Hualtuco to Costa Rica (via Nicaragua)
Huatulco to Costa Rica (via Nicaragua)
By the time we left Huatulco we were glad to be getting underway, not that we didn’t like being there, but because it was time to get moving and the Tehuantepec (a big bay with its own nasty weather system) was looming.
We plan most of our passages on the basis of moving at about 5 kn. That’s how we estimate our fuel consumption and the time we will be at sea. So the trip to Costa Rica was due to take about 7 days and we fuelled accordingly.
The first 4 days were fairly uneventful, mostly we motored and stayed about 13 – 15 miles offshore, as we had no intention of going into Guatemala, El Salvadore, Honduras and Nicaragua, we thought it right to stay out of their 12 mile limit.
We did stay fairly close in going around the Tehuantepec as that is the prescribed method, just in case the offshore winds pipe up, as they can be very strong. But strong winds are not really the problem for sailboats as we can just keep reducing sail until we have the right amount for the wind – or none if necessary. It’s the seas that really cause us trouble and the further offshore a boat is its more likely to be dealing with bigger seas, which get bigger and bigger the further the wind pushes the water along.
Well that didn’t happen to us in the Tehuantepec, but we did encounter pretty strong current against us for most of 2 days – about 2 knots of current. This slowed us down and used up our fuel at a much faster rate.
Until the 6th we motored mostly – took any opportunity to sail, but most of these opportunities were very short lived, and very slow, but were becoming increasingly necessary to conserve fuel. We also had to start making decisions about shortening the distance as much as possible by going offshore a bit further – thus cutting out the lengths of the bays. Our entertainment was mostly dolphin visits which were always very welcome. They usually come when we are motoring as the like the speed of the boat. The dolphins love to swim alongside the bow and under the bowsprit and love to look up at us. We always call out to them to encourage them to stay with us, as they are such a happy presence. While I was looking over the edge of the bowsprit on this particular occasion a very large dophin was swimming directly below me, and with the swell causing the boat to hobbyhorse quite a bit I was sometimes about 2 feet above him/her. He rolled over on his back while swimming and looking up into my eyes with what always looks like laughter in their eyes, and spat a mouthful of water up at me. What a thrill to be spat at by a dolphin – it made my day.
We also had many bird visitors, some who used our boat as a roost at night, those were the yellow footed boobies. I renamed them poopy boobies, they made bloody mess everywhere, and sometimes when they were asleep and the boat rolled they fell off their high perches up on the spreaders.
We monitored weatherfax on our SSB radio every morning at 0700 hrs. which is how we get our weather forecasts and by the 7th (5 days out) started to see the change coming. In fact on the morning of the 7th there were actual squall clouds in the sky ahead about 3 miles and they were raining in some areas. We were pretty excited about being rained on as we hadn’t showered for 5 days and the boat was covered with booby poo, plus we knew there was plenty of wind under that cloud and we were going to have a great sail. So we put up our sails – and were not conservative because this was a local system, and we bobbed along at about 2 kn towards that lovely cloud. Then the company arrived, we were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins, just ambling alongside the boat, some were pushing their bodies straight up out of the water and looking around – as if checking out the weather, some were jumping high up out of the water and slapping down hard on the water. That was the first time I saw that one poor dolphin had horrible sucker like fish hanging on to the side of it – big fish, about 12 – 18” long, and the dolphin was probably trying to get rid of them by knocking them off as it lands. It was interesting that I only saw 2 dolphins with these nasty clingons.
We finally reached the cloud and we were in the wind, and so were the dolphins, and then more visitors – the flock of birds who had been with us on and off for the last 4 days – don’t know what they are but I called them Chichimungas because that was the sound they made. These birds were swooping all around the boat, but particularly around our heads – they seemed to be playing chicken with our heads – ‘lets see who can get the closing without bumping into that thing’. And a flock of terns came out of nowhere to join in the fun. For the next couple of hours we were definitely the guests of honour at a squall party, it was a lot of fun, not enough rain, unfortunately to clean us or the boat, but enough to clean the dodger windows.
And then it was over and we were back to motoring and now had the lumpy swells left over – or were they the swells which precede bigger weather further along the way.
By the 8th we were now definitely in fuel conservation mode and were sometimes sailing along doing a couple of knots, or motoring at reduced revs to use less fuel, and feeling a little concerned about a low which was moving up from further south and a cold front which was moving east in the Gulf of Mexico (these are usually followed by strong northerlies which funnel through the Sierra Madre valleys out to the Pacific and become the much feared Tehuantepec/Papagallo type winds. By now we were about 40 miles offshore.
So in the words of my husbands beloved hero Captain Ron – ‘if its going to happen, its going to happen out there’, and my addition ‘at night’ – it did. At about 0200 hrs all hell broke loose and Tony was up on deck reefing down to our 3rd reef in the main, our little staysail and we were using our reefed mizzen to keep us up into the wind as much as possible.
We were not in a good situation – we had enough fuel to motor for about hours in normal conditions, not into 35 knots of wind and huge seas, and we were being pushed out to sea very fast, we were sailing overpowered, but had to keep the boat moving into the wind and we were about 80 miles from shore and still about 120 miles from Costa Rica. And the wind was getting stronger and the seas were building. And sleep was becoming very difficult. Its all very well to know that you have to sleep or you’ll just compound the problems, but sleep doesn’t come when you’re really scared. And I was really scared, a praying a lot.
By the morning of the 9th the conditions were very bad, and we had to come into shore as quickly as possible and as we couldn’t motor in the direction we wanted to go – ie Costa Rica, we headed north east, knowing we would lose all of the miles we had clawed our way into. The closest and only marina we could reach on that point of sail was in Nicaragua and that’s where we came to. We sailed until we were within motoring distance – the wind pummeled us until the last 2 hours offshore. We were coming in at about 2100 hours in the dark. When we were within hailing distance I called on the VHF and reached the owner of the Marina Puesta Del Sol who welcomed us, and told us that as the lights didn’t work on the channel markers they would come out in the launch to meet us and guide us in. Which they did.
We were soooo glad to reach this place. It’s a very quiet marina in an estuary surrounded by mangroves, a couple of very small fishing villages nearby. For more info on the marina see http://www.marinapuestadelsol.com/.
The next morning the Customs, Immigration and Port Captain all came to our boat to fill out the necessary documents for us to be here. The Dockmaster, Dorian is an extremely personable, very well educated bilingual young man who has been so helpful to us; he stayed and translated for us, and as we were in the embarrassing situation of having no money, kindly lent the $30 immigration fees to us until we were able to get to a bank.
And apparently I was really meant to be here. Yesterday Tony and I took the bus into the closest town Chinandega, 20 miles away. We were the first passengers on the bus as it starts its route at the village by the marina, and when I sat down I gasped at what I saw in front of me – scratched into the back of the seat in front was my name Nancy. So with Twilight Zone music playing in my head most of the way to town we took in the sights and the incredible experience of being squashed into this bus, where old women and small children had to stand and hang on – where most people getting on were carrying a lot of stuff – sometimes great big sacks full of dripping fish, and the young wiry driver had to get out of the bus regularly to take some huge sack on his back and climb up a ladder to put in on the roof. The bus was also used as a delivery truck; we picked up milk urns left by the side of the road at a dairy and dropped them off a few miles on. The dairy seemed to be a commune project benefiting 15 families who all live and work there. We saw many signs (which of course I had difficulty understanding) but they seemed to show that the government or private organizations were working to help the people out of what looked like terrible poverty.
On the way to Chinandega we passed through a town called Viejo (see video), which was seething with people and skinny dogs, horses tied up outside a house on the sidewalk, bicycles everywhere, people walking on the road in front of taxis, buses cars and pedicabs all swerving everywhere – I was very glad to be on the bus. Having been on the bus for about an hour I felt less like a great big white gringo.
But when we got off the bus – we definitely stuck out. We were the only gringos in town – another teeming with people place – but not quite seething. Wherever we walked people stared at us. We found a bank machine which was essential as we had no money on us at all – we scrounged the 17 cordoba bus fare from fellow marina residents. The bank machines all have security guards. There are security guards everywhere.
We got on the bus at 7.30am, without time for breakfast so we were very hungry by the time we reached town at about 9.30am. We bought fried plantains and chicken drumsticks from one vendor, less than $2 for both us us (17 cordobas to the $1 Canadian). We bought cut water melon from another – 17 cents. As we stood around eating people looked at us perhaps to see if we ate the same way they did.
When we were standing on a very busy corner buying vegetables we had our only uncomfortable experience. A very aggressive beggar accosted us, first just asking for money then he started to grab at us, and as Tony was paying for our purchase he tried to grab at the money. The vendor was careful to keep him from getting it. Tony gave him a little change, which seemed to make things worse. Now he was grabbing at me and stroking my hair. We were surrounded by people who were all looking to see what we would do in this situation. We stayed cool and polite, and one of the men in the crowd pulled the beggar away from me, and we paid for our food and took off – walking fast – the beggar followed us for awhile calling after us, but because he was also crippled could not keep up.
We looked around the municipal market which was very dark and unsanitary – we didn’t buy anything there. And didn’t feel like we should be there.
We found a supermarket, where we couldn’t find much fresh fruit, so we stupidly paid over $4. per can for 2 cans of Delmonte fruit salad. Don’t buy gringo food. Lesson learned.
Once we were loaded with bags we decided to gat a taxi back to the marina – we were told it would cost about $20. As there were hundreds of cabs honking at us constantly we didn’t think this would be a problem. The first cab that stopped that had all of the appropriate signage to look legitimate, we asked the price to go to the marina before getting in – 300 cordobas. We thought that was good, about $17 so we got in and he drove for a couple of blocks before he changed his mind and told us that it would be another 300 for two people. We tried to negotiate him down a bit – at the most 400 cordobas, but he wouldn’t relent so we got out.
The next cab we got in was driven by a really nice young man called Paolo who played very basey, raunchy Nicaraguan rap music most of way, but was kind enough to stop from time so that I could take pictures. He even recognized photo opportunities I missed and stopped to show me. He told us a little about his country – showed us the sugar plantations which are very important here, told us where he lived, and was generally a super host. He drove us right to our dock ramp and kept to his negotiated price of 400 cordobas, so we gave him a good tip and thanked him very much.
Once back at the boat we went looking for beer at a Tienda (shop) closeby. We found it after a short walk up the dirt road but they had no beer. Should have bought it in the supermarket, but didn’t want to carry it home.
We decided to take a walk down to the outside beach, where the marina has a palapa with a pool and bar by the beach. As it was too difficult for the security guard to give us directions, a young woman Judy who works at the hotel said she would take us. Another great interaction – Judy lives nearby, she is a proud young woman who politely asked questions of us and answered those we asked. We laughed a lot at our common inability to speak each other’s language, but got by. She walked us to the palapa and left us there.
That’s where we met Graham and his family, possibly the only guests in the hotel right now. Graham is a mining engineer who used to be from Kitsilano but now lives in Managua, Nicaragua where he is involved in gold mining. He’s fluent in Spanish and is married to a beautiful woman from Peru. Funny eh! The only other people in an almost deserted hotel, definitely the only people at the palapa and he is from Kitsilano, Vancouver. As they say – small world.
It’s now Monday the 12 of jan and time to think about moving on. The weather looks to be building again by the end of the week so we need to be down in Costa Rica by then. We hope the officials will be back here today so we can clear out and get our zarpe for the next country. The next leg will only take a couple of day’s. We plan on staying fairly close in this time as the seas will be more comfortable. The next stop will be Playa del Coco
By the time we left Huatulco we were glad to be getting underway, not that we didn’t like being there, but because it was time to get moving and the Tehuantepec (a big bay with its own nasty weather system) was looming.
We plan most of our passages on the basis of moving at about 5 kn. That’s how we estimate our fuel consumption and the time we will be at sea. So the trip to Costa Rica was due to take about 7 days and we fuelled accordingly.
The first 4 days were fairly uneventful, mostly we motored and stayed about 13 – 15 miles offshore, as we had no intention of going into Guatemala, El Salvadore, Honduras and Nicaragua, we thought it right to stay out of their 12 mile limit.
We did stay fairly close in going around the Tehuantepec as that is the prescribed method, just in case the offshore winds pipe up, as they can be very strong. But strong winds are not really the problem for sailboats as we can just keep reducing sail until we have the right amount for the wind – or none if necessary. It’s the seas that really cause us trouble and the further offshore a boat is its more likely to be dealing with bigger seas, which get bigger and bigger the further the wind pushes the water along.
Well that didn’t happen to us in the Tehuantepec, but we did encounter pretty strong current against us for most of 2 days – about 2 knots of current. This slowed us down and used up our fuel at a much faster rate.
Until the 6th we motored mostly – took any opportunity to sail, but most of these opportunities were very short lived, and very slow, but were becoming increasingly necessary to conserve fuel. We also had to start making decisions about shortening the distance as much as possible by going offshore a bit further – thus cutting out the lengths of the bays. Our entertainment was mostly dolphin visits which were always very welcome. They usually come when we are motoring as the like the speed of the boat. The dolphins love to swim alongside the bow and under the bowsprit and love to look up at us. We always call out to them to encourage them to stay with us, as they are such a happy presence. While I was looking over the edge of the bowsprit on this particular occasion a very large dophin was swimming directly below me, and with the swell causing the boat to hobbyhorse quite a bit I was sometimes about 2 feet above him/her. He rolled over on his back while swimming and looking up into my eyes with what always looks like laughter in their eyes, and spat a mouthful of water up at me. What a thrill to be spat at by a dolphin – it made my day.
We also had many bird visitors, some who used our boat as a roost at night, those were the yellow footed boobies. I renamed them poopy boobies, they made bloody mess everywhere, and sometimes when they were asleep and the boat rolled they fell off their high perches up on the spreaders.
We monitored weatherfax on our SSB radio every morning at 0700 hrs. which is how we get our weather forecasts and by the 7th (5 days out) started to see the change coming. In fact on the morning of the 7th there were actual squall clouds in the sky ahead about 3 miles and they were raining in some areas. We were pretty excited about being rained on as we hadn’t showered for 5 days and the boat was covered with booby poo, plus we knew there was plenty of wind under that cloud and we were going to have a great sail. So we put up our sails – and were not conservative because this was a local system, and we bobbed along at about 2 kn towards that lovely cloud. Then the company arrived, we were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins, just ambling alongside the boat, some were pushing their bodies straight up out of the water and looking around – as if checking out the weather, some were jumping high up out of the water and slapping down hard on the water. That was the first time I saw that one poor dolphin had horrible sucker like fish hanging on to the side of it – big fish, about 12 – 18” long, and the dolphin was probably trying to get rid of them by knocking them off as it lands. It was interesting that I only saw 2 dolphins with these nasty clingons.
We finally reached the cloud and we were in the wind, and so were the dolphins, and then more visitors – the flock of birds who had been with us on and off for the last 4 days – don’t know what they are but I called them Chichimungas because that was the sound they made. These birds were swooping all around the boat, but particularly around our heads – they seemed to be playing chicken with our heads – ‘lets see who can get the closing without bumping into that thing’. And a flock of terns came out of nowhere to join in the fun. For the next couple of hours we were definitely the guests of honour at a squall party, it was a lot of fun, not enough rain, unfortunately to clean us or the boat, but enough to clean the dodger windows.
And then it was over and we were back to motoring and now had the lumpy swells left over – or were they the swells which precede bigger weather further along the way.
By the 8th we were now definitely in fuel conservation mode and were sometimes sailing along doing a couple of knots, or motoring at reduced revs to use less fuel, and feeling a little concerned about a low which was moving up from further south and a cold front which was moving east in the Gulf of Mexico (these are usually followed by strong northerlies which funnel through the Sierra Madre valleys out to the Pacific and become the much feared Tehuantepec/Papagallo type winds. By now we were about 40 miles offshore.
So in the words of my husbands beloved hero Captain Ron – ‘if its going to happen, its going to happen out there’, and my addition ‘at night’ – it did. At about 0200 hrs all hell broke loose and Tony was up on deck reefing down to our 3rd reef in the main, our little staysail and we were using our reefed mizzen to keep us up into the wind as much as possible.
We were not in a good situation – we had enough fuel to motor for about hours in normal conditions, not into 35 knots of wind and huge seas, and we were being pushed out to sea very fast, we were sailing overpowered, but had to keep the boat moving into the wind and we were about 80 miles from shore and still about 120 miles from Costa Rica. And the wind was getting stronger and the seas were building. And sleep was becoming very difficult. Its all very well to know that you have to sleep or you’ll just compound the problems, but sleep doesn’t come when you’re really scared. And I was really scared, a praying a lot.
By the morning of the 9th the conditions were very bad, and we had to come into shore as quickly as possible and as we couldn’t motor in the direction we wanted to go – ie Costa Rica, we headed north east, knowing we would lose all of the miles we had clawed our way into. The closest and only marina we could reach on that point of sail was in Nicaragua and that’s where we came to. We sailed until we were within motoring distance – the wind pummeled us until the last 2 hours offshore. We were coming in at about 2100 hours in the dark. When we were within hailing distance I called on the VHF and reached the owner of the Marina Puesta Del Sol who welcomed us, and told us that as the lights didn’t work on the channel markers they would come out in the launch to meet us and guide us in. Which they did.
We were soooo glad to reach this place. It’s a very quiet marina in an estuary surrounded by mangroves, a couple of very small fishing villages nearby. For more info on the marina see http://www.marinapuestadelsol.com/.
The next morning the Customs, Immigration and Port Captain all came to our boat to fill out the necessary documents for us to be here. The Dockmaster, Dorian is an extremely personable, very well educated bilingual young man who has been so helpful to us; he stayed and translated for us, and as we were in the embarrassing situation of having no money, kindly lent the $30 immigration fees to us until we were able to get to a bank.
And apparently I was really meant to be here. Yesterday Tony and I took the bus into the closest town Chinandega, 20 miles away. We were the first passengers on the bus as it starts its route at the village by the marina, and when I sat down I gasped at what I saw in front of me – scratched into the back of the seat in front was my name Nancy. So with Twilight Zone music playing in my head most of the way to town we took in the sights and the incredible experience of being squashed into this bus, where old women and small children had to stand and hang on – where most people getting on were carrying a lot of stuff – sometimes great big sacks full of dripping fish, and the young wiry driver had to get out of the bus regularly to take some huge sack on his back and climb up a ladder to put in on the roof. The bus was also used as a delivery truck; we picked up milk urns left by the side of the road at a dairy and dropped them off a few miles on. The dairy seemed to be a commune project benefiting 15 families who all live and work there. We saw many signs (which of course I had difficulty understanding) but they seemed to show that the government or private organizations were working to help the people out of what looked like terrible poverty.
On the way to Chinandega we passed through a town called Viejo (see video), which was seething with people and skinny dogs, horses tied up outside a house on the sidewalk, bicycles everywhere, people walking on the road in front of taxis, buses cars and pedicabs all swerving everywhere – I was very glad to be on the bus. Having been on the bus for about an hour I felt less like a great big white gringo.
But when we got off the bus – we definitely stuck out. We were the only gringos in town – another teeming with people place – but not quite seething. Wherever we walked people stared at us. We found a bank machine which was essential as we had no money on us at all – we scrounged the 17 cordoba bus fare from fellow marina residents. The bank machines all have security guards. There are security guards everywhere.
We got on the bus at 7.30am, without time for breakfast so we were very hungry by the time we reached town at about 9.30am. We bought fried plantains and chicken drumsticks from one vendor, less than $2 for both us us (17 cordobas to the $1 Canadian). We bought cut water melon from another – 17 cents. As we stood around eating people looked at us perhaps to see if we ate the same way they did.
When we were standing on a very busy corner buying vegetables we had our only uncomfortable experience. A very aggressive beggar accosted us, first just asking for money then he started to grab at us, and as Tony was paying for our purchase he tried to grab at the money. The vendor was careful to keep him from getting it. Tony gave him a little change, which seemed to make things worse. Now he was grabbing at me and stroking my hair. We were surrounded by people who were all looking to see what we would do in this situation. We stayed cool and polite, and one of the men in the crowd pulled the beggar away from me, and we paid for our food and took off – walking fast – the beggar followed us for awhile calling after us, but because he was also crippled could not keep up.
We looked around the municipal market which was very dark and unsanitary – we didn’t buy anything there. And didn’t feel like we should be there.
We found a supermarket, where we couldn’t find much fresh fruit, so we stupidly paid over $4. per can for 2 cans of Delmonte fruit salad. Don’t buy gringo food. Lesson learned.
Once we were loaded with bags we decided to gat a taxi back to the marina – we were told it would cost about $20. As there were hundreds of cabs honking at us constantly we didn’t think this would be a problem. The first cab that stopped that had all of the appropriate signage to look legitimate, we asked the price to go to the marina before getting in – 300 cordobas. We thought that was good, about $17 so we got in and he drove for a couple of blocks before he changed his mind and told us that it would be another 300 for two people. We tried to negotiate him down a bit – at the most 400 cordobas, but he wouldn’t relent so we got out.
The next cab we got in was driven by a really nice young man called Paolo who played very basey, raunchy Nicaraguan rap music most of way, but was kind enough to stop from time so that I could take pictures. He even recognized photo opportunities I missed and stopped to show me. He told us a little about his country – showed us the sugar plantations which are very important here, told us where he lived, and was generally a super host. He drove us right to our dock ramp and kept to his negotiated price of 400 cordobas, so we gave him a good tip and thanked him very much.
Once back at the boat we went looking for beer at a Tienda (shop) closeby. We found it after a short walk up the dirt road but they had no beer. Should have bought it in the supermarket, but didn’t want to carry it home.
We decided to take a walk down to the outside beach, where the marina has a palapa with a pool and bar by the beach. As it was too difficult for the security guard to give us directions, a young woman Judy who works at the hotel said she would take us. Another great interaction – Judy lives nearby, she is a proud young woman who politely asked questions of us and answered those we asked. We laughed a lot at our common inability to speak each other’s language, but got by. She walked us to the palapa and left us there.
That’s where we met Graham and his family, possibly the only guests in the hotel right now. Graham is a mining engineer who used to be from Kitsilano but now lives in Managua, Nicaragua where he is involved in gold mining. He’s fluent in Spanish and is married to a beautiful woman from Peru. Funny eh! The only other people in an almost deserted hotel, definitely the only people at the palapa and he is from Kitsilano, Vancouver. As they say – small world.
It’s now Monday the 12 of jan and time to think about moving on. The weather looks to be building again by the end of the week so we need to be down in Costa Rica by then. We hope the officials will be back here today so we can clear out and get our zarpe for the next country. The next leg will only take a couple of day’s. We plan on staying fairly close in this time as the seas will be more comfortable. The next stop will be Playa del Coco
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