Where are we now?

Costa Rica or to be exact Marina Papagayo, the southern side of the Papagayo Pennisula.
We cruised out of Nicaragua with the high tide on the 16th of May and headed south. Our plan was to cruise 5-6 miles offshore not to dodge several pangas and thunderstorms throughout the night.
We ran the gammet with fishing pangas along the whole route under the full moon. We also had our share of thunderstorms to maneuver around or pound through. The night was long and at time a bit unsettling as we watched the lighting strike the ocean in the distance.
Morning would put us off of San Juan Del Sur a small surf town in southern Nicaragua.
We plan to cruise the anchorage and then stop or keep moving south 4 hours to Costa Rica.

As we approached our waypoint for San Juan the radio started to buzz with calls from other boats in the anchorage. The first was an old sailor that Lisa Kay responded to. He told a story of high fees, nothing in town, food over priced, bad anchorage.

The next call was from "Time Warp" out of Seattle returning from a circumnavigation. " The town is awesome, people great, good food and services. 'My buddy and his wife own a spa, you have to go! The officials are great, easy to check in... and the anchorage is a bit windy and you have the swells, we snapped snubbers the first night, and ripped the windless off the bow."
We were totally confused with the exception that the anchorage story was consistent, so we continued south.
Our decision was great, two Dorados on the boat just before the border and the best anchorage of the whole trip " Bahia Santa Elena"
We ran into SOMF and Windfall, folks we met in El Salvador. Diving, snorkeling, beach combing was awesome in this little piece of paradise. Two highlights of our stay was the bonfire and dinner on the beach one night with the Lisa Kay gang. The set up was the best, as the kids and I endured an hour of squal then soaked to the bone we cleaned the beach and gathered the wet wood for the fire. A few gallons of gas and we finally got the fire and the handmade torches lit. Highlight number two was watching Tommy and Ben fight a Caravel Jack for 40 minutes to get it in the dingy. Great fish 15-20 lbs. Tommy hooked it and would not give up the pole. The final 10 minutes of the fight, Ben is working the pole as Tommy cranks on the reel with the last of his strength. Before we released him the boys toured their catch around the anchorage.
After a week we headed out to check out the Bat Islands and the northern end of Papagayo, beautiful coastline rough rocky peaks with the crashing waves.
We arrived at the Bat Islands to hear Sea Wolf's radio chatter of a 3 meter bull shark and giant mantas they were filming 35 meters down.
We elected to snorkel the crystal clear waters along the islands. Tommy and I took out the tanks and dropped down to 20 ft. to watch the snorkelers and keep shark watch. Tommy completed his mask clearing test and full mask removal underwater. We also practiced our buddy breathing.
An hour later everyone was back aboard and no sharks.


Next stop was Ollie's which was a great bay but a rolly anchorage this time of year. I took the dingy in the morning over to the break to check it out. The waves were building with the changing tide. You could see the potential of an awesome break, when the right conditions come together. The break was deserted and the warnings of crocs kept me out of the water, alone and 3/4 of a mile from the boat.

We pulled up the hook again and headed to Los Huevos the anchorage just north of the Four Seasons Papagayo.
We found a great little bay, we anchored in the east anchorage and found a great little wave for the kids between two islands inside the bay, it is shown in the Explore Central America book as the northern anchorage waypoint .
Right after getting set I took Tommy, Whit, and Ben for a good 2-hour session on 3-4 ft. right-handers.
Huevos was great for a couple of days ad then we headed to civilization.