Ballena to Islas Tortugas


Ballena to Islas Tortugas
Which actually wasn’t where we intended to go yesterday, 2nd February but we were given a nice gentle sailing breeze so rather than hurry along to the next destination which was to be Isla Muertos, we went slower knowing we had some options to stop at along the way. Islas Tortugas are 2 islands. One is called Isla Alcatraz and the other Isla Tolinga which does have a gorgeous white sand beach surrounded by palm trees and a thriving day tour business. A giant motorized catamaran brings about 50 people ashore – perhaps every day, as well as packed pangas. On the beach a person can rent beach beds, tables, umbrellas, buy souvenirs and beverages at a nice little store and have a great day in ‘paradise’. The catamaran pulls right up onto the beach and drops a ramp to let the people on an off. There is hardly any surf here, so it was pretty easy for us to go ashore.
The people all leave at 1600 hrs, and then we were looking forward to a lovely quiet evening with the anchorage mostly to ourselves. One fishing boat was anchored out a bit further.
Unfortunately that changed in short order, a much bigger fishing boat arrived while I was swimming around the boat. This boat arrived with one man sitting over the pulpit rail with his pants down at his ankles and his bare ass hanging over the rail – I looked away as I did not want to know what he was doing. They took about 45 minutes to drop anchor and raft up next to the other fishing boat. They really like Costa Rican Rap music, which I hate just as much as any other kind of rap. A little while later the Fleur de Lis sporting Canadian boat came along and anchored on the other side of us, way too close for the privacy which was already lost anyway.So here we sit at 0822 with the rap music blaring as much as is possible through the pathetic speakers they have on board. I’m thinking of a change in plans for today. We were planning to spend the day here looking for good snorkeling sites, now, maybe we’ll move onto our original destination.

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