South Bound

2/1/12 - 3/1/12: Last Nica Times and New Paradises: Last minute preparations were deck maintenance, varnish work and leather couches. Meanwhile my guys were doing this I and Jani toured Ometepe, Granada, Managua and Matagalpa. From the many things we did worth mentioning quickly here was a rock climbing trip north of Matagalpa without rock climbing. We got a cab along a lousy road as he was willing to drive us and then walked whole bunch on muddy trails. We could not find any of the cliffs the people were talking about. Although we did find some amazing looking cliffs far away from the road in to the mountains. The time ran out and we had to turn back. We found a tiny village and a single one house that had a car at the yard. After inquiring a ride and mentioning a price the half naked Nica daddy with 4 daughters started working on the car so that one of the daughters were underneath the car with him and other one bringing some tools as instructed. Finally after over an hour the car actually started. After a push we got it even on the road. It was 40 years old 1800 Lada ( Russian ). Two of the doors were closed with bunjee cords. The other one was too old so I had to hold it in its place. It seemed like it would fly off anyway. Not a single one of the gauges were working, there were no shocks, seats had no springs no more, tires had no texture and barely any rubber and gasoline tank was next to driver seat in a gallon juice jar with a hose going in where the lid used to be.
The proud daddy got us down from the mountains in his collar shirt and straight pants that he was wearing only to show up at the edge of the town in more civilized way. was telling us how good of the car it had been and it only needed couple of things fixed in order to serve another 40 years. We shared a grin and nodded in a harmony with the hegemony of his dream world.
After saying bye to friends in Matagalpa and returning to San Juan I was burning to get out to sail and toward new adventures in new harbors. The guys had been working hard and motor alignment and all the other stuff seemed ready. After a full day test sail and surfing while anchored and the return turning to a party we realized that everything was working fine.
Rachel came to the town the day before taking off. She had been dreaming about sailing for years and had become nearly, if not so, obsessed by the idea of sailing around different countries and the world. The captain typically had certain qualifications and procedures to take people onboard, especially half randomly, but in this case there was a fifth sense or personality or whatever that was whispering to the Captain; "she will be ok".
We took off around 2pm on Saturday February 11th toward Costa Rica. The last thing was to fix the Genoa. We couldn't do it in the bay due to 35 knot Papagayo winds so on the way out we pulled behind a 70 meter cliff and had Nica guys do their favorite thing; Nica fix = use glue to fix things, in this case the sail. Capitan Flores ( S. Nica Fuerza Naval ) stopped by coming back from a mission at the border sorting out some Costa Rica border issues that had been in the press lately. He cruised around and wished good luck and took off. After we dropped my favorite Nica guys off we headed out with 3rd reef and 1/3 of Genoa. As the fumigation of the living creatures on the boat had been postponed till no time was left I had a minor ant problem. Fortunately not too many cucharachas or geckos. The rum had been loaded as it was 3 times cheaper than further south. I figured it could be good to bribe officials and barter some necessities. Little did I know it was gone sooner than we got too much south of San Juan.
We arrived to Bahia de Salinas at the sunset. The plan was to kitesurf and explore the area. I had my first lessons and really enjoyed. We went for a run and did some internet stuff at the local kite surfing resort. Then took off again to Santa Helena, part of of Santa Rosa national park, biggest in Central America.
At the same time 5 other boats pulled in during the same night. We spent days hiking, running and swimming and nights with other cruisers sharing info. We met some coming from '22 year' world cruises. We had fun and took off again to Bat Islands, the biggest rock monuments on Pacific America. Some dinghy experiences with sea turtles and Hawaiian sling fishing and ranger visit took place in this amazing place. Unfortunately the red tide was going crazy and we could not get scuba diving down at all.
Then we moved over to Olies Point, a famous surf brake and a bay from 'Endless Summer II'. This place was a paradise. We surfed 5 hours a day for 6 days, did yoga and walks and dinghy driving around. We found some dead sharks on the beach, enjoyed the alligator infested waves, estuary and the isolated beach all by ourselves. At this point in time I had to realize that this chick (Rachel) had some balls. Not getting bored or weirded out in this type of atmosphere over a relatively long time and that even she could not sail or surf, she would always be in to it and try hard, always in positive mind. After our muscles were so sore that we could barely do no more other than stretches at the sunset on the beach we decided to take off toward a new paradise.

The back anchor was stuck and the wind was blowing us sideways so we could turn the boat in between the anchors. I was cold and tired and sore from sports so I did everything not to have to dive in. After some pursuing I got Rachel to dive. After watching that for a while I had to dive. It was at 21 ft. deep, visibility was great, but it was nicely jammed and covered by sand. A minute and 8 second dive was enough to get it off.

We decided to pull in to the next bay at Witch's rock to see if there was something fun to do e.g. surf or dive. I vaguely remembered that there was some note about rocks so went through bunch of paper charts and two guides without finding any. We anchored at the sunset and did a sniff around with the dinghy around a beautiful 40 meter cubical rock. In the morning while drinking coffee the boat took a rather violent tilt.
I checked outside and it seemed somewhat surreal out there. There was a crazy swell and 25 knot wind and sort of sharp tooth pick look alike rocks were sticking up from the ocean right the area where we pulled in the night before. I was relieved and horrified at the same time not having hit them at the high tide, but still not having even known about them.

I had to rush to a teleconference to some semi-civilized third world village so we rushed over to Tamarindo. A blue whale during the day and a sketchy night approach in between the reefs in the night kept it entertaining to us. The strange thing was that electronic charts showed us cruising on top of a reef, the paper charts didn't show anything and one of the guidebooks had it all right.