Leaving Golfo de Papagallo
Leaving Golfo de Papagallo – some very beautiful places, but for us marred by too much wind and very swelly
We estimated we would need about 14 hours to get to our next anchorage in Bahia Carillo, which we had on good authority was around the corner and out of the windy zone. We like to arrive in a new place in the daylight, especially in areas that have many reefs – which most of the anchorages we have encountered in Costa Rica have – so we got up at 0300 hrs last Thursday (not Friday), 27th January. Leaving in the dark is ok because we had already looked at the exit many times while at anchor, plus we already had a track on our chart plotter to follow out.
So, peace of cake – until our mighty Lofrans windlass showed Tony its latest catch, another anchor and rhode with deflated, sunken marker buoy. The local panga owners here make anchors that look like multi tine grappling hooks out of rebar. By the time Tony extricated that !!!###****&&&*****//////! from our anchor he was ready to go back to bed, when one tine was freed up the bloody thing turned and caught again.
(the reference to Friday above? Some sailors believe that starting a trip on Friday is inviting bad luck. I was blissfully ignorant of that until about a month ago when I heard it for the first time – but now that the idea is successfully burned into my simple brain I never want to leave on Fridays).
We did have a nice brisk breeze for the first couple of hours of that day, but then alas we reverted to Mr. Perkins, who motored us to our next stop, an uneventful easy passage to Carillo Bay, and we arrived with time to spare before the sunset at 1745.
Where have all the dolphins gone?
Long time passing,
Where have all the dolphins gone?
I actually did see one dolphin in the whole 13 hour day, and because we have seen so many in our travels I miss them. But perhaps they only come around us when there’s a lot of nervous tension on the boat, and this was a very relaxed passage.
Carillo Bay
A beautiful bay with a long sandy beach, palm trees, passable snorkeling, quite a nice walk along the fabulous beach. We found an old abandoned bar/restaurant which had the best view in the whole bay – looking out into the anchorage, also looking directly west into the sunset. We don’t know how long its been since this bar/restaurant was a thriving business, but we ignored the ‘no entry’ signs and went in to look around and dream a little as to what we could do with such a place. The Tony/Nancy Bar – God, would we ever get any work done? We found a very small realty office down the road and made enquiries. Apparently the Costa Rica Government has bought back the leases on properties which exist along the waterfront in order to prevent what appears to be the inevitable touristization of Costa Rica. Particularly this part of the coast where it is very beautiful and there really isn’t anything to put tourists off. Though
we have been surprised at how few boats we are meeting along the way.
In the corner of the small bay which we were using to land our dinghy – a bit rocky but very little surf to contend with – is a group of small fairly run-down looking shacks, some of which seem to house families including all age groups and one in particular which houses Hector and an array of very new deep freezers and a very large stainless steel walk-in freezer. This seems to be the hub of their fishing cooperative. They also have a hose with good water. Actually all of the water is good in Costa Rica. So we spent a little time our last morning in Carillo bartering for some very delicious langosta – lobster tails, which though were too small to be included with the rest of their catch, which Hector was willing to pay for, were good enough to charge us $4 per kilo. Ah well they were very good dipped in garlic butter, a squeeze of lime and my home made bread.
A good lunch before setting off for a night sail to our next destination; Bahia Ballena about 40 miles away and around the corner into the Gulf of Nicoya.
Which brings us to another story.
We left at about 1730 hours motoring, watched another lovely sunset which always seem to look so much more dramatic when reflecting off clouds. Clouds? Quite a lot of them seemed to be accumulating. Towering cumulous which always make me nervous – Tony likes to assure me that they are just typical mid-summer type clouds which just dissipate – really? These did not seem to be dissipating and the further south we headed the thicker and deeper grey they became. Off in the distance we could see that they were raining. As it got darker the clouds did appear to thin out, and we were settling into our usual night-time routine. Tony was to take the first night watch from 0800 – 1100 hrs, so I went below to try to get some sleep, it was extremely hot and muggy. Yes that muggy word definitely applied to the degree of humidity and the feel of the pressure in the air.
So I tried to read myself to sleep, put in the ear plugs so that I could not hear the motor. By about 2015 I was still awake and had been conscious of the noise that the radar makes, a small distant bleeping sound (ear plugs remember) and then of Tony’s nervous activity. Then I noticed that I was feeling spray through the portholes, so I jumped up, pulled out the ear plugs and asked Tony if it was raining. He was still trying to make out why he couldn’t see much outside and the radar screen was showing solid white mass all around us. Raining was hardly the word. I ran around closing all of the portlights, ran up into the cockpit to see the deluge all around us. The canvas cover over our cockpit was not holding the water out - I guess it had become so dry that the fibres were not swelling up to close the in between holes.
Just to put this in perspective – we have not seen any kind of rain mostly since leaving BC and maybe a little on the Oregon coast. We have certainly not seen anything like the monsoon we were experiencing. So what does a smart sailor do with all of this rain? Strip off and have a very thorough shower, thank God that the boat is finally getting all of the crusted salt washed off, and wish it wasn’t pitch dark with no visibility at all, so that we could put out our water catcher and harness this wonderful free water.
It was a pretty exciting couple of hours. We were a bit nervous about our total lack of visibility, but we had all of our running lights on – so if there were any boats around us they’d see us. We did have some lightning and thunder, but there really isn’t much point in worrying about that – can’t do anything to change it.
We came into Bahia Ballena at about 0645, dropped anchor, had a bowl of cereal and then went to sleep.
We estimated we would need about 14 hours to get to our next anchorage in Bahia Carillo, which we had on good authority was around the corner and out of the windy zone. We like to arrive in a new place in the daylight, especially in areas that have many reefs – which most of the anchorages we have encountered in Costa Rica have – so we got up at 0300 hrs last Thursday (not Friday), 27th January. Leaving in the dark is ok because we had already looked at the exit many times while at anchor, plus we already had a track on our chart plotter to follow out.
So, peace of cake – until our mighty Lofrans windlass showed Tony its latest catch, another anchor and rhode with deflated, sunken marker buoy. The local panga owners here make anchors that look like multi tine grappling hooks out of rebar. By the time Tony extricated that !!!###****&&&*****//////! from our anchor he was ready to go back to bed, when one tine was freed up the bloody thing turned and caught again.
(the reference to Friday above? Some sailors believe that starting a trip on Friday is inviting bad luck. I was blissfully ignorant of that until about a month ago when I heard it for the first time – but now that the idea is successfully burned into my simple brain I never want to leave on Fridays).
We did have a nice brisk breeze for the first couple of hours of that day, but then alas we reverted to Mr. Perkins, who motored us to our next stop, an uneventful easy passage to Carillo Bay, and we arrived with time to spare before the sunset at 1745.
Where have all the dolphins gone?
Long time passing,
Where have all the dolphins gone?
I actually did see one dolphin in the whole 13 hour day, and because we have seen so many in our travels I miss them. But perhaps they only come around us when there’s a lot of nervous tension on the boat, and this was a very relaxed passage.
Carillo Bay
A beautiful bay with a long sandy beach, palm trees, passable snorkeling, quite a nice walk along the fabulous beach. We found an old abandoned bar/restaurant which had the best view in the whole bay – looking out into the anchorage, also looking directly west into the sunset. We don’t know how long its been since this bar/restaurant was a thriving business, but we ignored the ‘no entry’ signs and went in to look around and dream a little as to what we could do with such a place. The Tony/Nancy Bar – God, would we ever get any work done? We found a very small realty office down the road and made enquiries. Apparently the Costa Rica Government has bought back the leases on properties which exist along the waterfront in order to prevent what appears to be the inevitable touristization of Costa Rica. Particularly this part of the coast where it is very beautiful and there really isn’t anything to put tourists off. Though
we have been surprised at how few boats we are meeting along the way.
In the corner of the small bay which we were using to land our dinghy – a bit rocky but very little surf to contend with – is a group of small fairly run-down looking shacks, some of which seem to house families including all age groups and one in particular which houses Hector and an array of very new deep freezers and a very large stainless steel walk-in freezer. This seems to be the hub of their fishing cooperative. They also have a hose with good water. Actually all of the water is good in Costa Rica. So we spent a little time our last morning in Carillo bartering for some very delicious langosta – lobster tails, which though were too small to be included with the rest of their catch, which Hector was willing to pay for, were good enough to charge us $4 per kilo. Ah well they were very good dipped in garlic butter, a squeeze of lime and my home made bread.
A good lunch before setting off for a night sail to our next destination; Bahia Ballena about 40 miles away and around the corner into the Gulf of Nicoya.
Which brings us to another story.
We left at about 1730 hours motoring, watched another lovely sunset which always seem to look so much more dramatic when reflecting off clouds. Clouds? Quite a lot of them seemed to be accumulating. Towering cumulous which always make me nervous – Tony likes to assure me that they are just typical mid-summer type clouds which just dissipate – really? These did not seem to be dissipating and the further south we headed the thicker and deeper grey they became. Off in the distance we could see that they were raining. As it got darker the clouds did appear to thin out, and we were settling into our usual night-time routine. Tony was to take the first night watch from 0800 – 1100 hrs, so I went below to try to get some sleep, it was extremely hot and muggy. Yes that muggy word definitely applied to the degree of humidity and the feel of the pressure in the air.
So I tried to read myself to sleep, put in the ear plugs so that I could not hear the motor. By about 2015 I was still awake and had been conscious of the noise that the radar makes, a small distant bleeping sound (ear plugs remember) and then of Tony’s nervous activity. Then I noticed that I was feeling spray through the portholes, so I jumped up, pulled out the ear plugs and asked Tony if it was raining. He was still trying to make out why he couldn’t see much outside and the radar screen was showing solid white mass all around us. Raining was hardly the word. I ran around closing all of the portlights, ran up into the cockpit to see the deluge all around us. The canvas cover over our cockpit was not holding the water out - I guess it had become so dry that the fibres were not swelling up to close the in between holes.
Just to put this in perspective – we have not seen any kind of rain mostly since leaving BC and maybe a little on the Oregon coast. We have certainly not seen anything like the monsoon we were experiencing. So what does a smart sailor do with all of this rain? Strip off and have a very thorough shower, thank God that the boat is finally getting all of the crusted salt washed off, and wish it wasn’t pitch dark with no visibility at all, so that we could put out our water catcher and harness this wonderful free water.
It was a pretty exciting couple of hours. We were a bit nervous about our total lack of visibility, but we had all of our running lights on – so if there were any boats around us they’d see us. We did have some lightning and thunder, but there really isn’t much point in worrying about that – can’t do anything to change it.
We came into Bahia Ballena at about 0645, dropped anchor, had a bowl of cereal and then went to sleep.
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