The hardest part was catching the 5am bus in Golfito, which picked us up in front of Tierra Mar. It was a nice 'express' bus, that goes direct to San Jose. Only $12 U.S. per person, each way.

We arrived in San Jose at the bus terminal about noon, and took a $2 taxi ride to our hotel in the Amon area of downtown San Jose. We had researched hotels and our choices in San Jose were $25-80 downtown or $50-$200 out by the airport. We opted for a $28 double at Tranquilo Backpackers. It was an OK place, price and location were great, beds were OK, and it comes with a free breakfast (cook your own pancakes and free coffee), but it was kind of run down and unkempt. But we like the backpacker places in general, because they are full of young eager budget travelers, and they are a great source of information for us in our budget travel.

Dave found another hostel just up the street, only $2 more a night, but much nicer. The Fairamon Hotel. We booked ourselve in there for the return trip in December. And, a bonus, they will buy our bus tickets in advance for us, for our return trip to Golfito. The bus company will only book 8 days in advance, and we were trying to figure out how to get bus tickets without being there.

The Spirit Airlines flight was OK, except of course for all the extra add-ons... $15 for the first piece of checked luggage and $25 for the second (for each person). $15 to reserve our seats ahead of time ($10 for an aisle, $5 for a center, and $15 for a window), and $5 for a can of apple juice on board. But the plane was new and well maintained, it left and arrived on time, and the landing was good.

We were excited to see the 'Welcome to the United States of America' sign as we entered Customs. I'd love to post a picture of it here, but I almost got arrested last time trying to take a picture of that sign with my cell phone. No picture taking allowed until you've exited Customs and Immigration!

We landed at 5:20 and by 6pm we were on the road in a Budget rental car. Our first stop was the BBQ place on SR 84 near I-95. Mmmmm... full rack of BBQ ribs! Easy drive up I-95 and arriving in Satellite Beach by 10pm.

Hugs all around for Nicki and Phil, whom I'll be staying with while Dave makes a quick trip to see his aunt and cousin Bryan in Largo. I have to report for jury duty on Weds, so I have to stay in the Melbourne area for this week at least. (Lucky timing, eh?)

We're looking forward to seeing all our Melbourne area friends at the ECSA meeting on Weds night and the MYC TGIF on Friday night. And I'm especially looking forward to sailing with her old crew in the ECSA Women's Race on Sunday.

Labels: USA 2008

Things like 'pickling' the watermaker, putting all the sacrificial halyards on, putting covers on everything, and making lists and ordering stuff in the States. Plus of course, making travel reservations. For me, it also means making backups of all the computers and transferring myself from my big 17" laptop to the tiny laptop we travel with.

We have also been spending a lot of time working on our presentation for the SSCA Gam. We are on the official agenda for the 'Western Caribbean'. Not content to just do a travelogue, Dave has been driving us both crazy trying to put together a really good presentation about preparation, weather, etc. He is doing most of the work, but I'm his technical adivsor.

We have to catch the bus at 5am tomorrow for a 6 hour ride to San Jose. We could fly from here, but it's about $225 for the two of us, one way. For $25 we can take the bus. We'll still have about 24 hours in San Jose to look around a little.

So we spent all day today packing, unloading the fridge and freezer, and shutting down the boat.

Fortunately the ever-present torrential rain gave us break today. Everyone keeps telling me that October and early November are the worst months, and by late November it gets a lot better. By mid-December when we get back, it should be pretty good.

We are leaving the boat in Tim's at Land n Sea's capable hands, it is on a mooring, and it will be locked up tighter than a drum. So we're not too worried about leaving Soggy Paws. It'll be just another Quantum Leap for us, going back to the U.S.A.

Labels: CostaRica

Total Nights: May 25 - Oct 31 499
Nights Spent On Passage: 10
Nights Spent on Anchor: 229
Nights Spent on a Mooring: 10
Nights Spent in a Marina: 277
- 'Traveling Inland': 67
- In the U.S.: 58

These stats were originally started as a progress update sometime early this year. But I finally went back through our logbook and filled out a proper spreadsheet on a month-by-month basis from the beginning of the trip. We'll try to keep it up monthly. You can see the result at http://www.svsoggypaws.com/mileagesummary.htm

Labels: CostaRica

Our first impressions of Golfito are kind of mixed.

The Good: It is a wonderful protected anchorage. No rolly stuff here. The hills are very green and when the sun shines it is a beautiful place. It is wonderfully cool at night. U.S. Dollars are accepted as readily as Colones, the local currency.

The Bad: The sun doesn't shine often! And the town is a little squalid. This is an abandoned banana town--Created by United Fruit when the workers got too uppity on the Caribbean coast. When the bottom fell out of the banana market in the 1980's, they left here abruptly. The town now survives off of tourism, a free trade zone, and fishing. The coming of the gringos has provided jobs, but has also caused prices in Costa Rica to rise, so it's no longer an inexpensive Central American country.

As for the rain, it IS rainy season here. But I'm told that there is no 'dry season'. There is a 'less rainy season'. But that's what feeds the rainforests and the eco-tourism that Costa Rica is so famous for. It's just kind of miserable to have overcast and drizzle all the time.

We are on an $8/day mooring at Land n Sea. This is a tiny establishment run by a former cruiser, with a small dock, about 8 moorings, and a help-yourself bar. If you are on one of their moorings you get free wifi ;) and free cold showers :0

During rainy season, most cruisers that are hanging out in this part of the world move to Ecuador, south of the equator, where it's less rainy. And the boats that ARE here are mostly empty right now. So there isn't much 'cruiser social life'. No potlucks, no VHF net.

We leave for San Jose on the 9th, and fly to the U.S. on the 10th. We will hire Tim at Land n Sea to watch over our boat for another $2/day. There is a fairly high crime rate in Golfito, but Tim lives on the houseboat right next door, and he says he has a reputation among the locals as a crazy man with a machete.

Our check-in to Costa Rica in Golfito was a bit of a nightmare. There are 4 stops you have to make (and some backtracking), and none of the 4 places are within walking distance of each other. And none are within walking distance of the marinas. We did: Port Captain, Copy Place, Immigration, Agriculture, Customs, back to the boat for paperwork shuffle, back to Customs, and then a final stop at the Port Captain. We hit a snag at Customs when the lady checked our boat documentation and noticed
that it was going to expire the next day. We explained that the new certificate was with our mail in Florida, and we were going to Florida next week to pick it up. Then she started talking about having to bond the boat and other things we didn't understand (in rapid Spanish). We asked if we could have the new certificate faxed down, and that wasn't good enough. Finally I asked if a color scan of the new certificate, emailed to us and printed out for them, would be sufficient. She relunctantly
agreed. Then it was 3 phone calls to Bryan, Dave's cousin (who couldn't figure out how to scan the document in any format larger than 4x6). But finally Bryan got us what we needed and Dave had to report to Customs at 8am with the update.

There were no fees except the $43 'quarantine' fee at the Agriculture office. They (fortunately) don't come out to the boat or do anything but fill out a few more forms. She wanted to know how many refrigerators we had and how many trash cans. Dave protested the fee, but she was adamant that it was the law. (But Tim at Land n Sea says the boats coming south into Costa Rica don't pay that fee).

So now we are trying to catch up on our internet (correspondence, banking, blog pics, travel research and arrangements), prepping the boat for our absence, and getting ready for America.

But today...we are hoping to find a bar in town where we can watch the Gators stomp Georgia this afternoon. GO GATORS!

Labels: CostaRica

Well, we finally made it to Costa Rica.

We motored around Punta Burica yesterday morning. Again, very light conditions. The swell was monstrous (to us). I can't imagine what it's like when the wind is blowing hard!

It is too far to make it all the way into Golfito from our anchorage at Punta Balsa. We were thinking of stopping at Pavones, where there's supposedly an anchorage that's not too bad. But after our sloppy rolly anchorage off Punta Balsa the previous night, we wanted something calm. So after taking a look at Pavones (famous for surf), we decided to go on to Puerto Jiminez across the Golfo Dulce from Golfito.

We are glad we did. Easy anchoring spot (thanks to waypoints from others) and a nice quiet non-rolly anchorage. We also had a nice hour and a half sail on our way up the Golfo Dulce. The afternoon winds picked up to about 12 knots right on our beam, so we were able to shut down the engine and still make 6 knots.

We will come back and explore Puerto Jiminez, the Osa Peninsula, and Corcovado National Park later. Today we head for Golfito and get checked in to the country.

Labels: CostaRica

The jump from Isla Gamez to Golfito is about a hundred miles... too far to make in one day. Friends had told us of a passable overnight anchorage at Punta Balsa, on the east side of the Burica Peninsula, on the very western edge of Panama.

It's 35 miles from Isla Gamez to Punta Balsa, so we left in the early morning, motoring north around Isla Parida. Again, virtually no wind. In heavier conditions, the way north and west around Parida might be risky due to relatively shallow water (15' deep). Some of these areas would break in heavy seas. Even though we've had less than 10 knots for nearly a week now, there is still a 6-8' long Pacific swell.

We have not been 'off soundings' in so long that Dave thought our depth sounder wasn't working. But the area between the islands in the Bay of Chiriqui (where we've been for the last week) and the Burica Peninsula gets very deep--1500 feet deep.

We were only about a mile off the waypoint we'd been given before we finally 'found the bottom' at 500 feet. It still didn't look like we'd find any protection from the considerable swell rolling in. But we kept on going in.

The bottom came up rapidly, but was still at 80 feet a hundred yards from the waypoint. We went in very slowly and finally, we found the little pinnacle... it shallowed up to about 20'. We motored around in a cloverleaf to make sure we had plenty of swinging room (the tidal range is still about 10' here). We finally dropped anchor in about 25' at half tide. The swell had dropped off in the last quarter mile, due to shoals that extend from the point just south of us. We could see heavy breakers
for quite a ways out from shore.

During the night the conditions changed from 'really rolly' to 'not bad', as the current and wind changed. The current runs along the shore and reverses with the tide. For about 6 hours during the night, with no wind, the current held us beam to the swell, and we rolled like heck. But the wind was zero and we knew we were stuck well to the bottom, so it wasn't dangerous, just uncomfortable.

We have only seen one other cruising boat during this whole trip, and only a couple fishing boats. We are in the 'skip zone' for the Panama Pacific net, so we can't hear the friends we just left in Panama.

We are looking forward to getting in to Golfito, where there is a fully protected anchorage, and reportedly a small cruising community.

Labels: PanamaPacific

We left our spot in the Contreras early in the morning, and motored in mostly calm winds to the Secas.

The guidebook shows about 4 anchorages on the NE side of Isla Cavada. What we found was that the sketch chart is not very accurate as to depths. Each bay with an anchor in it shoaled up rapidly, and we could never get in all the way to the anchor. And the chartlet is just a little off (the features do not all match up). Our raster chart was no more accurate. So we carefully felt our way around and ended up right where our friends on Carina and RDreamz told us to anchor. They also found the other
anchorages too shallow and too confining.

In each bay, we saw one mooring in the exact best spot to anchor. Just inshore of the mooring is where the bottom came up fast. So pick a spot just outside of the mooring.

The northern anchorage, where we ended up, is off a pretty little sand beach with palm trees. We anchored near a rocky pile (we could see it on the depth sounder and just barely make it out from deck). Dave managed to pick out a nice sand spot in 20' of water. The anchorage was passable in the mild conditions we are experiencing... a little rolly, but not too bad.

In the morning I snorkeled the whole area, and did find some live coral and tropical fish just inshore of us, but the water was disappointingly murky. Friends passing thru here a few years ago mentioned snorkeling and finding clear water here even during rainy season. But not for us this time.

We also did a little gunkholing in the dinghy. The resort here looks deserted. We met one caretaker fishing off the floating dock in the southernmost bay. He said the resort is closed until December 15.

We spent all Saturday here, and expected to be inundated with weekenders by Saturday afternoon. We did see 2-3 small sport fishing boats trolling around the island, and 2 of them anchored overnight, but away from us. They were gone at first light.

Labels: PanamaPacific

We left the Secas at about 10am. The wind as usual was about 2 knots from the SW, so we motored most of the 20 miles. Toward noon an onshore breeze developed and we were mostly sailing for a little while.

The guidebook mentioned that cruisers favored the Punta Jurel anchorage at Isla Parida. There is a small resort there that welcomed cruisers. So that is where we planned to stop. But on our way in, we passed close to Isla Gamez, and that looked just beautiful.

We went on in to Punta Jurel, and put the anchor down for lunch (we were starving by then). Either the resort is no longer functioning, or it is in sleep mode for rainy season. The beach looked junky (buckets and things scattered about) and not like it was being maintained as a resort. We could see one building in the trees with a guy sitting on the porch, but no other signs of life.

The anchorage itself was OK, but nothing special. So after a quick crew conference, we voted unanimously to go back out and anchor off Isla Gamez (only about a mile away).

This turned out to be a beautiful anchorage--the best so far on the Pacific side of Panama, in our opinion. Nice holding in heavy sand, a gorgeous beach with palm trees ashore, some wind to keep us cool, and very little swell. I could have stayed here for a week or more.

There were a couple of local boats picnicing at the beach on Sunday when we arrived, but they were gone by sundown. We had the whole place to ourselves all day Monday. We swam into the beach and found some coconuts. We burned our trash at low tide on the beach. There is supposed to be good snorkeling here, but again rainy season has rendered the water very cloudy, with only about 8 foot visibility. So we didn't even bother.

We got the usual evening heavy rain, with a little wind. But we were sheltered and secure. A very nice anchorage (this time of year).

Labels: PanamaPacific