Herradura to Golfito and Glen's Visit
Herradura to Golfito and Glen’s Visit
From the 5th February we were anchored in Herradura Bay close to the entrance to Los Suenos Marina and Resort. This Marina housed mostly a sport fishing charter fleet aswell as power boats owned by inhabitants of the multi million dollar condominiums in the resort, so the charge of $3.00 per foot per day was totally justifiable to them and ensured that the riff raff like us stayed out. Their daily dinghy dock charge was $40 per day, which just about sealed the place up against visiting yatistas. They did however sell us fuel, and unknown to them we did use the ‘public’ dock outside the marina to tie up our dinghy until the security guards found out. This, we found the last couple of days we were in Herradura. But we didn’t need it anymore by then, we had picked up Glen, Tony’s brother and were weighing anchor to leave Herradura.
For the first 4 days of our stay in Herradura we dinghied ashore, the landings were always a bit nerve racking as the swells which make this a rolly anchorage became breaking rollers on the beach. Mostly Tony has mastered these landings now, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not nervous every time we attempt them. Unfortunately we could not get internet on the boat in Herradura, or since leaving there, so this is the first place where the bars and restaurants ashore have internet. While waiting for Glen, we tried snorkeling in the recommended parts of the bay, but the water was too turbid, as it gets when its been windy for awhile.
Herradura does have a first class supermarket about a half mile walk there and taxi back and its very close to Jaco, a bustling lively beach town which we saw with Glen and his friend Catherine who became our tour guide for a day.
This tour with Catherine was the highlight of our time in Herradura. Catherine, who is the sister of one of Glen’s customers is a Realtor based in Jaco. She’s lived in Costa Rica for about 20 years, speaks perfect Spanish and has a Tico son called Rudolfo, who accompanied us on part of our day.
She picked us up at 0300 and drove us along the coast for starters, through Jaco, showed us the beach, where she served us ice cold beer, then down the coast again to Hermosa Bay, which has competition size surf. The world championship surfing competitions will be held there this year. Then beyond this beach we stopped in a little village on the water whose name I cannot remember and cannot find on our charts. This village is still a quiet little resort not yet hit by the gringo real estate wave, but it won’t take long. It reminded me of Crescent Beach near White Rock about 30 years ago.
Here we saw Macaw parrots flying wild in twos which is a beautiful sight, we drank coconut milk for $1 per coconut – the boy selling them had just climbed the tree to pick them and cut them open, very enterprising.
From there Catherine took us inland driving on potholed gravel and rock roads through beautiful countryside where we saw so many different plants and trees, trees with all types of symbiant plants growing on them, and acres of grassland which was a bit yellow because this is the dry season. It must look incredible when its all green in the rainy season. As we drove Catherine told us about her times in these areas many years ago and about the gringo developments which seem to start in areas which are bound to fail, we drove past 2 such luxury condo developments which were not finished and had been abandoned.
Then we came to a stretch of road along a river which had many small cantinas, this is where local people like to go for drives on their weekends and enjoy the relative cool air. We stopped at a cantina with lookout platforms onto the river and watched cattle grazing along the shore, played with a couple of little dogs, one of which kept nipping us at the back of our heels, obviously wanting us to join the herd down by the river. This was a very beautiful romantic setting, where a person could really get to like Costa Rica.
So then back to Jaco and dinner in a fine restaurant on the beach. Catherine fetched her son from home to join us and we all had a very nice dinner as we learned more about the area from our very qualified guide. Thanks again Catherine, we had a wonderful day.
We left Herradura at 0600 on the 14th February and motored all day until we reached Manuel Antonio Park just south of Quepos at 1500. A well timed day, perhaps a little dull for Glen’s first passage, though he a Tony did spot whales breaching off in the distance. This type of day at sea is quite welcome to Tony and I after the many windy days we’ve spent and will spend thrashing through seas with our hearts in our mouths – well I should speak for myself.
Manuel Antonio Park anchorage is beautiful though very rolly; we tucked ourselves in to the south east corner of Playa Espadilla, and once settled in Tony and Glen went ashore for a trek. The parks here all seem to close at 1600 hrs which meant that we had the bay to ourselves. And the clean-up crew comes out of hiding to see what the tourists left behind, or just to reclaim their space. As Glen and Tony were the only people on the beach they did not scare the raccoons, which we learned the next day aren’t scared of people anyway.
The trails through the park are gorgeous, some are quite a climb, everyone’s looking for monkeys which we heard from the boat early in the morning before the people arrive. They’re called howler monkeys but their sound is more like a deep bark, and I don’t think I’d like to run into the creature that makes that noise. Groups of people are led around by guides carrying magnifying scopes on their shoulders. When the guide stops to show them sights like tiny tree frogs through the scopes they can take photos through the scope.
We didn’t have a guide but we did see some neat things. Glen went ahead of us as he really needed a workout, and we wanted to walk quietly to see what was hiding in the jungle. We saw a really funny little animal whose name we don’t know, about as big as a small dog which a rat-like head and a but like a coconut husk, quite a timid little thing, but we stayed quiet and watched it for some time. Again, incredible fauna, such unusual trees and plants. Though some of the plants we do have in the rest of the world as house plants because they need the heat. For instance many trees have split leaf philodendroms growing all over them, and then wild orchids which somehow root themselves up in the branches.
We met up and walked another trail together where we did see a little white faced monkey who seems to like being watched by crowds, and a very lazy sloth who just wanted to be left alone. Both of these animals were close to the ranger station and are probably fed to keep them around. After all the tourists want to see monkeys.
We walked out of the park and into a thriving, bustling crazy little town where the beached are full of tourists, I suppose this must be where the tourists who come to Quepos go for their beach experience. There were lots of small hotels and cabinas, and a great atmosphere. We sat in a nice bar and had lunch and talked out teak with our waiter, a very proud Tico who knew a lot about wood, so does Glen of course, and we have lots of teak on our boat – so we had tons to talk about.
So back to the boat, we walked along the beach and when we came to one of those streams where the water is running back out into the ocean (and shoe removal is necessary), some enterprising fishermen had placed their panga across the stream so that we could walk across shoes on. Before crossing the fisherman said ‘we work for tips’, we all looked in our pockets for change but couldn’t find it, so we decided to go for the stream. The bridge attendant would not have this, and offered us free service, he even held my hand to help me walk across his boat and was very gracious. On second search we did find a little money and a can of coke for him and we were all happy.
We had an early meal and an early night as we were heading for Drake Bay the next day leaving at 0600. With approximately 12 hours of light, and we like to arrive in new places in the light, we often leave at dawn.
Drake Bay, another really lovely place with hundreds of acres of National Park, eco-tourist lodges, nice anchorage, not much in the way of groceries, but Glen did manage a phone call at a little store on the shore. We didn’t realize it was Valentine’s day until the end of the previous day and we were away from phones. Glen stayed ashore that night, he needed to get off the boat and sleep in the proper bed and have a real shower. He had a very unique experience in a Hotel without windows or walls and no electric light in the rooms. He had dinner with a group of travelers all seated around the same table and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Left Drake Bay for Isla Del Cano next day at 0730 arriving around mid-day where we really enjoyed the snorkeling. The water was fairly clear – Tony went diving there and Glen and I snorkeled. There were a lot of little stinging things in the water so I put on my luge suit and had a very enjoyable day.
We are in very hot country now and without being submerged in the ocean for a few hours each day the heat can be intolerable.
We left Isla Del Cano at about 1530 in a nice breeze and sailed until the wind died around sunset and motored the rest of the way to Golfito. We worked our usual 3 hour watches, Glen going on watch with Tony and motored through the night. There was quite a bit of boat traffic to keep things interesting, half a moon to give some light from midnight on, and a couple of incredible shooting stars, which shot horizontally across about 1/8th of the sky. Never saw that type of shooting star before.
As we’d made good way we had to slow down a bit when we turned into Golfo Dulce so that we could enter the channel in the light.
Our friend Gary on Pursuit II was already here, we checked out the possibility of mooring in a marina – no - $2.50 per foot, so here we sit anchored in very calm water. We take our dinghy in to a dinghy dock owned by Land and Sea, an enterprising couple of ex-cruisers, for $5 per day where we can shower and use their facilities, nice cool patio, beer for $1.50 and should be able to use internet.
Glen has gone now, he wants to spend the next part of his vacation sight seeing on land and has friends back in Jaco that he wants to visit. So we’re planning to move on to Panama on Saturday morning.What to say about Golfito, it’s a great stop-over, there’s about 15 sailboats anchored around us – some of whom we have encountered before in our travels. We’ve met a few cruisers here who cruise between Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvadore, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and have been doing so for quite a few years. I don’t know why that seems surprising really, I suppose it’s a bit like the Med cruisers who continue to cruise the Med. There’s so much to see and mostly these countries are in-expensive as long as you don’t want to stay in a marina.
Our next post should be from Panama
From the 5th February we were anchored in Herradura Bay close to the entrance to Los Suenos Marina and Resort. This Marina housed mostly a sport fishing charter fleet aswell as power boats owned by inhabitants of the multi million dollar condominiums in the resort, so the charge of $3.00 per foot per day was totally justifiable to them and ensured that the riff raff like us stayed out. Their daily dinghy dock charge was $40 per day, which just about sealed the place up against visiting yatistas. They did however sell us fuel, and unknown to them we did use the ‘public’ dock outside the marina to tie up our dinghy until the security guards found out. This, we found the last couple of days we were in Herradura. But we didn’t need it anymore by then, we had picked up Glen, Tony’s brother and were weighing anchor to leave Herradura.
For the first 4 days of our stay in Herradura we dinghied ashore, the landings were always a bit nerve racking as the swells which make this a rolly anchorage became breaking rollers on the beach. Mostly Tony has mastered these landings now, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not nervous every time we attempt them. Unfortunately we could not get internet on the boat in Herradura, or since leaving there, so this is the first place where the bars and restaurants ashore have internet. While waiting for Glen, we tried snorkeling in the recommended parts of the bay, but the water was too turbid, as it gets when its been windy for awhile.
Herradura does have a first class supermarket about a half mile walk there and taxi back and its very close to Jaco, a bustling lively beach town which we saw with Glen and his friend Catherine who became our tour guide for a day.
This tour with Catherine was the highlight of our time in Herradura. Catherine, who is the sister of one of Glen’s customers is a Realtor based in Jaco. She’s lived in Costa Rica for about 20 years, speaks perfect Spanish and has a Tico son called Rudolfo, who accompanied us on part of our day.
She picked us up at 0300 and drove us along the coast for starters, through Jaco, showed us the beach, where she served us ice cold beer, then down the coast again to Hermosa Bay, which has competition size surf. The world championship surfing competitions will be held there this year. Then beyond this beach we stopped in a little village on the water whose name I cannot remember and cannot find on our charts. This village is still a quiet little resort not yet hit by the gringo real estate wave, but it won’t take long. It reminded me of Crescent Beach near White Rock about 30 years ago.
Here we saw Macaw parrots flying wild in twos which is a beautiful sight, we drank coconut milk for $1 per coconut – the boy selling them had just climbed the tree to pick them and cut them open, very enterprising.
From there Catherine took us inland driving on potholed gravel and rock roads through beautiful countryside where we saw so many different plants and trees, trees with all types of symbiant plants growing on them, and acres of grassland which was a bit yellow because this is the dry season. It must look incredible when its all green in the rainy season. As we drove Catherine told us about her times in these areas many years ago and about the gringo developments which seem to start in areas which are bound to fail, we drove past 2 such luxury condo developments which were not finished and had been abandoned.
Then we came to a stretch of road along a river which had many small cantinas, this is where local people like to go for drives on their weekends and enjoy the relative cool air. We stopped at a cantina with lookout platforms onto the river and watched cattle grazing along the shore, played with a couple of little dogs, one of which kept nipping us at the back of our heels, obviously wanting us to join the herd down by the river. This was a very beautiful romantic setting, where a person could really get to like Costa Rica.
So then back to Jaco and dinner in a fine restaurant on the beach. Catherine fetched her son from home to join us and we all had a very nice dinner as we learned more about the area from our very qualified guide. Thanks again Catherine, we had a wonderful day.
We left Herradura at 0600 on the 14th February and motored all day until we reached Manuel Antonio Park just south of Quepos at 1500. A well timed day, perhaps a little dull for Glen’s first passage, though he a Tony did spot whales breaching off in the distance. This type of day at sea is quite welcome to Tony and I after the many windy days we’ve spent and will spend thrashing through seas with our hearts in our mouths – well I should speak for myself.
Manuel Antonio Park anchorage is beautiful though very rolly; we tucked ourselves in to the south east corner of Playa Espadilla, and once settled in Tony and Glen went ashore for a trek. The parks here all seem to close at 1600 hrs which meant that we had the bay to ourselves. And the clean-up crew comes out of hiding to see what the tourists left behind, or just to reclaim their space. As Glen and Tony were the only people on the beach they did not scare the raccoons, which we learned the next day aren’t scared of people anyway.
The trails through the park are gorgeous, some are quite a climb, everyone’s looking for monkeys which we heard from the boat early in the morning before the people arrive. They’re called howler monkeys but their sound is more like a deep bark, and I don’t think I’d like to run into the creature that makes that noise. Groups of people are led around by guides carrying magnifying scopes on their shoulders. When the guide stops to show them sights like tiny tree frogs through the scopes they can take photos through the scope.
We didn’t have a guide but we did see some neat things. Glen went ahead of us as he really needed a workout, and we wanted to walk quietly to see what was hiding in the jungle. We saw a really funny little animal whose name we don’t know, about as big as a small dog which a rat-like head and a but like a coconut husk, quite a timid little thing, but we stayed quiet and watched it for some time. Again, incredible fauna, such unusual trees and plants. Though some of the plants we do have in the rest of the world as house plants because they need the heat. For instance many trees have split leaf philodendroms growing all over them, and then wild orchids which somehow root themselves up in the branches.
We met up and walked another trail together where we did see a little white faced monkey who seems to like being watched by crowds, and a very lazy sloth who just wanted to be left alone. Both of these animals were close to the ranger station and are probably fed to keep them around. After all the tourists want to see monkeys.
We walked out of the park and into a thriving, bustling crazy little town where the beached are full of tourists, I suppose this must be where the tourists who come to Quepos go for their beach experience. There were lots of small hotels and cabinas, and a great atmosphere. We sat in a nice bar and had lunch and talked out teak with our waiter, a very proud Tico who knew a lot about wood, so does Glen of course, and we have lots of teak on our boat – so we had tons to talk about.
So back to the boat, we walked along the beach and when we came to one of those streams where the water is running back out into the ocean (and shoe removal is necessary), some enterprising fishermen had placed their panga across the stream so that we could walk across shoes on. Before crossing the fisherman said ‘we work for tips’, we all looked in our pockets for change but couldn’t find it, so we decided to go for the stream. The bridge attendant would not have this, and offered us free service, he even held my hand to help me walk across his boat and was very gracious. On second search we did find a little money and a can of coke for him and we were all happy.
We had an early meal and an early night as we were heading for Drake Bay the next day leaving at 0600. With approximately 12 hours of light, and we like to arrive in new places in the light, we often leave at dawn.
Drake Bay, another really lovely place with hundreds of acres of National Park, eco-tourist lodges, nice anchorage, not much in the way of groceries, but Glen did manage a phone call at a little store on the shore. We didn’t realize it was Valentine’s day until the end of the previous day and we were away from phones. Glen stayed ashore that night, he needed to get off the boat and sleep in the proper bed and have a real shower. He had a very unique experience in a Hotel without windows or walls and no electric light in the rooms. He had dinner with a group of travelers all seated around the same table and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Left Drake Bay for Isla Del Cano next day at 0730 arriving around mid-day where we really enjoyed the snorkeling. The water was fairly clear – Tony went diving there and Glen and I snorkeled. There were a lot of little stinging things in the water so I put on my luge suit and had a very enjoyable day.
We are in very hot country now and without being submerged in the ocean for a few hours each day the heat can be intolerable.
We left Isla Del Cano at about 1530 in a nice breeze and sailed until the wind died around sunset and motored the rest of the way to Golfito. We worked our usual 3 hour watches, Glen going on watch with Tony and motored through the night. There was quite a bit of boat traffic to keep things interesting, half a moon to give some light from midnight on, and a couple of incredible shooting stars, which shot horizontally across about 1/8th of the sky. Never saw that type of shooting star before.
As we’d made good way we had to slow down a bit when we turned into Golfo Dulce so that we could enter the channel in the light.
Our friend Gary on Pursuit II was already here, we checked out the possibility of mooring in a marina – no - $2.50 per foot, so here we sit anchored in very calm water. We take our dinghy in to a dinghy dock owned by Land and Sea, an enterprising couple of ex-cruisers, for $5 per day where we can shower and use their facilities, nice cool patio, beer for $1.50 and should be able to use internet.
Glen has gone now, he wants to spend the next part of his vacation sight seeing on land and has friends back in Jaco that he wants to visit. So we’re planning to move on to Panama on Saturday morning.What to say about Golfito, it’s a great stop-over, there’s about 15 sailboats anchored around us – some of whom we have encountered before in our travels. We’ve met a few cruisers here who cruise between Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvadore, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and have been doing so for quite a few years. I don’t know why that seems surprising really, I suppose it’s a bit like the Med cruisers who continue to cruise the Med. There’s so much to see and mostly these countries are in-expensive as long as you don’t want to stay in a marina.
Our next post should be from Panama
Comments