White-face monkeys - guardians of the beach in Manuel Antonio National Park

Manuel Antonio National Park

Three Toed Sloth in Manuel Antonio National Park

Mantled Howler Monkey in Punta Blanka Absolute National Park

September 17, 2013

Today Kalliope is at the marina in Quepos, Costa Rica and we enjoy walking in nearby Manuel Antonio National Park.  The density of wildlife is remarkable considering the press of human visitors.  All guests enter on foot and there are many guided groups.  We take our cues from some of the guides.  When they spot insects, birds, reptiles or mammals, we point our camera accordingly.  This is a small jungle and beach park and we cover most of the trails.  The section that gets the heaviest use is a narrow isthmus with nice swim beaches on each side.  When we arrive here we are surprised to find lots of animals and soon it is clear they are drawn by the food people bring in.  No one appears to feed the animals, but raccoons get into the trash and monkeys pilfer apples from beach blankets.  Raccoons also raid packs and purses for food.  I sit down to eat an apple at a picnic table and three white faced monkeys descend from the tree above.  They are not too aggressive but when one comes within two meters I stomp my foot and he retreats up the tree a bit.  When I look west, a raccoon climbs up on the east end of my bench and a helpful tourist chases him away.

We finally get to spend time with mantled howler monkeys and white-faced monkeys. Yea!

Hump back whale lounging in Ballenas Bay near Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Deb in Rincon de la Vieja National Park, Costa Rica

August 9, 2013

Well Deb, the activities director, is back from New York and she wants to visit the highlands to see what the ‘other half’ of Costa Rica looks like.  We rent a car and take a day trip to the volcano park called Rincon de la Vieja.  We have a nice hike but don’t see any monkeys and the trail to the volcano is closed. Significantly the road to the volcano passes a large and apparently complete geothermal electric power generation station.  We did not discover how much power is generated here.  This park is close to Playa Hermosa and Kalliope so we return there for the night.

The next day we drive to a place called Monteverde.  It is a reserve originated by Americans who left what they considered a militaristic country in 1948 for Costa Rica where there is no military.  They are Society of Friends, also known as Quakers and are now dairy farmers.  Well, one second generation Quaker is the part time naturalist who guides our morning nature walk.  When I ask him if the number of Friends is growing, diminishing or what he thinks a minute and says: “It is hard to say because we may have 50 people at the Sunday morning meeting but if you ask them afterwards if they are Friends, most of them will say no.”

In Monteverde we see mostly insects, mollusks reptiles and plants of every description

Monteverde is simply an upland area set aside to preserve the biodiversity and protect the water sources for downstream farming and ranching.  A concession in the reserve provides upscale dormitory rooms, meals, guided nature walks and souvenirs.  We opt for room and board and tour.  We see birds, frogs, snails, waterfalls, stick bugs and orchids on our short guided walk through the Jungle.  We see no monkeys.  After a longer walk on our own, we head out toward the next attraction, the Arenal Volcano.  It is a short distance away but to get there we drive around Lake Arenal, the largest lake in Costa Rica.  This is not a short drive and we arrive the next day.  The area around the lake is cattle country, fairly open with wide vistas and forested mountains in the background.  Lake Arenal provides hydro power to San Jose but hundreds of large wind generators are more visible evidence of renewable energy generation for Costa Rica.  These line the ridge south of the lake and apparently take advantage of the strong ‘winter’ winds that make Lake Arenal a Mecca for windsurfers and kite boarders.  Winds are light during our visit.  We spend about three nights in this area staying in lodges near the parks.

Dear Debbie:                                                                                                         July 22, 2013                                                                                                                                         

Hope you are enjoying NY?  It was early to bed last night and up before dawn this morning.  I load the tender with laundry, etc and paddle to shore.  At the picnic table where I leave the tender, I meet an Ecuadorian man who would like to sell us an excursion, etc. and meet a firefighter from Mesa, AZ who just retired and moved into a nice house on the hill overlooking Bahia Culebra.  We chat a few minutes and exchange phone numbers to get together later.

I drop the laundry off at the “LavenDaria” in Playa Hermosa and grab a box of juice next door.  

Then I start the hike over the hill to pueblo Panama where I heard there is a seamstress.  She is the sister of Jesus, the shave ice man at Playa Panama.  When I asked Jesus last week if there is a tailor in Sardinal where he lives he said: “Yes, but there is one closer.  Anna is my sister and lives in pueblo Panama.”  Well, to make a long story medium, I walk up to the convenience store at the bus turnaround in Panama and the lady at the cash register speaks English but if she knows Anna she won’t tell me.  As I walk along what I think is the right road, a guy with a machete in his hand stops to ask me for a buck.  “Sorry, no.”  I ask a lady burning trash in the street about Anna and she says to go a hundred yards further, turn left and ask the lady: “Donde vive Anna.”  I think I will either find Anna or her next door neighbor.  No, I find the other lady in Panama who speaks English.  She sends me back to the convenience store and 300 yards the other direction where I find a rather suspicious Anna on her front porch.  I think word of my quest got there ahead of me.  I explain from the sidewalk that my pants are too big.  She invites me to the porch and I show her the slacks.  She ponders a while, introduces me to her brother or maybe husband and I tell her I found Jesus at the beach and Jesus sent me to her.  A ha! She promptly measures me, drags the sewing machine table to the front porch and does the work right there on the spot.  Then we start to talk price.  I think the price went up three times during this conversation, but $12 still does not seem so bad for taking in three slacks.

When I return to the convenience store the bus is there but the driver is asleep in a hammock hung from the posts of the bus shelter.  All of the usual loonies and the guy with the machete are gone.  After consulting my schedule, I find the bus will leave in 40 minutes.  I don’t want to walk to Playa Hermosa, so I go to the other store in pueblo Panama, buy another juice and plop down in the chair out front where I enjoy the breeze and watch the chickens, dogs and children of the neighborhood while I wait for the bus.  This excursion is mostly to help me get acquainted with some Ticos.

Back at Playa Hermosa I walk the very pleasant promenade through the trees between the sand of the beach on one side and the mixed homes, restaurants and hotels on the other.  Friendly people try to sell me fishing trips, ceramic bowls, volcano trips and massages.  When I turn them down, they smile, wish me a good day and move on.  No one offers to rent a sail board, the one thing that might have emptied my pocket. 

I toss my pack with the skinny pants into the kayak and decide to paddle to the rocks at the end of the beach.  The tide is high, the surf is low and water clarity is so-so.  I see a few fish but no starfish, eels or urchins.  I know you would love to snorkel here.  Most of the boats in this bay seem to have two or three resident pelicans but your scarf fluttering from the forestay has kept them off Kalliope so far.  I wonder if they take it for a bigger badder bird.  The boat is a mess, the heat is oppressive and I am not having any fun.  Don’t you wish you were here?  I miss you something awful.  Come home soon.

Dear Debbie:                                                                                                                  July 21, 2013

Kalliope and I move from Playa Panama to Playa Hermosa today, ostensibly to be closer to a laundry, but the real reason was an excuse to go sailing.  So, I take seven and one half hours to go three quarters of a mile.  Call it the long way home.  Along the way I see a pair of pan tropic spotted dolphins performing a water ballet and a manta ray practicing his double back flip.  A school of mackerel jumps out of the water as if that is the best way to get somewhere, but they are not coordinated like the dolphins.  I spend an hour waiting for wind (drifting) at the entrance to the Papagayo Marina.  If it makes them nervous, they didn’t mention it.  Later I spend a pleasant hour studying the crowded bay to get the perfect spot to anchor.  By now, I am almost used to pulling the shift lever back when I want to go forward, an unintended consequence of the transmission rebuild.

Playa Hermosa feels a bit like a fishbowl after Playa Panama.  The hills are steeper and the bay is smaller.  There is more development on the hills and I am a little self conscious taking my shower in the cockpit after my evening swim.  It feels like every one of those condo windows is a pair of eyes staring right at me.  Makes me consider wearing swim trunks next time.

Returning the clean laundry to the cabinets, I am convinced that we have reached the tipping point and now have more stuff on board than a 37 foot boat can hold.  Speaking of whining, a solitary mosquito nearly bleeds me dry in the night.  If you were here, it would have bitten you and I would be safe.  Come home soon

Love, Gregg

Yes two letters to Deb are included intentionally.

Highland Forests of Costa Rica

We went to N Central Costa Rica for a few days to see the sights around Lake Arenal.  We get a lot of together time but it is never quite enough and this was a nice getaway.  A nice man took this picture of us in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.

 

These coatimundi are not a bit shy around people and we were in a noisy crowd on a guided hike when this one came to see what all the fuss was about.

This bobo bird is reputed to be the Nicaraguan national bird.  I got the name from a guy selling timeshares on a street corner, so it must be true.  Yes, he caught but has not yet consumed breakfast.

Bobo photo by Deborah Burton.

June 11, 2013 Making Our Way from Mexico to Costa Rica

June 17, 2013, 13:00 a.m.  Kalliope roars eastward with a bone in her teeth.  We are in our eighth night at sea on what was planned as a seven day passage from MX to C.R.  There were a few problems, so it is good to make swift progress toward our goal.  Our weather router, Gregg examining the wind predictions before the trip decides to go far offshore to avoid adverse winds near the coast.  Bad idea!  Westerly winds do not appear, but this norther is better. 

Did I mention a few problems?  Our third night out from Mexico, sailing among thunderheads and lightning, with only a tiny sliver of moon, we are hit by a sudden wind squall which knocks Kalliope over on her side.  We take on seawater through an open port.  Deb scrambles to close the port and Gregg dashes from his bunk to the cockpit to release the sheets.  This allows the sails to flap violently in the wind.  Kalliope quickly resumes her more dignified mast-vertical posture.  We lose a computer, a camera and chargers for nearly all hand held gadgets plus our two best sails are damaged before they can be successfully reefed.  Because of this event, blog entries for this period are not accompanied by relevant photos.

Our effort to continue East to Costa Rica is thwarted by contrary wind and current and damaged sails.  After several days our water is running low so we head north for the coast eventually arriving at Golfo Fonseca which is bordered by El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.  The transmission is acting up and we need a port that doesn’t require a lot of motoring so we choose Amapala, Isla El Tigre, Honduras.

 “U.S. citizens should be vigilant of their surroundings at all times and in all locations, especially when entering or exiting their homes, hotels, cars, garages, schools, and workplaces. Whenever possible, U.S. citizens should travel in groups of two or more persons; avoid wearing jewelry and carrying large sums of money or displaying cash, ATM/credit cards, or other valuables; and avoid walking at night in most areas of Honduras or walking alone on beaches, historic ruins, and trails. Incidents of crime along roads, including carjacking and kidnapping, are common in Honduras. Motorists should avoid traveling at night and always drive with their doors locked to deter potential robberies at traffic lights and on congested downtown streets.”

Quote from U.S. state Department Dated June 17, 2003,  OOPs!  We arrive in Honduras ten days later under duress due to lack of water and don’t receive the updated warning until about July 10.

June 27, 2013 – Amapala Honduras

Not having good charts, I cut the corner around El Tigre island a little too close and miss going aground on a rock by about 2 feet.  No tide information either so we are fighting a wicked ebb to get in but it is not quite fully dark when we are securely anchored.  Clearing-in is easy with customs and immigration in separate offices on the pier where everyone comes ashore.

Day 1 we sleep late, then walk around the tiny commercial district and orient ourselves, particularly identifying a source for bottled water in 5 gallon jugs.  We get seven jugs aboard and figure out how to transfer it to the tanks before the sun goes down.

Day 2 we arrange for a tour of the ten mile circuit of Isla Tigre, a symmetric volcanic cone rising out of the calm waters of the Gulf of Fonseca.  Our ride is a tricycle powered by a small motorcycle engine.  It can carry three people in comfort and more in a pinch and has a roof but no window glass to obscure the view.  The island promotes seven beaches and we stop for all of them, though they saved the best for last.  It is called Playa Grande and features a horizontal cave with one opening completely drowned at high tide and the other end about a hundred feet away accessible to tourists at all tides.  We arrive at low tide and cautiously observe the many bats making their home in the cave.  It is called the Cava de Sirenes which translates as mermaids.  Later, enjoying refreshments at the Lighthouse Restaurant, we meet the first of several characters to appear in Amapala.  Marcel, a divorced Canadian age 62 begins, after five minutes, to describe the violent relationship he just left with his Honduran girlfriend age 22.

Later Marcel introduces us to Paulo:  “I was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New Jersey from the time I was six.  My father worked hard on the railroad to support his wife and my eight brothers and sisters.  He felt that mama’s place was at home looking after us.  I went into the Navy right out of high school.  I was on a big ship lobbing 16” shells into Viet Nam.  We didn’t know who we were killing.  Well, I married a good woman.  We worked hard, raised our kids, then settled in Honduras.  We have a home in Tegucigalpa and another one here in beautiful, peaceful Amapala.”

Then we met Jaime at his business up the hill from the waterfront toward the school:  “Yes, I spent 16 years in the states.  I worked construction in the daytime and restaurants at night.  Well yea, I usually got three or four hours of sleep a night.  I was in D.C. at first, then I moved to Maryland.  Baltimore was bad because the blacks there hate the Hispanics.  They would just as soon kill you as look at you.  D.C. was fine.  No problem there.  Well, after working hard for a few years, I came back here to Amapala.  I just have my little restaurant and my twelve year old son here.  It is just him and me.  His momma is gone-divorced.”

We call the next character Manuel and assume he was born in Honduras.  He sought us out at the landing where he and his family were waiting for a launch to take them back to the mainland and the road system: “Yes, I live in the states, Orlando near Disney World.  Nice place with two gates.  (Here he pantomimes a wireless remote control.)  We are just here for the day visiting my wife’s relatives.  I worked 25 years in the aerospace industry on Long Island.  We sold electronic components to Boeing and Lockheed-Martin.   Now I am retired, just enjoying my kids and grandkids.  Yes, we’ll be back in Tegucigalpa tonight and in Orlando on Sunday.  Nice visiting with you.  Good bye.”

 There were other characters, but this is enough for now.  Paulo described Amapala as peaceful and we found it to be so, though we were home well before dark each day.  No one bothered us in town or on the boat.  Out of curiosity we asked about the police and the response was:  “Yes, we have one.”   And they pointed to a government building.  The people appeared very poor and they were eager to lend a hand wherever needed, apparently hoping for a tip.  We felt we got good value for the US dollars exchanged at the general store which functioned as the bank.

Our passage from Honduras to Costa Rica was relatively uneventful and pleasant.  We were boarded by an official representative of Nicaragua in Nicaraguan territory on day one – an 18 year old boy in shorts and flip flops armed with a clipboard.  He was delivered by a small skiff and backed up by a sophisticated rigid inflatable chase boat standing by about half a mile away.  In spite of language differences, he took down standard information about boat registration, crew names and nationality, etc. thanked us politely and returned to the waiting skiff.

I remember telling one of the officials in Chiapas, MX that we planned five to seven days for our passage to Costa Rica.  We left Mexico June 8 and arrive in Costa Rica July 7.  Allowing for three nights spent at anchor in Honduras, I figure the passage actually took 27 days of round-the-clock watches.

 

July 18, 2013 Early days in Costa Rica

Kalliope finally arrives in Costa Rica sailing into Bahia Culebra with a lame transmission and stumbles on a perfectly calm anchorage near Playa Panama beach park and the pleasant tourist destination of Playa del Coco.  We check in with the port captain and immigration.  We are welcome for 90 days but that is it.

The officials suggest we go to the beachfront restaurant next door to ask “Popin” if he can help with our mechanical problems.  He pulls the transmission the next morning and five days later knocks on the hull to install the rebuilt unit.  We couldn’t be happier.  We did not expect any mechanic in this rather remote spot and certainly not one so efficient.

“Now what else do you need?” asks Popin.  We mention a sail loft to repair some damage to our main.  He suggests a man who does excellent work, pulls out his phone, arranges a meeting and offers to be there to interpret.  It is like this wherever we turn.  If someone hears we lack an item or service, they are anxious to help with directions, a ride, a contact or at least a sympathetic ear.

Deb and Gregg are both overdue for visits to family.  Gregg pulls the short straw and Deb is off for a visit to N.Y. and Vermont.  Early reports include: “I forgot how green and beautiful upstate New York is with the mountains and rolling farmland.”  If this blog entry is excessively wordy, blame it on Gregg sitting in Costa Rica with time on his hands.