WOW! We finally made it to Costa Rica! What a "smashingly" good ride we had traveling down the coast of Nicaragua, from the Gulf of Fonseca. What a beautiful serene and tranquil little bahia we have anchored it! Tree laden jungle hills surrounding us with the twitter of birds, whippoorwills, green parrots jabbering in the trees, jumping fish splashing around us and very calm, crystal clear water! We found jungle paradise! When we dropped anchor we had just finished 28 hrs of some pretty weird weather....(thanks we think to Hurricane Hernan "alittle" further west of us) ... It started Saturday am calm with no wind...changed to breezy so we could put up sails and turn off the motor...only 3 hrs later 2 rain squalls crossed our path, dumping rain on us, but only with minimal lightening (phew). The sun came out and an hr later the winds picked up to 15 then 20+ knots almost on our nose, but we sailed thru with it, just headed out about 8-10 more miles off shore to be able to sail, then the swells picked up and the wind and waves stayed with us until dark....when it thankfully calmed down alittle, but with the wind on a really close-hauled (that's coming @30degrees), we decided to put on the motor for the night (pretty choppy but okay)....about 6am on Sunday the breeze finally came around to a "sailable" direction so we sailed again, but by 8am that "breeze" turned back up to 20-25 knots and stayed there with some very choppy seas, all the way to our next destination.... We couldn't believe how different this little bay felt after we practically bashed our way thru 25+ knots wind!!! We have just returned from great snorkeling and after closing up all the portholes in answer to the rumbling thunder in the hills around us, getting only a little pitter patter of rain, the sun has now come out and I'm ready to just jump back into the water to stop sweating! This is the kind of anchorage we've been waiting for since Espiritu Santos in the Sea of Cortez! Just jump off the back of the boat in a bay all by our selves(just us and sans cles are here) into crystal clear water you can see 25 feet down!!!! The 4 of us have now decided that instead of just 1 day, we might just stay here for 3 or 4! The snorkeling out by Tooth rock was VERY GOOD and our dinghy excursion today brought us sights of speckled manta rays, a sea turtle and even a couple of water snakes...oops, good thing they were on the other side of the bay...so our swimming might just be limited to around our boat now! The rain showers were pretty steady most of Tuesday, but we have 1 more day of serenity and jabbering green parrots before we must go and check into Costa Rica in Playa de Cocos on Thursday...