We left the Costa Rica Yacht Club 3 days ago. Everyone was happy to say farewell to busy Puntarenas with its fishing boats racing back and forth. We are now anchored in a large, placid bay surrounded by the incredible natural beauty that Costa Rica is famous for. Much better!
Wayne, aboard S/V Learnativity, is here as well, so we get to share our fun times with him and his dog Ruby.
So far we have been taking things easy aboard Samadhi V. The boys have been working on their schoolwork, and we have done some underwater boat maintenance. Alexander and Nicholas strapped on regulators and explored a bit underwater, too.
We have taken a few trips ashore, and we are planning more extensive travels to other anchorages in the next few days. There are so many places to visit that it's hard to decide where to begin!
On our cruise to Bahía Ballena, we answered a call for assistance over the VHF. Kelly was on watch and talked with the boat. As luck would have it, we were able to help out the cruisers aboard S/V Nemesis when we arrived at the anchorage (just before they did themselves). Jeff injured his hand with a chisel while underway! We were so happy we could offer assistance! You can read more about their experiences in their blog.
Today we're all looking forward to more fun in the sun with our cruising friends. Nicholas, of course, is particularly looking forward to more fishing.
A few days ago another boat, oh, wait, that's already posted, so I guess I'll skip ahead a bit.
Anyway, did Nicholas happen to mention that they have their own computer (which Nicholas has spent hours on)?
So he created his own profile in this online pirate game, but there was another game which I thought was more fun. You drive around in these Flinstones vehicles and try to beat the other player at a goal. My favorite was capture the flag, but survival was fun and racing looked cool. I had lots of fun.
Yesterday we went in the pool with them again, but the bridges were gone! We ended up pushing each other off of the island in the middle of the pool, and that was fun until I slipped the third time that day, and then we had to go shopping.
We got some pepperoni pizza when we went out that night, and so that was yummy. And when we got back to the boat I got to frost some cupcakes and then eat one. That was yummy too.
But I guess we're leaving today, so I don't know whether I'll see them again or not.
After a bearing started losing it's rollers in Bahia Santa Elena, we decided it was time to repair the windlass again. Luckily it never stopped working! We had a new bronze bushing expertly machined and installed here in Puntarenas. Turns out that there was supposed to have been a bronze bushing, NOT a roller bearing according to the drawings. Since the bearing is quite small and the loads are very high I am guessing (hoping?) that is what caused the failure. We are lucky to have the drawings, as our windlass is 21 years old and no longer manufactured.
Eli and Sean are two very fun 10 and 12 year-old cruisers. They were led in by a panga and their parents at the wheel. Alexander and I took a break from our schoolwork and went down onto the dock to introduce ourselves.
Later that day, all of us played pool and then went into the pool to have some fun playing with the bridge over the pool. The bridge has a higher part than the rest of it which we made the king's throne. Whoever defeated the king (You defeat the king by pushing him off the bridge) became the new king and it kept going on like this until we were all bored.
Then, they came over for dinner. We all had krabby patties from Spongebob, except Daddy was making them. All of us wanted different condiments!
They had a DS, the same exact one as both of ours! We had fun doing wireless Mario and Mario Kart battles with them for the next two hours.
Then, they left and we are going to play with them today again hopefully!
After our first inland trip in Costa Rica, we're back home aboard Samadhi!
On New Year's Day, we departed the Costa Rica Yacht Club to head inland for a visit to the Arenal Volcano and a Zipline Canopy Tour. We traveled with our friend Wayne from S/V Learnativity, his daughter Lia, her fiance Brian, and the two puppies Ruby and Piglet. With 7 of us plus two small dogs, we were quite the group! Luckily, we were able to secure an appropriate rental car in the form of a Chrysler minivan. I say luckily as this is the high season for tourism, and apparently, rental cars (of any sort) are very rare to come by!
We departed Puntarenas and circumnavigated Lake Arenal on our way to the canopy tour. During this trip we saw the landscape shift from temperate pastureland to steep mountainsides abraded by constant wind.
Waterfalls, streams, and rivers constantly passed by as we traversed what seemed like 100 single lane bridges. A constant light rain and foggy haze accompanied us as we drove on.
Navigating was a real adventure. First, we didn't have a map. Second, most small roads have no signs, so I am not sure a map would have helped. Amazingly, Kelly and Wayne were able to guide us halfway across the country to our destination. Best of all, we arrived on time!
When we arrived at the zipline tour, the weather had not cleared. A constant drenching mist was falling, and low, gray clouds obscured our view of the volcano and the lake. We saw people arriving back from the tour covered with grease but wearing ear to ear grins. So, we went inside and geared up for our adventure. We were each wrapped in a rain jacket and strapped into about 20lbs of safety gear. Finally we were capped off with a helmet and sent on our way!
We started off on the tour by taking a tram ride up the mountainside. We were riding in something resembling a large ski gondola. As we ascended through the canopy, our guide helped to detail the plants we were passing by. Sharp-eyed Nicholas spotted a green vine snake on a tree as he tried to grab the leaves outside of the car! Seeing the canopy from the treetop level, instead of from the ground really gives you a completely different perspective. The ride up was fantastic, and I was sorry that it was so short.
At the top (top of the tram ride, NOT the summit of the mountain), we each tried some short zipline cables to "get the hang of it". These training cables aren't very steep (you don't go fast) and are only 20 or 25 meters long so the rides are pretty short. Most of all, these cables are only about 30 - 50 feet above the ground. Nicholas was having second thoughts about the tour, and asked to go back down on the gondola. Even so, he bravely volunteered to be first down the first ine! After Nicholas's test rides, he was willing to "try it".
After the test rides, we gathered at the first launch platform, looking down our first "real" thrillride. Standing on that platform, we were greeted by a cable that extends out and down... into the mist and clouds. We couldn't see our "destination", but we could see that we were way, way above the treetops!
I stepped up onto the "launch platform" and was clipped onto the cable. Then one of the guides double-checked my equipment. Finally, I was given the OK symbol, and off I went!
The first part of the cable is the steepest, so I shot down rapidly building speed as I "flew" out over the forest canopy. What a rush! After the first cable, Nicholas had removed all doubt that this was a FUN activity!
Each cable is different. They build in speed and length throughout with some being remarkably high while others let you zoom just above the treetops. The final cable actually takes you THROUGH the trees, an amazing experience! Alexander got a very special ride on the last cable, as he was "taken" down in a tandem ride with a guide while he rode facing backwards! The guide was nice enough to shoot a video of Alexander's ride which we have posted on YouTube:
We ended up at the conclusion of the ride wet from the rain, and covered with dirt and grease from the cable. Nobody cared about mess. A great time was had by all. Nicholas was asking (repeatedly) to do more zipline tours. What happened to my timid, nervous son?
After the tour, the staff provided us with moist towels to clean up. While in the midst of battling the grease and grime (surprisingly, not very difficult!), we were called out to see the Arenal volcano erupting at sunset! The view from the tour facility is flawless, and we could see the hot lava cascading down the mountainside in red bursts of fire. I took photos, but my pictures just don't do this sight justice. Darkness fell as we watched lava flow cascade down the hillside, an amazing time nobody will forget.
Once clean, we drove a short distance through La Fortuna to our hotel the Finca Luna Nueva Lodge.
After our arrival, we were served dinner made from items grown on the farm accompanied by Chilean wine. We stayed (all 7 of us) in a wonderful, 3-room, private bungalow lined with local, oil-finished wood. A soak in the solar-heated hot tub under the stars wrapped up a wonderful first day of 2009.
The next morning, we awoke just before dawn to the sounds of the howler monkeys and more birds than I knew were possible (especially a massive flock of Montezuma oropendola). We joined Wayne on the "front porch" for sunrise coffee service as we watched the birds shift from tree to tree.
At 8 a.m., we were served a delicious Tico-style meal, again sourced from (yummy) things produced right there on the finca. After breakfast, the jefe Steven lead us on a tour of the finca (farm) and some of the surrounding rain forest. While we walked, we learned about many of the different types of plants that grow here. During our tour, we saw two sloths in the canopy, one eating and the other apparently sleeping (being slothful?). We tried many different native and exotic plants and fruits, as well as fresh green peppercorns (where black pepper comes from) straight from the vine and anatto the original lipstick and now the most common dye used in coloring butter.
Departing the finca, we headed to the international airport where we dropped off Lia, Brian, and Piglet (their papillon) at the airport for their flight back to Los Angeles. Before returning to the CYRC, we stopped at Price Smart and a few other stores to grab supplies.
This was certainly a whirlwind tour, but a fantastic trip with great friends! We're really glad to have been able to go together and share the experiences with friends like Wayne and his family.
We spent the day today in San Jose, Costa Rica picking up Alexander and Nicholas from the airport. Samadhi V had her first AM low tide in the deeper berth and fared much, much better than our previous location (phew!).
We discovered this morning that Samadhi V was unhappy about where we moored :(
We had been told that there wasn't a lot of water at CRYC and that sailboats sometimes tilted slightly at severe low tides. Our friend Wayne arrived here ahead of us aboard S/V Learnativity and reported no issues whatsoever. When we arrived we were directed to moor in a much different location than Wayne. This turned out to not be the best place for Samadhi.
Costa Rica Yacht Club manager Carlos was quick put things right. He had us moved to a deeper mooring as soon as the tide was back up. No doubt we will remember this experience- 20 degrees of heel is no way to live in port!
Not to worry, no harm was done to Samadhi or to us. The bottom is soft mud here and we simply floated free once the tide came back in.
After a truly uneventful passage, we've arrived safely at the Costa Rica Yacht Club in Puntarenas. I landed a decent-sized jurel toro, but we threw it back. There's plenty of fish in the freezer!
Our course took us between the Nicoya Peninsula and the Islands of Tortugas and Negritos. They were so beautiful. We look forward to visiting them some time soon!
We will get underway in a couple of hours for the Costa Rica Yacht Club in Puntarenas. It's only a short 27 mile passage across the Gulf of Nicoya. We have had a delightful time here in Playa Tambor, and look forward to returning with the boys! We enjoyed wonderful Christmas Eve dinner ashore at the Hotel Tambor Tropical with friends Bernd & Renate from S/V Volle Pulle (a Tayana 42, also from Barillas!). We have enjoyed walking on the beach, which goes for miles and miles (thankfully sans tourists).
