An Altere Adventure

After a lot of refit work on Alteré, I wanted to go cruising, even though more projects awaited. I invited my friend Laurin Dodd to join me on a cruise north. You may remember him from earlier posts. We met in La Cruz de Huanacastle four years ago and...

The launch felt like it was flying across the Golfo Dulce at 23 knots, almost four times faster than Altere under power. The driver slowed and veered a bit to starboard so that we passengers could watch some dolphins play. A few were jumping cleanly out of...

Multiple pressures have been weighing on my trip this year. One is that my insurance company no longer will cover my cruising in Central America. They wanted to cut me off last spring, but Boat Insurance Company in Seattle, negotiated extensions for me. My...

Golfito is in the tropics. It gets hot in the afternoons. And many days the humidity is very high. I settled into my usual routine: walk early, boat chores and then read or study español in the afternoons. But it became too hot inside the boat to even do...

Golfito will be the last destination in my southern cruise. There I plan to meet a ship from SevenStar Transport. They will lift Altere up on to the deck and steam northward. My boat will retrace a lot of the nearly 8,000 nautical miles travelled in the...

Up early, I raised the anchor and motored out of the bay formed by Islas Cedros and Jesusita. Our goal was Quepos, almost 60 nautical miles south in central Costa Rica. My crew slept in.

We were not moving very fast over the ground. I...