08/24/2008, Bahia Ballena, Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica
Our next passage was to be an overnighter from Playa Conchal to The Gulf of Nicoya about 95 miles. Leaving at 10am was definitely a great idea so we wouldn't get to the entrance of bahia Ballena before day break. It wasn't very long before we could get the sails up and eventually the asymmetric up and flying. The coast is again green and hilly with white sand beaches along the shoreline. The swells were a bit rolly for next 80 miles but very manageable...By 5pm we took down the asymmetric as the rain spouts we could see over land were actually headed our way!!! We had some pretty steady rain with some very ominous cloud formations. Some cool lightening displays well off in the distance were very entertaining. Coming across several fishing or shrimping boats in the middle of the night who fortunately had their lights but seemed to want to "play" with us was all the entertainment we wanted at 1:00 in the morning! Terri on sans cles and I would hail each other on the VHF to be sure those fishing boats knew we were not traveling along! Day break came and we were at the mouth of the Gulf of Nicoya with Bahia Ballena just around the bend. Our beautiful blue waters began to have the brownish cast of "estuary flow" and after a couple anchoring attempts we found a nice spot in 28 feet of water. This was alittle fishing town with a funky little "Yacht Club" with the best burrito we've had in a long time. We only had a 10 minute walk to the main part of the town but were intrigued by the growling sounds of the Howler Monkeys in the trees and some very different bird sounds were very glad it was daylight while we were making this trek. The town consisted of 4 smaller cantinas, a dilapidated Policia building, a pretty well stocked tienda and a few very nice homes with lush, colorful foliage. Lyman and Terri had a friend from back in Portland who owns a "resort" in this town, so we wanted to scout it out. Boy were we surprised! What a truly tropical paradise amongst the very humble makings of a town. We had a terrific lunch there the next day walked the log strewn beach and marveled all the highly varnished wood and style of this tropical get-a-way. We even got a tour of one of the rooms....A huge octagonal room with a king size bed that looked out thru the palm trees over the bay and had a bar styled kitchenette on one side and your private bathroom with sunken shower on the other side! Hard to believe there was no one staying there that day, yet all the outdoor furniture complete with padded cushions and hammocks were set up and the staff all on hand. We returned to our own little hacienda to see watch a Costa Rican Coast Guard cruiser pull into the bay, travel along side sans cles and Triple Stars and then just hang out a few hundred yards away. We decided to stay on shore for a night cap and visualized them "running" our boat names in their data base just waiting for us to return to the boats to have a chat with us, since we hadn't yet checked into the country! Our fears were for not...we dinghied back to the boats just before dark, the Coast Guard was still just trolling off our port side, then left...Phew! NEXT STOP...Puntarenas to get ourselves checked in! Sunday at noon, we headed to a closer entry point to the Puntarenas estuary (Isla San Lucas) since we were at least 4 hours away and needed to be in position to enter the estuary at high tide (during daylight hours of course) due to strong currents, shallow waters and floating logs. The next high tide on Monday was at 9:00am!!!
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08/12/2008, Bahia Santa Elena, Costa Rica
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...
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