So much for the bilge...we also got the lazarette cleaned out, a ground wire replaced on the primary through-hull, and the refrigerator cleaned out. The freezer seems to be doing a good job, although I really don't think that the expansion valve is working...once the temperature got down to about zero, the system tends to short cycle. That's not really a problem to us when we're crusing...we seldom ever have power on long enough to have the system stabilized. In any case we'll try to have a new expansion valve before leaving here. Carlos didn't come though today, but I think I can use the one I saw at the refrigeration shop the other day. I'll check on that Monday.
We did a little shopping today, picking up about twenty pounds of pork at the central market. Anna gave us the name of a market she says has the best beef, and we'll get a few frozen chickens from Pipasa. That should be plenty to keep us for a few weeks, especially if our fishing luck holds up. With luck we'll be ready to head for Coco about Tuesday or Wednesday.
While we were working away a young man from a boat called Interlude came by and asked if he could raft to us while taking on water. I said, "Fine if it's OK with Eggert.", so they came in and tied to us for a while. George and Julie are another young couple, I'd say in their late thirties, on a get-away program. From Annapolis, they've given themselves three years to sail around the world before having to go back to work. They left Maryland six months ago, sailed directly to the Bahamas, then boomed down to Panama without stopping at the San Blas, have spent less than a month in Costa Rica, and now are heading out for the South Pacific, racing to beat the hurricane season. Julie said that they are three weeks behind schedule. They seem like such nice young folks, it's a shame they are in such a hurry. They'll end up three years from now having sailed 'round the world, but having not had time to stop and see anything on the way.
Went to town this morning and found a place to buy the expansion valve we need. I also bought a drier, so have everything I need now to replace the valve if necessary, but at the moment I don't think I will. Other than for the short cycling the freezer seems to be working well and there's always some risk of screwing things up if I tear into it. I also finished cleaning up the Metz, got the carpet pasted on the step, and Lois finished vacuuming the whole boat. Our provisioning effort didn't make out so well...Lois had a mild case of the runs, so didn't want to get far from the head in the morning, and by the time she was feeling better and we took a taxi out to Coopemontecillo where Anna had said the best meat was, the place was closed! This is Easter week and many of the stores are closed or are closing early...Coopemontecillo at 1:00 instead of the normal 3:00 PM. Back at the central market they didn't have much good looking meat so we decided to bag it until tomorrow. Eggert did come through with the beer, though... we've got five cases stowed away to last us into Mexico.
We went out to dinner at the Aloha. We'd started out for the Portobello but couldn't find a taxi. No matter, the food is almost as good even though the view isn't as nice.
El Martes, 10 Abril 1990
------------------------
We'd planned on getting off of the dock today, but never quite made it. Went to town in the early morning, ordered a big bunch of stuff at Comercial El Quintento, our favorite delivery grocery store, next to the mercado where we bought meat and veggies, then to Papasa for half a dozen frozen chickens. We were back at the boat by 9:30. We stowed our fresh stuff then sat around at Yacht Services chatting until the guy from Comercial showed up with the rest of our stuff. We called to wish Mom a happy birthday then checked in with Nan. It wasn't until we were in the final stages of stowing our goodies that I realized that something wasn't right with the freezer...it had continued to short cycle even when the box had warmed up with all the new food we put in! Of course it worked fine as long as we didn't have anything of value in the freezer!
I fiddled with the expansion valve for a bit before deciding that we couldn't live with it the way it was, then had Lois go tell Anna we'd stay on the dock another day while I drained the freon out and started tearing into the system. The old valve came out without too much of a struggle and I got the new drier installed and the new valve half in when I discovered that the inlet fitting was the wrong size! What to do now? It was 4:00 PM and this is a holiday week, but I quickly put on my clothes and rushed up town to the place where I'd bought the valve. Luckily, they were open, the man had the right fitting, and he put it on my 1/4" line for me. By 5:00 I had the system back together. I ran one full can of freon through the system to flush out any air which might have gotten in, and by the time I'd added two more cans the system was starting to frost nicely. The one problem was that it was frosting all the way back to the compressor. I guessed that the reason was that the valve was set for a 1/2 ton unit and ours probably isn't more than a quarter so I started adjusting it. It took me most of the night to get the frost line to where it should be and, because the frost line also indicates the amount of refrigerant charge, I'm still not absolutely sure of the setting, but it seems to be working. I'll have tomorrow on the dock to make final adjustments.
El Miercoles, 11 Abril 1990
---------------------------
By morning I seemed to have things pretty well stabilized in the freezer. The expansion valve seems to be doing its job, if a little differently than the old one did. We'll cross our fingers and hope. I packed insulation around the valve, cleaned up my tools, and by ten o'clock we were in shape to leave. We settled up with Anna (Eggert's off in Honduras to get a car for some Gringo) and then I decided to walk down to the fuel dock to make sure we could get fuel this afternoon. It's a good thing I did because I found that they closed at noon today and won't be open until Monday...the long Easter weekend. I hurried back to the boat and we started getting ready to cast off.
11:35 Off the dock.
12:00 Tied to a big fish boat and taking on fuel. We put 400 gallons (1514 liters) with 8 ounces of Biobor JF in each tank, plus I bought 10 gallons of Chevron Delo 400 motor oil.
13:00 Back anchored in front of Anna's. I ran the Metz in to take back her bottles and pay for the five cases of beer we'd overlooked this morning. She's a little sweetheart...we'll miss her and Eggert.
13:20 On our way out the estuary for the last time. We sure won't miss the odor of that stinking stream! There was unusually little wind this afternoon and we hardly splashed any salt on Lois' newly washed windows as we crossed the gulf. We ran straight out to Cedros, through the Negrito channel, and behind the Tortugas. Had one fishing line out most of the way but no luck.
17:00 Anchored off the west side of Ballena. There are three sailboats anchored in front of the pier, plus a bunch of campers on the beach that was deserted when Don and Shirl stopped here with us. We took down the awning, took a swim, put up the Metz, took a shower, poured a drink, and settled down after a long day. We found one of the sailboats to be an old Sea of Cortez acquaintance, Nua Nua, when Ed gave us a call on the radio. We'd heard that he and Liz were in Coco. We chatted for a while on the radio, giving him a few tips on Costa Rica.
To bed early...I was feeling the effects of my refrigeration tuning of last night.
08:00 We round Isla Cabo Blanco and find our shipwreck still sitting upright where we left it last year...there's been no storm since then. Soon after we passed the cape we started seeing big splashes in the sea around us...Giant Mantas flying high out of the water and coming down with a crash. They seemed to have no fear of the boat and several times we ran right by one just under the surface of the water with only the tips of his wings curling up into the air. This is also turtle country and we passed dozens of them sleeping on the surface. If we come too close they will raise their heads, then wave a flipper as they sink beneath the surface.
13:00 Piedra Blanca. If I'd been figuring really well we'd have left Ballena a couple of hours earlier and we could have skipped this place, but as it was we couldn't make the next anchorage before dark so we had to stop. There's a choice of two anchorages, neither very comfortable. Each is "protected" by a reef jutting out from a headland, but the reefs are low and at high tide the swell comes across making the anchorage very lumpy. We'd stayed in the east bay, Bahia Carrillo, last year and it wasn't all that great, so this time I opted for the bay west of Piedra Blanca. It is more populated and, especially on this holiday weekend, had lots of people all along the sandy beach.
We anchored in about 20 feet, let out about 200 feet of chain, then put out a stern anchor and pulled in 100 feet of the bow rode. The stern anchor dragged. We tried again...dragged again. We moved to another location and it seemed to hold. At least the boat stayed pointed into the swell and we had a comfortable evening. About 10:30 Lois woke me up saying that something was wrong. Yep, an offshore wind had come up and the stern anchor had dragged again. We were comfortable because it was low tide, there wasn't much swell, and the wind was holding the stern in the right direction. I picked up the little anchor and stowed it. Oh well, it's been a long time since we had a rolly anchorage.
.Pa
08:00 Punta Guiones. We've seen a few more Manta Rays and lots of turtles out this morning. Playa Ostional, just north of Punta Guiones, is one of the largest nesting sites of sea turtles on the Pacific coast. At times when an "Arribada" occurs thousands of turtles come ashore there to lay their eggs.
12:00 Cabo Velas. The run north from Guiones alternated between calm and winds to thirty knots, all offshore and none building any significant seas. We'd have a few minutes of strong winds which threw spray over the boat and Lois' nice clean windows, then it would all die down. We drug the fish lines all day long without a single hookup...not often we get completely skunked.
13:30 Into Bahia Brasilito. There are a number of beaches along the shoreline as we came in and lots of people on almost every one of them. Along the long sand beach of Brasilito itself there must have been over a hundred people playing and swimming. This seems to be the weekend for going to the beach! We anchored behind a little reef in the southwest corner, hit a rock shelf where the anchor wouldn't hold, hauled up, and tried again, this time successfully, a little closer to the sand beach. Spent the rest of the day loafing...got down the Metz, took a swim, read a book, did nothing. We've got most of our work caught up...I'm waiting for a cloudy day to do the cap rail...and we can afford to just be lazy for a few days until our mail gets to Coco.
We'd half planned to go ashore in the afternoon, but there were so many people on the beach and it was so hot that we just never got up the energy. Instead we read out books, napped, swam (It's really refreshing to swim in this water. It's just a perfect temperature...cool enough to feel good but not so cool as to chill you), and just let the day drift away.
Back at the shoreside restaurant we ordered a cerveza and were sipping it when a young man who had stopped by the boat in a fishing panga yesterday came up and asked if we remembered him. When he'd come by he only waved, said hello, and asked where we were going, and I thought he was just a friendly fisherman practicing his English. Today, however, it turned out that he is quite a talented young man. His name is Mario Moldovan, he's 23 years old, and from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He speaks English very passably, plus he says, Hebrew, Greek, and Portugese in addition to his native Spanish. He told us he has visited 16 countries and lived for a year in Israel and another in Greece. He's worked as a deck hand, waiter, fisherman, and hopes to go to the United States to make his fortune in business. He's here in Costa Rica fishing to make money to move on in that direction. He told us that, while he could enter the U.S. more easily illegally, he wants to keep his record clean and has been offered help in getting a work visa by a man in Chicago. A very personable young man, his story was given substance when he hauled out a quite well organized folder containing his passport, a badge declaring him an Amazon Guide in Brazil, several other identification documents, and an address book containing the names and phone numbers of a long list of people he's met in his travels. He gave us the phone numbers of his mother and sisters, Matilde, Marcela, Mariana, and Lea, in Buenos Aires and Mar de Plata: 784-6127 & 51-0708. Who knows? We might get to Argentina some day.
Leaving Puerto Viejo, we ran the Metz over to the village of Brasilito from where last night we could hear the deafening sound of disco echoing across the bay. We anchored the Metz out and swam in to see what's there. It's a scrubby little resort town, mostly Sodas, bars, and restaurants to serve the beach goers. There were many fewer people on the beaches today... evidently most have headed back to San Jose'. Several buses waited just back from the beach to pick up the stragglers.
Back at the boat, I made a pass at cleaning the waterline but gave it up when I saw how much of the ablative paint my scrubbing was taking off...I think we're better off with a little scum than to loose the protection of the paint. So, we just fooled away the afternoon again. We went into the shoreside restaurant at Puerto Viejo for dinner. Mario had said they had good lobster, but they only had one order. We decided to split it and, as luck would have it, it turned out to be a tiny lobster, not much bigger than a large shrimp. Two bites apiece is what we got. Oh well, we eat too well anyway!
After we got the hook down we ran over to the marina where a nice young man living on Shannon told us that the owners were gone but that he would be happy to help us in any way he could. We then walked up to Marie's for lunch. She had a few customers other than ourselves, mostly Ticos, but her food is as good as we remembered. We had rock scollops in garlic butter served with a big mixed green salad. Umm, good! We wandered around a bit, stopped at the Boutique and bought me a swimming suit and Lois some earrings, then headed back to the boat. Later I took the jerry jug in and, after a bit of a wait, got it filled with gasoline. As I started back the pin in the prop sheared...that is the second time in a month that that has happened. The last time was at Gitana and, although I hadn't seen or heard anything, I assumed the prop had hit a line or something soft; this time I know that nothing came anywhere near it. Fortunately, I'd carefully put a shear pin and pliers under the hood of the motor. I'm down to my last pin, though...I had to steal the one from the Evenrude to replace the spare under the hood. Hope we can get some in Coco.
I took the insulation off the new valve, removed the adjusting screw cover, and backed off the screw 1/2 turn. The low side pressure immediately came up to 20 psi. I turned the screw clockwize 1/4 turn and the pressure came down to about 15 psi and held steady, but there didn't seem to be much refrigerant flow ...high side pressure was low, just over 100 psi, and the lines from the evaporator were room temperature. I hooked up the freon tank and started adding freon. There's no positive way that I know of to tell just how much freon is in the system so all I can do is watch for frost on the accumulator and monitor the pressures. I added enough freon to bring the high side pressure up to 150 psi, then let the system run for a while. The evaporator lines started to get warm and the accumulator cold ...at least things are working again. I added freon twice more as the freezer started coming down to temperature, but never got frost on the accumulator. When I charged the system in Puntarenas I added one can of "tracer", a special freon with red dye in it. If there is a leak I should be seeing red, and how would a shortage of freon cause the system to act like it's blocked??? I hate a mystery!
08:30 Nacascolita. Omar and Wilber were out cleaning their 15 foot outboard launch as we came in. They came by and shouted, "Welcome!" as we were anchoring and, when they had finished, came back and aboard for a couple of hours while we gave him the news of Margorie Grace and some of the other yachts who have stopped here. Omar's English has improved remarkably in the past year... he said he's been studying at night, and he practices every chance he gets. His "owner", the Toyota rep for Costa Rica, has now entrusted him with the bank account, so he's doing all the management of this weekend paradise. I guess we just missed the owner, who was here for the Holy Week holidays. Omar says that Omar Jr. is doing great, and that Damaris is three months pregnant again, a surprize, he says, to both of them. We invited them all out to the boat for breakfast in the morning, after which we'll try to call Margorie Grace on the radio.
The rest of the day was pretty quiet. We ran Gennie for several hours getting the freezer back down to a comfortable 10 degrees. We did a few odd jobs, read a while, napped a while. I meant to go snorkling but never got around to it. No hurry, there's always ma|ana.
We spent the morning on the boat doing a wash and running Gennie to get the freezer cold and our water tank filled. I haven't come up with any solution to my mystery, but at least the freezer is back down to temperature and the system seems to be acting as is should. Guess I'll just have to keep a very close watch on it.
The water here in Huevos was extremely clear today and, after we'd gotten our work done, we went out to do a little snorkling. We first went to a reef across the bay where I didn't find many fish, but where we found a nice beach and a long tunnel cut by the sea through the rock headland. We then went out to the north side of Huevos and found the fish, lots of them. I had the speargun with me and shot one nice yellow tailed fish that looked like it would be good eating, but the danged thing managed to wiggle off the spear again. Frustrating! Then I managed to get myself all tangled up with the tackle on the spear and spent the next fifteen minutes getting that sorted out. Don't know if I'll ever get proficient with a speargun.
Omar and Wilber came back toward evening, unloaded their fuel (500 liters of it), and then came out bringing Omar Jr. with them. He was a baby when we saw him last, only six months old; now he's quite a young man, even starting to talk.
I've got everything checked off on my maintenance list except for oiling the cap rail and I need a cloudy, calm day for that. With nothing else to do I started looking at future jobs and noticed that we're approaching 500 hours on the water pump which Tuck brought down to us last year; so, I decided to take a look at the impeller. Glad I did! It was almost gone. Of the twelve blades only one was intact and six were more than half gone. In hind-sight, I have had a few hints that something wasn't quite right: the other day the alarm went on when I came back to idle while anchoring, it had seemed like it was taking longer to go off when the engine was first started, and the last time I checked the sea screen water drained rapidly back from the pump, something which shouldn't happen if the impeller is intact. Anyway, I spent the next couple of hours getting the old impeller out and installing a new one. It went fairly well once I managed to get the old impeller moving on the splined shaft...that took some grunting. I installed the new one using Neverseize on the shaft and teflon pipe compound on the gasket and screws. I think I'll make a practice of inspecting that impeller every 200 hours. We've got one more spare, plus two for the backup pump.
Late in the afternoon the wind abated enough that we weren't worried about the boat dragging, so we went in to pay our respects to Damaris. Nacascolita is set in a little pocket that is almost totally protected from an east wind. Wilber saw us coming and ran to tell Omar who met us as we pulled the Metz up on the beach. Damaris was giving Omar Jr. a bath when we got to the house but he needed another one after eating the sucker which Lois brought for him. She had quite a little care package fixed up with earrings for Damaris, a pocket radio for Wilber, and toys for Omar Jr. They have a new dog, a seven month old dalmatian pup called Mickey who managed to steal one sandle of both Lois' and mine off the porch where we'd left them. Lois' we found right away with only a small bite taken out of the toe, but it took fifteen minutes of searching by all of us before Damaris found mine floating just off the beach where Mickey had left it. Luckily, he hadn't chewed on it...mine are the expensive ones by Teva.
Back at the boat we used our inverter while we made copies of a few tapes to give Omar and family. I spent a while in the engine room opening up Gimmy's heat exchanger looking for missing pieces of the impeller. Didn't find anything...they may have been chewed up small enough to pass through. The wind blew again this afternoon, but with nothing like the force of yesterday. We watched as a shrimper who had anchored on the other side of the bay dragged all the way across to near where we are. It finally stopped moving just as I was ready to go wake the crew up.
Just about dusk Omar and family came by in their boat and asked if we'd like to go for a ride. "Sure!", we said, and off we went for a tour around Bahia and Islas Huevos. Near the head of the bay where the river comes in thousands of pelicans cover the water and the surrounding trees, living off the millions of tiny fish in the bay. A family of monkeys played in one of the trees along the shore. After our tour the whole crew came aboard and we watched our video on Glacier Bay...quite a contrast to the scenery around here. Omar's mind picture of iceburgs had come from the story of the sinking of the Titanic, so he was facinated to see them being made by the glaciers.
Today we also got to see the "former owner's" boat. It arrived shortly after we got back from our river trip, a huge sharp pointed thing driven by two monster V8 outboards and with a big "41" and "Cigarette" painted on the side. Omar and Wilber were out snorkling when it arrived and they hurried in to take care of the visitors. There was a big blond guy, another small latin looking man, two ladies, two little girls, and two young men who acted like crew. They all went ashore but later the men came out again to do some surfing behind the boat. The blond guy was pretty good, doing some fancy footwork on what looked like a small surfboard while holding on to a tow rope with one hand behind the boat. They played for a while then left. Omar said it was the former owner, the one who used to arrive by heliocopter. He does have some fancy toys!
Tried doing a bit of snorkling myself while Lois rode shotgun for me in the Metz. Too murky! The wind of the last couple of days has sure clouded the water. I couldn't see more than five feet.
09:30 It took us just about an hour to run out of Bahia Huevos, around Punta Mala (There sure are a bunch of Punta Malas), and down to the Padre's house in the far north cove of Culebra. We made a swing by there but it was dead calm and Lois was afraid there'd be mosquitos from the mangroves close along the shore, so we went back to the next beach west.
10:30 Anchored in thirty feet of water, firmly hooked but swinging in fifty...it's a steep bank! That lasted for about an hour. The wind, which had been dead calm, came up from out of the east blowing us directly toward shore. Now instead of fifty feet of water under our keel we had less than ten, not a comfortable depth when the seas were starting to build... Culebra is more than a mile across and some pretty good sized waves can build if the wind is strong and steady. So, up anchor and off again, this time for Playa Panama on the east side of the bay.
12:00 Anchored in front of the beach at Panama. There were quite a few people on the beach this Sunday afternoon...it's one of the favorite spots for families from Liberia to come on a hot day. There were at least two buses and dozens of cars and trucks parked in the trees behind the mile long beach. We went ashore to the little cantina, had a cerveza, and chatted for a while with a fisherman who was making up a gaff hook. He spoke fair English and we learned that he is the skipper of a nice looking fishing boat anchored just off the beach. He said he is getting it ready to take out fifty to one hundred miles where the big dorado are. The commercial fisherman catch the dorado on long lines, baiting three or four hundred hooks with squid or flying fish and floating them just below the surface. I'd seen boats in Puntarenas unloading large numbers of dorado and wondered how they caught them. Now I know.
That was about the extent of our day. We took a walk along the beach (Dodging soccer balls as we went), took a ride in the Metz along the shore, then went back to the boat for a nap and a fine dinner of Sierra. Thanks to Omar for some fresh fish again!
Getting the windless off and back on was a hot, dirty job and by the time I got through half the day was gone and I was ready for a rest. We never did get off the boat today. A few clouds came over in the afternoon so we got a bit more done on the rail. That's about the only thing left on the maintenance list.
We decided to take a look at another bay today, Playa Hermosa. It's the one where Don and Shirl had the condo. I'm glad we did! It's a very lovely bay, similar to Playas del Coco but cleaner and quieter (Except for the occasional jet ski that went buzzing by during the day). We anchored off the beach at the far end from Condovac, the condo complex, let the hook settle for a bit, then went ashore. The curving sand beach is about 3/4 of a mile long, most of it backed by nice homes with landscaped grounds. We walked the length of it, poking our noses in every commercial establishment as we went. At the west end is a small tico village with a couple of restaurants, bars, and cabinas. At mid-beach we found an outfit called Aqua Sport which is probably the best stocked small store we've seen in Costa Rica. It's run by a Costa Rican with his Montana wife and her mother, Sidney MacIntyre. They sell everything from bathing suits to eggs, rent bicycles, take you diving or sportfishing, etc. We talked quite a while with Sidney who said her daughter and her husband were off in San Jose' but would be back tomorrow.
After walking on down the beach to the Condovac where the disco music was echoing across the bay, being played loudly enough I suppose to drown out the sound of the jet skis, we came back to Aqua Sport for lunch. In addition to the store they have a very nice, clean, open air restaurant which we found served very good food. We decided to make lunch our main meal for the day and had the brochettes which were excellent! Lois talked for quite a while longer with Sidney, a chubby, pleasent lady who agreed to set aside some swim suits for Lois to try on, provide is with fresh produce on Thursday, and arrange for Lois to get a haircut. She called later on the radio (They use channel 23) and confirmed an appointment for 10:30 tomorrow. I think we'll enjoy getting to know her partners.
I got most of the rail cleaned today, and Lois cleaned all the stauncions, but found that our teak oil had gone bad. It coagulated in the can and I couldn't find anything that will dissolve it. I tried just wiping it on but it won't sink in ...just stays on the surface. Don't know what I'm going to do. I doubt if we can find the stuff down here. ??????
HERMOSA S. A. AQUA-SPORT
Gerardo Artavia C.
Janette MacIntyre
Sidney MacIntyre
Apdo 100-5019
Playas del Coco, Costa Rica
Lois got her hair cut by a nice little guy who walked down from the Condovac, we walked around the little community for a while, called Nan, then took a load of beer and groceries back to the boat. We braved the surf again in the afternoon to go again to the restaurant for an early dinner. This time Lois got her courage up and, with my urging and some help from Janet in finding one that fit, bought herself a new bathing suit. We spend so much time in them that our bathing suits are getting pretty well worn.
That was about the extent of our day. On the maintenance side, I discovered that the freezer isn't doing quite what it ought to. It acts like it is low on freon. I added more and it started working properly again so everything points to a leak, but in spite of the fact that I put in a whole can of tracer I can't fine any color anywhere. Guess I'll take a chance on tightening teh fittings a little, then just hope we've got enough freon to take us to Mexico.
We spent another day at Hermosa, most of it working on our woodwork. I decided to go ahead and salvage what I could of the teak oil, so I cut the can open and took the gel out. By dipping a rag in the gel and then wiping it on I can get pretty good coverage, if not penetration. I did the side doors and Lois the back, trying to work in the shade as much as possible. A thin cloud cover helped. We should be able to finish it all tomorrow.
Went to dinner again at Aqua Sport...they serve a very good meal! There was a nice steady 15 knot breeze all afternoon so by the time we got ready to go in the surf was up. We managed to make it without getting too wet though.
About 4:00 o'clock I started Gennie to top off the freezer and had run her almost an hour when Lois and I both caught the odor of something burning. Lois, sitting by the aft doors, also heard the sound of Gennie's exhaust change. I checked the sea screen and it's clear. Another impeller gone, this one with only 15 hours on it? I didn't feel like fighting it today...I'll check in the morning.
08:00 Hauled up and headed for Huevos. We talked to Mauri last night and he said our mail has still not arrived, so we asked him to send it back to Nan in Seattle. It's been three weeks, who knows when it may finally get here, and now we are illegal as well as our boat because our ninty days have run out.
08:45 Into the bay behind Islas Huevos. Our illegal status leaves us with hearts pounding as we see one of the big Costa Rican coast guard boats anchored off the beach at Nacascolita. We didn't dare turn around and leave, both because we wanted to see Omar and family and because turning around after coming so close into the bay might look suspicious. We guessed that it was taking on water and probably wouldn't bother us, but a guilty conscience is a bad companion. We anchored, got out the snorkling gear, and left the boat, hoping that the CABO BLANCO would soon be on her way.
We snorkled for an hour or so...I even managed to put a spear through a small sierra but as usual it got away. I think my problem may be that I'm shooting them in the back half of the body where there are no vitals and they are able to tear themselves off the spear. I'll have to try leading them more and going for the head or gill area. Anyway, our friends on the CABO BLANCO were still there when we got back so we decided to brazen it out. We changed our clothes, got the ball which Lois had bought for Wilber, and headed for the beach. The big 65 foot steel vessel was nosed up to the beach with a stern anchor out and a bowline tied to a tree. As we'd guessed, she was taking on water from a hose leading up to the house. Omar met us on the beach, helped us drag the Metz up, and then took us up and introduced us to El Capitan, a typical late middle aged Tico gentleman with shining gold over his two front teeth. We sat in the shade of the Tamerindo tree and chatted for a couple of hours. El Capitan, whose nome I never got, is based in Puntarenas, has a crew of eight, and carries 2000 gallons of fuel (which its two 700 HP engines burn at the rate of fifty gallons per hour) 300 gallons of water, and provisions for a month when they leave the dock. They had lost a shear pin on their outboard and, when I mentioned that we needed a spare ourselves, the captain had one of his crew bring me a piece of steel rod the right size for use in emergency. A very friendly guy, he showed know interest in us or our status. Our worries were probably totally unfounded because we have noticed that the Costa Rican coast guard seldom boards anyone. Only once, and that at the specific request of Migracion in Puntarenas, have we even heard of yachts being boarded and questioned. Even then, they didn't do anything but tell people whose visas had run out to go get them extended. They are primarily a life saving agency as is the Canadian coast guard.
We went back to the boat, I changed Gennie's oil, but we didn't really start to breath easy until we waved goodby to the big boat as it pulled out of the bay about 4:00 o'clock. Soon after that Omar and family came out to the boat bringing gifts of both fish and shrimp which El Capitan had given them. They were all dressed up, brought their camera, and Omar had me take some pictures of his family on the Sea Raven. We had a nice visit for an hour before Damaris' tendency to sea sickness forced them to head back for the beach. Just a super family! It's nice that they have the opportunity to live for a while in this paradise. Omar at least, knows how lucky he is and plans a couple of more years here before getting serious about furthering his career. He plans to go to the U.S. for a year or so to strengthen his English and advance his accounting education.
09:30 Anchored between the two most easterly islands in the Mercielagos group. The water was clear and the sea still flat as we dropped our hook thirty feet to the sand bottom. Got down the Metz, put up the awning, and prepared to go for a swim. I called Mauri and told him where we were and he in turn called his sportfisher, the Mi Mer. They said they'd be here in about an hour. They arrived right on schedule and we traded a bottle of wine for our mail. I'm not sure where it's been for the last week and a half...it was stamped as having been received on the 18th. Oh well, Lois is as happy as can be...there were pictures of her grandbaby in a letter from Allyn. Nan also sent some of Giuli and of Tuck in his uniform.
That taken care of, I left Lois to read the mail and went snorkling. I had hardly gotten away from the boat when a big triggerfish came swiming by, daring me to shoot him. I did, and this time the spear held. I dragged him back and dumped him in the Metz then went out again to the little reef a hundred yards from the boat. This time a nice big parrotfish with a bulging forehead came swinging by. I shot, hit him, but came away with nothing but a speartip full of extremely tough scales. I had reloaded the gun and started hunting again when I noticed my parrot swiming in crazy circles. As I watched he sort of floated down and settled on the bottom in about eight feet of water. I went over and dove, thinking to grab him by the tail, but a big eel beat me to him. It came out from under a rock and started to attack the parrot. Well, the parrotfish wasn't having any of that...he made a wild flip and broke away, swiming a few feet before starting to sink again. This time I didn't take any chances. I shot him from close range and he stayed shot. The speartip, which is very sharp, drove several of the tough scales right through his body. Those scales are almost like armor plate.
I was pretty proud of myself, managing to get two good sized fish in one outing. I fileted them (Much tougher to do than are the fish we usually catch) and Lois made up a big batch of ceviche. We had the folks from Audrey over to help eat it. They are from Seward, Alaska, Bill and (Would you believe)Audrey, plus their two guests, Sarge and Anne, who joined them in Puerto Madero. We had a nice time chatting about northwest cruising.
10:20 Hookup! Lois had objected to my fishing, saying we had all the fish we could use already on board. I told her I'd gladly feed the others to the seagulls if we caught a dorado. Now we have, the biggest one I've ever caught. I could hardly heave him over the rail and managed to cut my hands up on the leader as I did. (Got to remember to put on the gloves when I'm going to fight fish!) I took several meals off him for the freezer and threw out the little pargo that the fishermen had given us.
We ran all day with gradually decreasing winds, all on our tail, all-in-all a very comfortable, although boring ride. I stopped fishing after the big catch so there wasn't much of interest all day long. We had a drink, Lois fixed the dorado for dinner, and I went to bed leaving the early watch to her.
21:00 Lois wakes me up as the wind starts howling and the boat starts walking around. It's pitch black out there except for the lighting flashes which light up the clouds and sky. The radar is showing a bunch of rain squalls right in our path. The next twelve hours were pretty uncomfortable, not so much physically as mentally. We were both concerned about the things that might have happened that never did. The winds never got over about thirty knots and that for only a few minutes. The seas were all behind us and, other than for rolling a bit, not uncomfortable. It was just that we couldn't see anything and anticipated the worst. Plus, the first night of a trip is always the worst... later you tend to get into a routine.
05:30 Dawn breaking but no relief from what appears to be going on forever. We find one flying fish on the saloon floor and another on the aft deck...the little beggers must be attracted to the stern light just above the aft saloon doors. The wind is still only about ten knots from the stern but now the seas are getting awfully lumpy.
08:30 Even bigger now, some ten feet or more, and coming from several different directions. The flopper-stoppers are doing their job...we seldom have a violent roll...but again we are very uncomfortable, wondering just where the winds are that are kicking up this kind of seas. We seem to be paralleling a long squall line which every once in a while tosses out an arm to drench us, but the wind stays a steady 10 knots at our backs.
10:30 Like magic the sky off to the north clears and it seems as if a big hand was pushing back the curtain of cloud and rain. Within an hour the rain was long gone and the lumpy seas were lying down. By early afternoon we were cruising along, watching for turtles sunning themselves on the glassy smooth seas. Strange!
16:45 We catch our first sight of land in the distance, El Salvador's mountains rising high to the west of the Golfo Fonseca. We're still forty miles at sea but they are plainly visible in the afternoon sun. Dolphins have been with us for most of the afternoon, one group of a dozen staying for almost an hour before they peeled off and went their own way.
21:00 A ship is closing rapidly from behind. I call and ask his intentions and he tells me he has us in sight and plans to cross behind us and pass on our starboard side. He's a freighter bound for Quetzal, Guatemala. It's been a startling contrast with last night...seas glassy smooth and no wind at all. Both Lois and I are getting some much needed sleep as we spell each other on the watch. All systems running smoothy.
06:30 Talked to a southbound sailboat, the Egrett, hungry for someone to talk to. He a single hander headed for Costa Rica.
09:00 We've passed Acajula in El Salvador and are nearing Quetzal in Guatemala, a port where we could put in if things don't look right; but all seems well, we are both rested, and the weather looks great...just a nice steady east wind blowing us along...so we decide to keep going and spend a long day just rolling along.
14:00 I decide to see if I can get a weatherfax again...it's been a year since I tried. Managed to come up with a pretty good picture of the Gulf of Mexico...looks good right now for crossing the Tejuantepec.
18:00 Shrimp for dinner tonight, the camarones Omar gave us, then I'm in the sack only to be wakened again by Lois as the radar shows a series of strong rain cells closing on us from all directions. It was that kind of night again, only not quite as bad as the first because we have some hint of what to expect. Shower after shower until after midnight, then they disappated, the seas laid dawn again, and we rolled on toward Puerto Madero with the dolfins still checking up on us as we went. More?