Dave’s Blog
Jan 26-29: Bahia St. Elena to Playa del Cocos, Costa Rica.
Kievit was anchored in Bahia Santa Elena. The papagayo winds blew hard each day and night. These winds (also called gap winds) are somewhat unpredictable in their intensity. They will blow steady at 15-20 knots then out of nowhere comes a 30-35 knot gust, and from a different direction. One gust flipped the dinghy of s.v French Curve. Boats on anchor swing and dance in circles. Anchor holding is good, so boats don’t drag around; but, one does notice the wind. Boaters try to anchor along the windward shore, making wind waves and chop minimal. Also, dinghy travel and snorkeling along the windward shore is possible. Swimming in the clear warm water was also great.
So, that’s what we did for three days. Dinghy around, swim, snorkel, walk on the rocky beaches. On one beach walk, Kari spotted the first white-faced monkeys. Another day, we took a two and a half mile walk (each way) to a waterfall. It wasn’t a big fall, but the water was cool, fresh and clear in the 8-10 ft deep pool below the fall. Swimming was great and we spent an hour or more looking at birds and wasp nests in the trees. We made one attempt to dinghy into the mangrove lagoon at the back of the bay. The entrance was full of shore birds (Herons, Whimbrels, Willits, Kingfishers and several kinds of Sandpiper). But, we couldn’t get deep into the mangroves because there had been a windstorm in the spring that had downed many trees, blocking the narrow waterway. The dinghy trip back to Kievit, across the windswept bay, was rough and wet. The crew complained.
After three days in Bahia Elena, it was time to move on. The problem was the winds. One boat had been anchored in Elena three weeks, waiting for the winds to die down so they could safely get around point Elena and on to the Gulfo de Papagayo where the village Playa del Cocos in located. The previous year we had made this sail and it was easy. We left the bahia at first light and sailed the 12 NM to the Point with trailing winds in the 15-25 knot range. Once we turned the corner at the Point, winds died, or were blocked, and the remaining 20 NM to Playa del Cocos was easy.
Why shouldn’t this sail strategy work again? We were up at 5:30AM on Jan 29 and tried to pull the anchor. All of the wind and swinging had caused the anchor chain to jam in the windless. After 30 min work, with no success, we pulled the anchor chain up and stacked it in a 5 gal bucket. Excess chain was tied up on deck. We were off and out of the Bahia by 6:15. Winds were 15-20 knots on the starboard quarter. We radioed the conditons back to Mark and Cheryl on French Curve (Oceans 47.5) and they decided to follow us to Cocos. Conditions were reasonable in the 12 mi to Point St Elena. Winds increased steadily to the 20-30 knot range. Kievit was sailing at 7-8 knots, just flying a small jib. As we rounded the Point, the strategy was to turn to port, behind the Point and out of the strong papagayo winds. However, Mother Nature had a different idea. Winds increased rapidly to around 60 knots. Waves were kicking up 6-8 feet behind us and the wind was whipping sheets of spray and foam from the top of the waves. Dave tried to turn the boat, but it was impossible in the conditions. At one point, he called out, “I can’t hold it. Please don’t broach!” This, along with the conditions, scared the hell out of Marj and Kari. Life jackets on! Alert tension on the boat. There was nothing to do but run with the wind, Kievit doing 10 knots on the small jib (which kept trying to backwind). At one point we saw the bucket that held the chain go flying off, but luckily the tied on chain stayed on deck. Below deck, all the books on the port size jumped their security bar, the first time ever, and fly across the cabin. We also hooked a fish during this ordeal, and must have pulled the poor fish for miles, as we couldn’t bring it in with these conditions. The gale let up slowly over the next hour. We ran outside of a string of islands (Islas Murcielagos or Bat Islands). We were able to turn Kievit slowly but steadily as we passed the Islands and sailed into Cocos anchorage around noon. Oh, and another factor we forgot to mention. The engine had overheated (again) as we left Bahia St. Elena, so we had to sail, with no engine for more control.
French Curve, the boat that followed us, tried to round the Point with the mainsail up. It did broach and got knocked flat in the 60 knot wind. Mark said he was coming off a wave at boat speed 17 knots when the bow plunged into another wave and caused the round up and knockdown. Luckily, there was no damage to the boat and they sailed the rest of the way to Cocos. We all felt a little guilty for encouraging Mark to sail when we did. Mark was forgiving and didn’t blame us – Maybe Cheryl wasn’t so forgiving. Good news was that we all made it and were all glad not to be cooped up in Bahia St Elena for weeks or more. (Here, Dave doesn’t mention the near mutiny!)
The rest of the day we didn’t do much but recover. Dave did some work on the overheating engine, but no solution.