06:45 Everything finally stowed and I'm off and running. I cruised slowly down to the car ferry dock and watched while he cast off his lines and headed out. Maybe it was because we were at the peak of the high tide, but he took a little different course than I had expected, running to the north of the white buoy and then to the southwest almost toward the south end of Isla San Lucas until we had cleared the shallow water. I figured that he draws about the same amount of water that we do and it's always spooky to go into shallow waters you don't know.
08:30 Anchored off the Pacific Oasis Hotel pier at Playa Naranja, a very pretty spot. Although open to the northeast, the anchorage is totally protected from the Pacific swell behind several large islands. I spent the morning continuing my boat cleanup, scraping and painting some of the rusty equipment we have on board, until about noon when a light rain began to fall. Unfortunately, it was just enough to interupt my painting but not enough to help much with the deck washing, so I went over to the hotel exploring.
The hotel is about a half mile south of the ferry landing and almost hidden in the trees behind a curving beach. A half dozen palapas of various shapes stand along the shoreline and paths lead back over green lawns past a double swimming pool to the hotel and restaurant. The rooms are motel like cottages half encircling the pool. Although it was Saturday the place was almost deserted. A single Costa Rican family was all I saw at the beach, pool, and restaurant. I went to the office and placed a call to Nan for a charge of 100 colones, the highest we've been charged down here where there's a working telephone on almost every street corner. After looking over the grounds they have howler monkeys in the trees and a beautiful Scarlet Macaw in a cage in front of the restaurant I went in and ordered lunch, again being the only person there except for a couple of locals talking to the bartender. The food was fair, but overpriced. I guess they have to charge more to keep the doors open.
The drizzle kept up all afternoon, so I just went back to the boat and read a book. It's nice to be out of the noise and dirt of the city for a while.
I spent the day on the boat never even put down the Metz. I finished my painting in the morning sunshine and had planned on moving over to Jesusita in the afternoon, a place we haven't been but which others have said is nice; but it started to rain again and I got to reading my book, and I just never made it. That's OK, I now have plenty of water to do a load of wash, both wash and rinse. I wish I could figure out an easy way to shunt the water directly into our tank; I can only collect about 15 gallons at a time with our buckets. I did find that we were putting a little water directly into the salon. The small window on the upper deck suddenly started leaking and I had to get a pan to catch the drip. I'll get out the silicone tomorrow and rework the bedding.
When I got settled down I decided to see if I could find my doctor friend, Casper, who said he lived somewhere near here. It wasn't very hard. I went over to the beach where a Tico lady was picking something from the tide flats and asked her where Casper lived. She just turned and pointed to a house hidden back in the trees and said, "Aqui". When I followed a stone paved path up to the house buried in the jungle and knocked on the door another Tico lady told me that Casper was in Puntrenas today but would be back on the four o'clock ferry and would come home from the ferry dock in his "lancha" I'd stumbled right into his front yard. Sure enough, about 4:30 Casper arrived driving a little boat with three other Ticos aboard and a two horse outboard on the stern. I gather he has quite an extended Tico family. He invited me to come for a visit but I took a rain check since I'd already committed to a potluck on the beach with Panache and another boat called Climax which we'd met in Zihuatanejo.
On the way back to the boat the Johnson started sputtering just like it had last week at Ballena, but this time I noticed a white precipitation in my little fuel filter so I decided I'd better investigate. The fuel in the tank looked OK but when I dumped it out into a bucket and then poured it back again I had over an inch of water left in the bucket; it had gotten up to the level of the sump. In four and one half years this is the first time I've dumped the tank it's a wonder it hadn't caused a problem before!
The potluck was kind of fun. We held it on the beach of an abandoned hotel where old mango trees with lots of fruit on them attracted parrots and monkeys and, incidentally, lots of mosquitos. (I had to go back to the boat for my can of repellant) There are five in the crew of Climax, Tom and Donna, Malcom and Janet, and another man, Carl. Two more, ???? and Ellen, from a little trimaran from Santa Cruz called "Sisu", plus Doran, Donna, and I, made a total of ten people and all had good things to eat. I had one fillet of trigger fish left and had thawed it for dinner, so I cut it up in thin strips and saute'd it in soy sauce along with a can of water chestnuts. I turned out pretty good people couldn't believe it was trigger fish.
After watching them for a while I went up to Casper's jungle home. I found him alone except for a boy he introduced as Juan Carlos whom Casper was teaching to type on a battered portable. Casper, who the other day in Puntarenas was sober as could be, had been drinking rum and today was feeling like talking and philosophizing. He's a pretty bitter old man when officialdom is mentioned, either here or in the States. I gather that after serving in the Air Force in World War II he went to medical school and became a cardiac surgeon, practicing on both coasts over the years. Sometime in the late sixties he must have had a run in with the medical authorities who, he says, booted him out of the States. He came down to San Jose' and, after some attempt to work in the children's hospital there, again gave up on the bureaucracy and moved out here where he lives with his extended Tico family. He has spent a lot of time writing books of poetry, one of which he showed me. It reflects his attitude, deploring what he calls the "collective mind", and predicting the doom of society. It's a shame he seems such a happy and sharp old guy when he's with other people. As I left he walked with me down to the beach and introduced me to the people on the steel boat. They are Santiago and Ragga who he says are Basques from a small country between Spain and France, which could only be Andorra.
I had intended to go on over to Tortuga today but somehow never got around to it. It started drizzling in the afternoon and I got to reading a wild tale by Jane Auel and just never got the hook up. Doran and Donna are still here and Donna brought me a couple of pieces of a cake she baked to top off my dinner of chicken. I'm doing pretty well on getting the freezer cleaned out. One batch of pork chops and it will be empty and ready to shut down for our haul-out.
The ride across was uneventful and the estuary hasn't changed still pretty much the same the same bunch of boats anchored in front of Eggert's as last week. I anchored next to Climax and Felix who were in doing their final provisioning before heading for Gofito. I had decided my project for the day was to change Gimmy's oil; so, after letting the engine room cool while I went to the "fish place" for lunch, I went to work on that messy job. This time turned out a little messier than usual because of a damaged spout on one of my five gallon buckets of oil. I ended up having to pour from the bucket into a large dishpan and then from the dishpan into the engine. It was four o'clock before I got the waste oil hauled over to Eggert's and the mess all cleaned up.
It was a hot one today! The high cloud cover which has been keeping the days in the high eighties and giving us our afternoon rains took a vacation and let the sun beat down, and even the wind took the morning off. I was on the upper deck doing some scraping and sanding, getting the aft running light fixture ready to repaint, and just about got cooked. It would have been OK if I been out where I could have gotten into the water to cool off once in a while, but here I just had to come in under the shade every few minutes, and the shade in the salon was hot!
By mid-afternoon a breeze came up and things started to cool down so I wandered off to town to buy some paint and other goodies and on the way back ran into Juan Pescado at Yacht Services. Somehow the subject of tapping on the boats came up and he had an answer. He says the tapping noises are made by barnacle eating fish. That might also explain why the barnacle buildup down here has been so much less. He also said that the druming noises we hear are made by a fish called a "Croaker" which makes the noise with its air bladder. Our fish book says that the Corbina, an excellent whitefish which is on the menu at most of the restaurants around here, is a croaker and is found on shallow, sandy bottoms. Must be what the local fishermen are taking. Interesting!
I was back at the boat by ten and started getting ready to move out on the eleven o'clock tide. It's a neap tide of only about seven feet today so I wanted to hit the peak. There's a shallow spot in the channel which I haven't found a way around and I don't like Charley telling me we have less than ten feet of water. I had things stowed and the ports closed right on schedule. Panache was on the way in and I met them just off Isla Guayabo where we transferred his long hose regulator. I may do a bit of bottom cleaning while I'm out at Tortuga. It's really easier to clean the bottom while it's in the water and it would be nice to save a day on the ramp.
13:30 Anchored at Tortuga. One sailboat here, the Guaihir from San Francisco, and the Calypso and Bay Islander are parked off while their usual groups of tourists play on the beach. I'd just got the hook down when a guy came paddling out in one of the fiberglass canoes they provide for their customers. He was a businessman from Peru, up here on a two week vacation. Neat guy! Spoke very good English which he learned while spending ten years in the U.S..
I spent the afternoon reading and running Gennie to make water. The water is clearer than it was the last time I was here. I hope it stays that way while I work on the bottom tomorrow..
About the time I'd gotten that job finished and was having a bite of lunch Doran and Donna showed up on Panache with a bunch of people on the boat. They were taking some locals out for a day sail and came to Tortuga to play. It is a nice place for that, especially when the water is as nice as it was today.
In the afternoon I worked on the prop and keel using Doran's long hose regulator with a tank of air in the Metz. That works pretty well. His thirty foot hose is long enough to reach one whole side of the boat and you don't have the tank banging you on the head as you work. I should have put together a light weight belt though, I spent a lot of energy keeping myself down with no weight at all on my back. I got the prop and rudder pretty well cleaned up and then scraped the keel from stem to stern. For some reason the barnacles seem to collect on those two places. The rest of the hull is in pretty good shape, with nothing but a thin coating of an easily removed brown algae. I decide to let the haulout crew clean that up as they sanded the bottom.
Finished fillng the water tank today. It came out just about where I'd predicted figuring 1/2 our normal water usage. We've gotten pretty consistant in our usage and I can usually predict within a few minutes when the tank will be full. The washing machine is the big user, taking as much as we use in two days for other things. It sure helps when we can collect rain water for washing.
"Mama?"
"Yes."
"Mama, when did Daddy go to the States?"
"He hasn't gone to the States."
"Last year, in September. When did he go?"
"I don't know, maybe October. Why?"
"I want to christen my skateboard."
"Have you talked to Daddy?"
"No."
"You should give him a call."
"I went by Tommy's Bar but he wasn't there."
"Give him a call. Tell the boys to bring home some fruit."
All kinds of adventures today including getting shot at - and I had enough anchor cranking to last me for quite a while. The day started out quietly enough, no wind, no clouds, just a big bright hot ball of a sun rising above the horizon. I did the log and my regular maintenance chores then started Gennie and fixed myself a big breakfast of bacon and eggs. When I came up from the galley to eat it I found that Guayhir was snuggling up real close, almost ready to bump us. I had anchored a good two hundred feet to the west of her and was well clear when the wind was blowing. With little or no wind, however, the weight of the chain alone was sufficient to keep Sea Raven in position while little Guayhir, with evidently a lot of lightweight nylon rode out, just drifted over our way. I started Gimmy and backed away, but after eating my breakfast decided that it would be a good idea to move.
Since our water tank was full there really wasn't any reason to stay longer at Tortuga so, once I'd hauled in the chain, I decided to do a little exploring. I went over to the Negritos, through the passage between the mainland and the inner island, and down the passage inside Cedros and Jesusita islands. I'd made a tentative date to go to dinner at the French restaurant with Bill and Deb on Margorie Grace, but it was such a hot day and so nice out in the islands that I decided to find a nice spot to anchor and stay out instead. I went up almost to the ferry landing at Paquera before chickening out at the shallow water (the ferry wasn't there to follow in), then ran around Punta Llorona past Islas Pajaros and Gitana to Punta Gigante. I was planning on going through the channel to Playa Naranjo where I'd stayed last week, but as I past a little island called "Pan de Azucar" (Sugar Loaf) I saw what looked like a very inviting little cove on the lee side away from the swell. I stuck my nose in and turned a circle sure enough, nice flat bottom and open only to the west, a direction from which the wind seldom blows. But today it did! I'd just gotten all settled down and was about to put the Metz in the water and go ashore when a strong west wind came up. To make it worse, the current, which had been hardly noticable when I came in, now was strong enough to hold us exactly cross wind. Within ten minutes the old Sea Raven was rolling so badly I could hardly keep my feet.
Enough of that! I got out and, with some difficulty keeping my balance while I cranked, managed to get the hook up again. I ran on through the channel by Isla San Lucas toward Naranjo but, as I came out on the other side, noticed another little bay, this one protected from all sides. Well, why not? I ran in, turned my circle, and had just dropped the hook when, "Blam!", a splash in the water about a hundred feet off my port bow then another! Someone was shooting a rifle! It took a moment or two for a vague memory of something I'd read in the Sailing Directions to come back, something about a penal colony on Isla San Lucas. I didn't stop to look it up, I just hauled up the anchor for the third time today and moved out on the double.
Once at Naranjo, the rest of the day was quiet and peaceful. I finished off the last of the pork chops for dinner, so now the freezer's empty except for a few tortillas which will keep for a few days even if thawed. Tomorrow I'll clean anything out of the frige that might rot and we'll be ready to shut down for the haul-out.
Doran and Donna came over soon after I got settled. We drank a beer, heard about their parade with the fishermen yesterday it was La Dia de Virgin del Mar, the biggest festival in Puntarenas and they invited me to dinner on Panache. It rained on and off all afternoon and on through the night. Our dry spell seems to be broken, at least for now.
Those things settled, I went to the Cayuga for breakfast, took my samples to the laboratory to get tested for parasites, shopped for chain (our flopper-stopper chains are rusting badly and I want to replace them), went to pick up my rain flaps and found that my little girlfriend hadn't been able to do the sewing so I took the material over to the upholstery shop which I found open, then went back to the boat to get out the bottom paint and zincs and get ready to haul. By a quarter to one I was finally ready and went in to Eggert's to wait for my crew. Doran and Donna showed up about 1:00 and Pedro about 1:20. We ran out to the boat in the Metz, swung it on the deck, then had a cerveza while we talked about the hauling plan. By 2:10 we had hauled anchor and were in front of the yard waiting for the high slack tide.
They were just launching another, smaller boat as we waited but it was soon out of the way and, after one practice pass, I headed old Sea Raven for the slot between the two uprights on the rail car. A man on each of the uprights threw us a line and we were about halfway in when we stuck! I'd been worrying about that getting part way in and then not being able to back out but the two guys immediately jumped into the dirty water and, without masks or anything, dove to see what was wrong. When they came up they said all we needed was a little jiggling. Yep, after a few minutes of working with the lines and a couple of boat wakes later, we slid into place. That just started the process. It took four hours before we were finally high and dry on shore. In the meantime the "water men", a Tico of about forty and a Jamaican black of twenty-two, sure earned their pay for the day. They were in the water all that time, struggling to get huge props and blocks in place to hold the boat steady and upright. Complicating their job was the fact that whenever they would call for the cable operator to move the car up the ramp it would move in jerks. The car is really a train of three cars and somehow the last one had slipped off the rails and was binding, causing the jerking motion. That wasn't a problem in itself, but the crew were all very worried that the jerking would cause the supports holding the boat to slip, so they had to do a better than usual job of wedging us in place. In the meantime Pedro, Doran, Donna, and myself were trapped on the boat. It was a bit nerve-racking, especially before we understood what the problem was.
By 5:30 we were finally in place. It turns out that there is power available so I can keep the freezer going and batteries charged. We said goodby to Pedro and his crew, who had been waiting patiently to go to work since 3:00, and walked back to Yacht Services where I'd left my bike and Doran his dinghe. I had dinner at the Cayuga not bad, but not outstanding then went back to the boat where I talked for a while with the night watchman and the Jamaican kid, nice guys both. Tomorrow I've got to get organized!
The crew was here right at seven o'clock this morning and immediately began washing and sanding the bottom. There was Pedro, of course, and three good looking young men in their late teens or early twenties. They had a hose which one of them used to continually rinse both the bottom and the boys, including himself, while they sanded it with #80 wet or dry. It went slowly, at least as compared to the use of a pressure wash, but I think we're getting a good surface prep. Pedro worked on the thru hulls while I got the new zincs ready to put on once the painting is done. The zincs, except for the rudder shaft zinc which still looks like new, are all about half gone. I replaced the prop hub zinc at Coyote last November when I found it completely missing and it is half gone now. I guess I can't get a full year out of it; have to replace it about every six months or it gets loose and comes off. It's got a lot of bronze surface to protect in the bit 34 x 24 four bladed wheel. The line cutter teardrop and rudder shoe zincs are a year and nine months old, and the two big keel zincs have been on more than three years. I'll replace all but the rudder shaft zinc this time.
I also replaced the chain on our flopper-stoppers today, with the help of Luis, the guy who was doing most of the propping up work yesterday. He held a big sledge hammer for me while I pounded on a the rivet links at each end of the new chain. It cost $100 for 42 feet of new chain and the connecting links, but I'm so sick of the rust on the deck that it is worth it. I gave the old chain to Luis who found an use for it this afternoon in getting the hind rail car back on the track. They had to prop us up a quarter of an inch with jacks, slide the car out, jack it up and over on the rails, and then pull it back into position. It took three men half a day to do that but we're now ready to roll back into the water when we're through painting.
The guys got all the bottom cleaned today, and about half of the boot stripe scraped off and sanded. I'm going to carry bottom paint all the way to the top of the old boot and eliminate it, at least for now. Maybe that will discourage the grassy growth. The boot stripe was peeling so badly it looked awful anyway. We can put it back when we get back into cold water again. I also got some epoxy primer which I think I'll put on all the metal parts (prop, rudder shoe, shafts, and thru hulls) before putting on the bottom paint. Maybe that will help discourage the barnacles which seem to love those places. I'll also use it to cover some of the spots on the rudder where the gel coat came off with the barnacles.
Had dinner with Doran and Donna on Panache again Sailfish steaks this time, which someone had given to them. Excellent! I may have to get serious about catching a Sailfish.
"Worked our little hearts out today! Took us about six hours of steady work to mask the waterline, put a coat of paint on the bottom, and touch up the boot stripe."
That was Lois and I working. Today my four Ticos did the same job eight and one half hours. To be fair, I guess I have to add that they did put a coat of epoxy on the prop, shoe, and thru hulls, and instead of just touching up the boot stripe they completely covered it with bottom paint. They also had to remove the blocks, one at a time, and put a couple of coats under each; but they just don't work very fast. Covering the boot stripe also screwed up my calculations on the amount of paint we'd use. It took three and a quarter gallons to get on one coat on the bottom and two under the blocks. That only leaves two and a quarter gallons for the final coat. We'll put that around the waterline, on the prop, and keel until we run out. Next time I'll figure seven gallons for two coats rather than five and a half.
I picked up our rain flaps this morning the guy did a nice job but my plan for attaching them isn't going to work. I tried installing one and the snaps just aren't going to hold if there's any wind. I need what I think are called "Common Sense" fasteners, the kind that you twist to hold a piece of canvas in place; or some other kind of positive hold down. I'll see if I can find them tomorrow at Promarine. They seem to have a pretty good assortment even if it is expensive.
We seem to be jinxed on getting back into the water. No flat tire this time (Steel wheels), but when the Coop crew had gotten everything all buttoned up and started the big diesel winch that pulls the car down the rails the cable went, "Twannnnggggg!" and flew out into the estuary. I think they had forgotten to tighten all the cable clamps after they put the aft car back on the rails. It was five o'clock and the crew had a lot of supervision from the white collar bosses as they recovered the cable and reclamped it to the car. I was a little concerned because the wind had started to come up and I was alone on the boat. As it turned out the timing was perfect. The wind helped compensate for the slight current and the rain held off until I was in the water and clear of the car; then it poured, so hard I could hardly see to drive back to the anchorage. It didn't help matters when one of the big trawlers pulled out in front of me in the narrow channel, then dawdled along. I wasn't sure which way he was going to go. When I finally got to the anchorage I just dropped the hook in the pouring rain, went down and poured myself a drink, and went to bed without dinner. I felt like I done a day's work even though I sat around most of the time.
Our inverter, which converts 24 volt DC battery voltage to 120 volt AC, is really a luxury on the boat; but when you get used to luxuries, they start to become necessities. I really resent having to start Gennie to make my morning coffee, or operate my computer. It runs our TV and VCR and lately, on some of the warmer nights, we've been running the big fan for a while after we've gone to bed. It's tough to have to live with hardship!
Splurged and went to La Caravelle, the French restaurant, for dinner with Bill and Deb, and Dale and Betty from Shaharazade, a nice couple from Port Townsend. Dale just got back from Seattle where he spent a couple of weeks while Betty stayed here with the boat. They'll be moving on before too long; Bill and Deb hope to leave tomorrow.
We could possibly get new transistors in San Jose', but I decided that it was worth a call to Lois to see if she could manage to get to a Radio Shack near Tiburon. I did, and she was there, but didn't have any transportation so we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not sure a local Radio Shack would have 20 of the buggers anyway. They are NPN Silcone transistors marked with the Tripplite Part No. 69-214, but under that lable are marked M 69-206 8426. I hate these manufacturers who put their own part numbers on generic componants!
It was noon by the time I got through talking to Lois and Dick and Penny (Pendria) were going to the Yacht Club for lunch so I tagged along and discovered I'd been missing a bet. For 200 colones I got an excellent steak sandwich and a beer, a real bargain.
Lots of new boats in the anchorage on this afternoon's incoming tide, at least five that I haven't seen before, plus more which we hear are coming tomorrow. The anchorage is getting crowded.
That was good luck, but I had no luck in finding the transistors that I need for the inverter. I hunted all over town and found one very good electronics store called Teltron where a young man who spoke very good English was very helpful; but who said that, if they had them, my EGC 29 transistors would cost 5,000 colones each, almost $60.00 - I need 20 of them! The whole unit cost us about $700.00 four years ago. He did say I could try using an alternate, slightly less powerful transistor with the same physical size and similar characteristics.
My legs were about worn out by the time I grabbed a taxi to the Bougainvillea Hotel. They were full in the downtown hotel, but ran me out to the Santo Domingo Bougainvillea, which is closer to the airport, in their shuttle. I checked in, took a nap, then went out to the airport to wait for Lois. The plane was in right on time at 7:00 but it was almost eight before I managed to sneak by the guard and find her in the customs line pushing a cart loaded with about ten bags. Since she was bringing everything from a Satnav to a muffler, we had been worried about the reception she'd get at customs. I was even more concerned when we saw that they were going through suitcases and bags of people in front of us. We noticed that one line was shorter than the others and moved over to it, but the customs man there waved us away, saying the line was closed. Then, to our surprize, he said we could just go on through the gate. We had just about gotten through when he noticed the cardboard box with the muffler and asked to open it. He got the top of it open and surprized me even more when, seeing a coil of wire as the top item in the box, he said, "OK!", and waved us on through. It's hard to understand what they are looking for.
We caught a cab back to the hotel, had dinner in their restaurant - not bad - and went to bed. It had been a long day for both of us.
We hung up on a buoy when the tide was running out this evening. I thought we were clear, but looks like we'll have to move a ways. Hope I didn't scratch our new bottom paint!
Sure is nice to have Lois home!
We dropped Dick and Penny at a copy shop that reproduces marine charts for $1.25 a copy (For possible future reference, it's on Calle 1 between Avenida 5 and 7), then headed out the hiway to Lemon, about a hundred miles away. The drive over was really interesting. The first forty miles are in the mountains. I'd guess you climb to about seven thousand feet before plunging down the jungle filled canyons of Carribean side. The road is excellent, three lane most of the way across the mountains with a surface equivalent to the best of U.S. freeways; and, to we who have seen most of our jungle from the shoreline, the scenery was magnificent. The mass of green displayed by the trees and vines making up the jungle canopy puts our Pacific Northwest greenery to shame.
On the far side the mountains end abruptly in a wide, gently sloping plain crossed by dozens of rivers, some clear and sparkling, some muddy. Here is where most of the white water rafting tours are taken. The upper plains seemed to be mostly grazing land, but as we neared Limon there were huge banana plantations of a kind we'd never seen before. Here the trees were carefully cultivated and fertilized, judging from the dark green color of the leaves, and each tree's stalk of bananas was covered with a blue plastic bag. (I hadn't realized until recently that each tree has only one stalk of bananas each year.) This is obviously the source of some of the bananas we buy in our northern markets.
The city of Lemon fits the profile of any dirty, scrungy, seaport city. In many ways it is similar to Puntarenas, but here there is a large Jamaican contingent of blacks added to the Indian and Spanish population. For some reason which we couldn't define, we also got the feeling that we weren't particularly welcome. We are used to having people on the street smile and wave. Maybe it was our imaginations, but here they just seemed to look though us unless, of course, it involved our money. We checked in at the Hotel Maribu Caribe, on the beach about five miles north of town, where the girl reluctantly gave us the key to a tiny, stuffy room in a round palapa, stressing that it was for only one night. Fortunately, it did have an air conditioner which, even though noisy, made the hot, humid night bearable. Can't complain about dinner in the restaurant which was good and the waiter efficient, if not friendly.
We drove on down as far as Puerto Viejo where the road sort of peters out and on the way back picked up a couple of blond ladies hitch hiking on the narrow road. The older of the two, a Swiss woman of about forty-five, talked all the way back to Lemon without hardly taking a breath. She is building a home south of Puerto Viejo and had horror stories to tell about being cheated by the contractor and robbed four times, she believes by the brother of the local police chief. She "entertained" us all the way with more stories of her no good Mexican boy friend and her experiences with her Costa Rican lawyer. Quite a lady!
Back in Lemon we looked at a room in another hotel but it also was hot and stuffy, so we opted to brave the rain and drive back to San Jose' for the night. The drive back was sort of nasty sometimes the rain was so heavy we had to almost stop but we got back soon after dark, checked in at the Bogainvillea, ordered a sandwich from room service, and relaxed after a long day.
The Poas volcano is about 8,500 feet high and has another national park at the summit. We walked a jungle trail again, marveling at the plants and birds, and came out after about half an hour on the edge of a huge crater, at the bottom of which we could see steaming pools of water. According to the literature, it last erupted in 1958 and is considered safe for viewing from the edge the only one of the semi-active Costa Rican volcanos considered as such.
That was so neat that we decided to go see another fire mountain, the Arenal volcano about fifty miles north. I can't really describe what a delightful trip that decision led to. We drove though every imaginable kind of green countryside, from open grassland to deep jungle, from flower covered cottages to the bottom of a high waterfall. We ended up at the village of Fortuna at the base of the Arenal volcano. After checking in at the Cabinas San Bosco (where we got a nice clean room for the very reasonable price of $7.75) we drove up to the Tabacon hot springs, just under the volcano, where we had dinner, swam in the pool, and then watched as the volcano cooperated with a loud explosion which sent firey rocks high into the sky and rolling down the steep sides of the cone. All in all it was one of the nicest days we've spent in a long time.
Monteverde was a bit of a disappointment after all we had heard of this Quaker community of pacifists. I'm not sure what we expected, but the dozens of earnest young backpacking tourists with field glasses and cameras swarming over the roads and trails somehow gave the lie to the picture of tranquill nature described by the brochures. We went to the cheese factory, bought some of their good looking products, and headed down the hill. On the way we picked up another hitch hiker, a young man studying geology at the University of Costa Rica. We took him to Canas where he lives, then went on to the Corobici restaurant on the river which we'd enjoyed so much when Tuck was with us. They didn't disappoint us - another great steak! On the way back we came across the first rice harvesting operation we've seen. Near Canas they were loading trucks with rice from big harvesting machines that look very much like the wheat harvesters of the Palouse country. These, however, had huge mud tires and were operating in semi-flooded fields.
Arriving back in Puntarenas, we checked in with Kim's and found that Kim thinks he can fix our inverter, at least so we can use it until we can get the right transistors. I decided to gamble $60.00 and have him give it a try. He said he'd have it working for us by 9:00 AM Monday morning. Got my fingers crossed!
Never a lack of little problems though; when we got to Yacht Services and called Pendria we found that the Johnson had quit and Dick, to whom we'd lent the Metz, was rowing it. I checked and think it is a water in the fuel problem again, but decided to let that go until tomorrow. We cleaned out the freezer, which had defrosted nicely, had our evening martini, and went to bed early.
After crossing a couple of fairly steep mountain ridges, we came down into a wide valley with hundreds of square miles of rice fields and, surprizingly, palm trees which we believe are cacao palms. We've been unable to confirm that they are cacao (I don't know that I've ever seen a cacao bean) but that is the only product I can think of which would justify the amount of acreage planted in these large trunked palms with the small orange-brown fruits. Maybe we can stop at the ag station on the way into San Jose' and find out for sure. The rice in the valley isn't ready for harvest yet, but the heads are forming and it won't be long.
Quepos isn't much, but the resort area around Manuel Antonio park is not only very beautiful, but also very well developed. Nice homes with spectacular views of the islands, cape, and beaches line the edges of the steep hills around. Dozens of hotels, restaurants, and shops are scattered along the road to the park. The park itself is undeveloped, a refuge for birds and animals and a reserve for the virgin tropic jungle which comes right to the shoreline. On this winter Sunday afternoon there were lots of people but it wasn't crowded. I'd bet that in January there'd be a lot more.
On the way back we stopped and had an early dinner at the Porto Bello hotel (pretty good) and then picked up a tank of fresh fuel for the Johnson. It took a bit of fooling around before I got all the old stuff out and the new into the carborator but, once I did, it started and ran OK. I'm still not sure how the old fuel got contaminated; we've never had a problem until the last month.
Other than for that bit of luck, this was a procurement day. We stocked up with enough food and beer to last us for a week or so while we go out to the islands and get ourselves organized for more cruising. I bought some fittings for the new muffler which Lois brought back for the Onan and took them down to Sammy Manley's shop for rework; the idiot salesman at Cummings who sold Nan the muffler didn't explain to her that she also needed a fitting kit to go with it, so I have to Mickey Mouse something together here to make it work. Such is life in the wilds of Central America!
In spite of the fact that we live in sort of a permanent sauna, I seem to have come down with a cold. Hope I'm up to fighting the battle of San Jose' tomorrow! So far Lois is still OK.
We left the boat just before six (After having made a pot of coffee with the inverter. That was the acid test, the toughest job we'll ask it to do, and it did it well.), made the beautiful drive into San Jose'(I can't think of any seventy mile drive I enjoy more, anywhere), and went directly to the office of Migracion. We got there just as it opened at 8:00 and were politely received by a young man at window 8 who explained the procedure to us. He sent us first to the Pension Alimonticia, about three blocks away, where we bought a 50 colone timbre (stamp) at one window and a girl at another plugged my name into a computer. About five minutes later we had a piece of paper which said that the Costa Rican Justice Department saw no reason for me not to leave the country; e.g., no one had filed a claim for child support. We took that piece of paper back to window 15 at migracion where another young man looked over my passport; did some figuring and sent us to window 1, the timbre window, where we bought more stamps (938 regular fee, 600 fine for having been here 90 days without renewing my visa, and 20 for something I can't explain), and took the whole mess back to window 8 where we'd started. There, our nice young man did some sorting and stamping and told us to come back at 12:30 for my passport. The whole process had taken less than an hour.
We then took the car back to the airport and turned it in our week was up at 9:30. No problems, no extra fees then rode the bus back to town, had breakfast, and just fooled our way along through the busy city center, gawking and doing a little shopping as we worked our way back toward migracion. We bought Lois a a little costume watch at about the same price as we would have paid in the States (I guess Costa Rican duties are about the same as U.S. for Japanese products), then stumbled onto a place with the imposing name of "Asociacion Obras Sociales La Soladad Mercado Nacional de Artesania" where they had all kinds of Costa Rican arts and craft souvenir items at prices about half what the tourist shops charge. We loaded up with all we could carry, walked the last few blocks to migracion to pick up my passport, then flagged down a cab to take us to our last stop, the Aduana.
Our import permit for the boat was due to run out on the 8th and, since there is about a 12,000 colone fine for overrunning that rather than the 300 per month fine on my visa non-renewal, we needed an extension. Bill, on Voyager, had hired an agent named Fast Freddy and had told us about how Freddy had managed to get their permit extended until October 1st. In about 15 minutes, most of which was spent by me trying to fill out an unfamiliar form in Spanish, we had a permit good for six more months. We were through. We now have until the 26th of August to leave the country. If the above sounds a bit complicated you should hear what a Costa Rican has to do to stay in the U.S. for more than a month!
Got back to Puntarenas about 4:30, picked up a barbequed chicken on the way home from the bus stop, and hauled all our goodies to the boat. If Sammy has my muffler fittings ready in the morning, we'll be ready to go out to the islands and spend a few days cleaning up the disaster area which old Sea Raven has become. It will be nice to get things in order again!
We ran directly over to Jesusita, the quietest and most protected anchorage I've found. Lois hadn't been there and I knew she would like it. The jungle grows right down to the water most places, but there's a sandy beach at low tide, and a current which will help clean our chain. Got there about 4:00 and had hardly got the hook down when a group of Tico divers came by with lobster. We bought enough for dinner then just lazied around the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the quiet and the view. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get to work.
The day was about as pretty and pleasent a day as you can imagine, really to nice to be working. The sky was blue blue; the islands were green green; and, in spite of the fact that the sun shone brightly on us all day long, a nice breeze kept the temperature under ninty. The water here is teeming with the little forage fish and, although I never got a good look, something big was feeding on them.
We did have a couple of small problems. Our inverter, which had been doing beautifully for four days in the Mickey Mouse mode, decided to quit once I got it back in its assigned place under the helm. The failure symptoms are a little different this time. I had a hint that something might be wrong when my computer hickuped twice while I was using it this morning. When I reinstalled the unit under the helm I checked to see that it operated properly, switching automatically to battery when I shut off Gennie's power; but about fifteen minutes later I noticed that the "battery" light was out. I could still hear a barely audible buzz indicating that the oscillator was working, but the voltmeter read only about 5 volts on the output. Back to Kim for another try! In the meantime I'll have to run Gennie to make my morning coffee.
The other problem for the record, though it may not be a real one, is that when I got the new Onan muffler out of the box I found that, contrary to the instruction sheet, the fitting on the side is not a two inch fitting and will not accept a bushing with a nipple on the inside of the muffler; it is only an inch and a half. I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the inside nipple shown on the instruction sheet anyway, but there's no way to get it into the muffler so I installed it with just the outside, 1 1/2" exhaust nipple. For the exit, I used the 2" bushing Sammy reworked for me with a 9" nipple inside and the old exhaust pipe leading to the exhaust hose. I thought about keeping the old muffler as a spare, but it is so bulky, and it did last almost ten years, that I think I'll deep six it. I've put a yearly muffler check on the maintenance list.
Soon after noon the "Searcher", the big University of Costa Rica boat, came in and dropped anchor next to us. They had forty or fifty people on board with all their goodies and spent the next hour ferrying the group to shore. This time it looks like an overnighter; several tents popped up in the park behind the beach. This sure is a good place for a group outing. The water is clear and warm, the beach is white sand with a little worn down coral scattered around, and there's just enough surf to make it interesting. At low tide the beach is wide enough for a soccer game, the national passion in Costa Rica, and we watched as a dozen or so young men put on a demonstration of their skill.
By the time I got back to the boat our water tank was filled and Lois had shut down Gennie, so we decided to go back over to Jesusita and see if we could find some mangos at the old hotel before going into Puntarenas on the afternoon tide. It's less than an hour's run over there and this time we dropped the hook between the two islands of Cedros and Jesusita. "Daniel K." was still there, but in a different spot. Marcus called as we anchored and said they had been out to Punta Leona and beyond, had had a difficult day and night with wind and rain, but had caught two dorado - would we like some fish? Wow, would we! It's been six weeks or more since we've had fresh Mahi-Mahi and my mouth was already watering.
I put the Metz back together (Motor/anchor/floor covering/etc) and we ran over to the old hotel where we found a few mangos (pretty green), saw some parrots, and got eaten up by mosquitoes. It seems like you don't have to get very far off the beach anywhere around here until the mosquitoes come at you in force. I should have known, I had to go back to the boat for the repellant when we had our potluck here last month.
Marcus was true to his word and brought us four nice fillets of dorado, then stayed for a cerveza and chat. He and Lynn, his wife, are from Vancouver, B.C.. He ran a boat building business there with 26 employees until he decided to go cruising. He's about forty I'd guess, and now running out of money. He plans to go to work again building boats, hopefully somewhere in the Carribean. They have a huge dog with them, a Weimerainer(sp) I think, who keeps Marcus busy fishing. I was surprized that he could afford to give us some.
'Bout four o'clock, after thanking Marcus again for the fish, we hauled up and headed for the city. Got there just before high tide, anchored near Pendria, and Lois did her thing with the dorado um good, as good as I remembered! I hope we can catch several on the way to Golfito.
This was final provisioning and spend money day. Went ashore early, settled up with Eggert (6,600 colones), had breakfast at a Tico joint - or rather I did. Lois still can't get used to Gallo Pinto(rice and pinto beans) for breakfast - ordered a pile of goodies at Francisco's (which he delivered to Yacht Services for a measly 21,000 colones), picked up a bunch of fruit and veggies at the Municipal market (600 colones), and went to the meat market and bought pork chops and ribs (2,000 colones). It took most of the day to get all the stuff hauled back out to the boat and stowed. Naturally, the rain started just as Francisco delivered his pile; so we had to cover everything with the Metz cover while we worked it out to the boat. We got it all in though and, with the exception of the things that we've forgotten we forgot, we're ready to leave. We'd planned to go on the high tide tonight, but by the time we got though we were ready for our evening martini, so we'll bail out on the 07:00 high in the morning.
The only bad news of the day is that on the last run out the Metz's port tube went soft. That's the first leak! For having used it hard now for almost a year, we've been pretty lucky. I'll blow it up in the morning, tow it out to Jesusita, and hoist it up on the deck for repair. I also want to clean it up again and paint it with the white hypalon which Lois brought back. Hopefully that will deflect some of the ultraviolet. Click here for MORE.