We didn't quite make it to Huatulco, we ran out of day light so stopped 20 miles short at Puerto Angel. We were greeted just after getting the anchor down by the Mexican Navy. They wanted to board the boat for the second time for a routine inspection. The fact that we had just been inspected 2 weeks earlier didn't seem to matter. They again were very nice but took over an hour checking out stuff. This time they wanted to have a diver check out under our boat! They also had a drug sniffing dog. They finally smiled and left informing us that we needed to check into the Puerto Capitan. We had just planned to catch some sleep and move on early the next morning but now we needed to go to shore and go through the check in and out routine. When we went to check in with the Port Captain he decided he did not want us to leave the next day he thought the seas were to rough. He kept us hostage holding our papers until the following day. We were glad to be on our way again!
Huatulco was a lovely town it is planning to be the next mega resort area of Mexico. There is already a Club Med and several other huge resorts. The town is very cute and clean. The shops had some beautiful art works and gifts. We spent the afternoon checking things out and doing some of our Christmas shopping. The area has 10 bays and lots of beautiful beaches. They are in the process of dredging the bay to accommodate big Cruise boats.
We checked the weather several times a day waited for a weather window to make our crossing to Costa Rica. Ten other sailboats were in the bay waiting for the good weather break, some of them had already been waiting 3 weeks! Our timing was perfect the good weather break came the next day. All ten boats headed out across the dreaded Tujuanepec an area known for 30 to 50 knot winds. We had almost too good of a weather window, we had no wind and ended up motoring for 36 hours. We figured this was a good trade off to getting beat up in high winds. While motoring we saw lots and lots of Sea Turtles some of the turtles were huge! Finally we were able to set sails. We spent the next several days dodged huge fishing and shrimping boat fleets. Most the boats in our little fleet pulled in and stopped in Guatemala and El Salvador. We continued on with one other boat named "Surge" heading straight to Costa Rica.
We sailed most of the final 5 days of our crossing. Dolphins joined us several times a day. We saw Spinner Dolphins for the first time, what a treat! These dolphins will jump 6 to 10 feet in the air and do cork screw spins and flips. Huge pods of them would swim over to the boat and then put on a show for us jumping and doing flips right beside us. We had a little ceremony at sunset as we sailed out of Mexican waters into Guatemala and then into El Salvador. The El Salvador coastline was beautiful.it was lined with huge volcanoes towering from an otherwise flat landscape. We had several days of wonderful sailing and beautiful sunsets this is what sailing is all about. Crossing into Nicaragua the wind clocked around to our nose so we started beating it (going to weather) the last 200 miles. The sailing was a lot more work but the coastline remained beautiful, again Volcanoes dotting the landscape. The wind continued to build right off the noise making the last day a very wet, rough beat.
After 7 days and 6 nights we arrived in Costa Rica at Bahia Santa Ellena. The bay was a welcome sight! It was a beautiful bay with high jungle mountains on one side. The other side of the bay was covered with grass and oak trees that reminded us of Mount Diablo and the hills around the bay area. We had a beautiful sunset that night as we watch groups of parrots coming in pairs to roost for the night. You could hear them squawking long before you could see them. We tucked into bed early and enjoyed a great 12-hour sleep. Our first long passage behind us. Quite an accomplishment!
The next day we sailed down the coast of Costa Rica. It's a beautiful coast. Steep mountains covered with jungle trees. We saw lots of dolphins and turtles along the way. We found Costa Rica has wind! We started out with 25 knots as we sailed down wind enjoying a great sail. Then we rounded a point that created it's own weather the winds piped up to 45 knots as we got pounded the last 5 miles. We tucked up into a small cove. The water was calm but the wind continued to whistle over our heads. We spent a very long night taking turns on anchor watch as the boat danced all night on the anchor in the swirling wind. We left the next morning in 35 knots of wind to cut across the Gulf of Papagayo another area know for big winds! It was a very brisk sail across the bay to bahia Culena (the bay of snakes) we finally had a nice quiet night anchoring at Playa de Panama.
The next day we finally set foot on land in Costa Rica. Minutes after getting to shore we met Fred. He offered us a ride to town in his black Mercedes (not a common car in Costa Rica at all!) The Costa Rica adventure started in the twilight zone. Fred seems to know everybody in town. It seems Fred's family is the political strength of Costa Rica. His brother is running for President…his Uncle is the current President. He can get you any thing you want…he offered to make us Costa Rican citizens. He took us all over introducing us to his friends. One friend owns a nice Hotel way up on the hill. We went to Fred's beachfront restaurant and had an outstanding fish and shrimp dinner. Fred was a great person to know…. but, one we decided you don't want to piss off. Over dinner he told us he was having another cruising boat kicked out of the country. We are glad Fred liked us!
Off to Coco to officially check into the country. The town had all the things you could need, store laundry, restaurant and even an Internet Café (but the phone lines are so bad we after an hour we still had only been able to send a couple emails…not the USA that's for sure).
Costa Rica definitely has a different feel to it. We are not in "Kansas" any more.
The 15 mile run from Coco to Flamingo Marina was incredible. The coastline was beautiful, green mountains, knife-edge points reaching out into the ocean and lovely secluded beaches. It was calm for the first time in days so we were motoring. Dolphins joined us for awhile. Then we saw a disturbance in the water right in front of the boat so Sharon ran up to the bow to see what it was, her eyes just about popped out of her head. Right in front of the boat just under the surface was a huge, huge Manta Ray with a wingspan of over 12 feet! It stayed right in front of the boat till the last second where with one big swosh of its wings it disappeared in a instant under the boat. Over the next hour we motored in circles as we saw huge Manta Ray after huge Manta Ray there must have been at least 50 in the school all just gliding under the surface of the water. Several of them gave us a spectacular showing as they leaped completely out of the water right next to us! It was one of those life time events!
We arrived in Flamingo and were told to anchor out and come in by dingy to check it out. Good thing…the Marina is a little primitive. But it's one of only two Marinas that exist in Costa Rica. So it's the best they got. Reality feels a little out of place she is one of only a couple sailboats the marina is full with over 25 Sports Fishing boats. The number of huge Gold Penn Reels staggers the mind. This is premium Bill Fishing Country one of the Worlds Best! All the fisherman on the dock have been extremely friendly and helpful. The second day we were there they fed us well offering us 5 pounds of fresh Ahi Tuna!
We have improved our skills at getting the boat prepared to leave…our last visit home it took us 3 weeks this time we had her ready in 3 days.
We hoped on a bus for the long supposedly 4 to 5 hour trips into the airport in San Jose. The trip ended up being quite the experience. Within the first half hour we kept smelling burning brakes, well when huge clouds of smoke started coming up from the wheels of the bus we realized the smell was our bus! The bus driver stopped to check it out then continued to drive for several more miles. Then stopped again got out a toolbox with about 3 tools and crawled under the bus and hit a few things. He drove a little further, stopped at a ranch and borrowed a couple tools. We drove a little further the brakes were still smoking. Then came a huge boom explosion, scared us to death…we and everybody else on the bus started for the door. Then we figured at it had just been a tire blowout because of the heat of the brakes so we sat back down and the driver found a spot to pull off the road, made a call and had somebody come help him change the tire and fix the brakes. After the several hours delay we were back on our way. The bus held together for the rest of the trip. A German couple that had been traveling by bus for the last 3 weeks in Costa Rica assured us that the buses had been really reliable. Our first bus trip just happened to be an off day! The countryside we traveled through was beautiful. It started with rolling hills and small wooded mountains that looked a lot like the hills back east. We crossed the Nicoya Bay by a ferry the bus squeezed in with, semi-trucks, cattle trucks you name it. Then we started climbing the mountains huge mountains, thick jungle and coffee plantations, finally arriving at San Jose airport 9 hours later.