next morning they were flying home and we were continuing on toward Panama.
Just a couple hours out of Quepos, Vaughn got one of his dreams/goals come true. He has always dreamed of catching a Sailfish off the back of Reality. We were sailing along and heard the fishing pole scream. It was a Sailfish! It jumped out of the water and tail walked 3 or 4 times. Vaughn got to fight him part way in but he started running toward us and he couldn't reel in fast enough, so it got a chance to spit the hook. So, no pictures...but it sure was a thrill.
We sailed to the southern end of the country to a place called "Bahia Drakes". It's a very lovely bay that really is remote. It is only accessible by car for the dry season or three months of the year. It's on the Osa Peninsula. It's one of the National Parks (tropical jungle) with big cats, Scarlet macaws Parrots, Monkeys and Toucans...... It's like the Wizard of OZ...... Lion, Tigers and Bears!!! We went for a hike up the river to a waterfall and found that the river looked a lot like the Sierra rivers but the surroundings were very thick jungle. We saw Toucans for the first time. The Toucans were squawking all over. It was great!! Though it is not raining yet we are definitely in the wet part of the county. EVERYTHING is green and very lush, it is extremely beautiful. Millions of different kinds of plants and trees...definitely not Kansas!

Beautiful Bahia Drakes Bay
We have spent the last 3 and one half months enjoying this truly diverse country. Costa Rica, it's a nature lovers paradise. As much as we really liked Mexico we liked Costa Rica even better. The Tico (Costa Rican) people are just as friendly as Mexicans are, but their food is blander. They don't even have chip and salsa!! Can you believe it?

Well the time has come to leave beautiful Costa Rica..... It's Panama bound!!!

March was the month for visitors.

Back to Reality's Home Page

1001 Boats Home Page