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Costa Rica Continues

After our adventurous start with the zip lines, we sailed down to Quepos. We only spent one night just off the marina and one night anchored off of Punta Quepos. We didn’t find the town too exciting, but it was nice to get coffee, fresh food and walk around.

After Quepos, we sailed to Manuel Antonio. We anchored in the bay of the National Park, but after a few hours a guard hailed us from the beach. We weren’t allowed to anchor there on Monday, the day they were closed, so we motored over to the public beach. The next day we motored back over to the park and rowed to shore. Again we were approached by the guard stating we had to pay, which we expected, but we found out that we could only pay in Quepos, and then we also had to pay to get into the park, which we had to do in the town. Rather than going back to Quepos, we motored back to the public beach and rowed in with a surf landing that we timed carefully. We found a guide to hire and paid for us all to walk into Manuel Antonio National Park. We saw all sorts of wildlife and it was nice to get a hike in. See our post about it here.

The next day we sailed down to Dominicalito, but first we stopped for a surf at Dominical. We anchored just off the break and all paddled in. After 2 hours there, we made our way to anchor off the little fishing village in a cove of Dominicalito. There wasn’t much to do there, surf, internet, and groceries were all in Dominical, so for two days in a row, we hitchhiked to Dominical. Dominical is a happening little surf town with many tourists. The prices are a little higher, but you can find Thai food, a natural food store, yoga and massage spa, and Cafe Mono Congo for good coffee and wifi.

Two days there went quickly. Afterward we sailed to Uvita, well more like motored the 12 miles there. One thing is for sure here, we have had to motor a lot more than we like to. The days are mostly cloudy, so our solar input has been low, and the wind has been sparse, so equally, our wind generator hasn’t put out more energy, and the wind leave us drifting. We’ve resolved to motoring, to boost our battery bank and to get to our next anchorage before sunset. Another reason Costa Rica is an expensive place for cruising, it cost more money in fuel.

Uvita is a pretty little town off of another National Park nicked named “The Whale Tail”. We anchored inside of the bay of the Whale Tail and didn’t have to pay to anchor there this time. Although a beautiful beach with lots to see, it was by far one of the rolliest anchorages we’ve been in. We spent two of the days there just checking out the beach area and swimming in the surf. On our third day there, we met up with Ellamae’s dad and his partner CC, who had flown over from Florida to pick her up and take her back with them after a week of traveling Costa Rica for themselves. Ellamae will now be with Papa and CC for the next 2 months and will fly back to Panama, to continue west with us from there.

Costa Rica Rainforest zip line tours and more

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We started Costa Rica off strong first with heavy winds pushing us out of our first anchorage and then with a zip line canopy tour with Vista Los Sueños Canopy tour company.

January 3rd, after our 19 day passage we thought we would have a great nights rest anchored in Punta Leona, Costa Rica. We thought wrong. Upon going to bed we had light onshore winds, most likely Papagoyo related, but not strong enough to be a concern. By midnight, they got stronger, then by 2 am we were sitting a lee shore with wind blowing 20 with gusts of about 25. No fun! We were about to pull up anchor and head south around the corner when we realized the windless wasn’t working! It was dark, windy, we were tired, there was no way we were going to pull are anchor up by hand. (I’m sure we could have if we had to.) We were solid in our holding, so we opted to sleep in the dodger and take watches until the morning. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well at all. First thing in the morning light, the wind had calmed a bit, we pulled up the anchor and sailed out and down to the next anchorage, Herradura.

Although sleep deprived, we were so excited to get our legs on land. Shortly after dropping the hook, we rowed into shore, where we tied our dinghy up on the beach and walked into town. We spent the entire day walking around, just getting a feel for Costa Rica. The Spanish is different, faster with different words. Most people speak English here though. Figuring out the money was a challenge too. The Colones is 560 per the US dollar. After having the Mexican Pesos figured out, now we had to adjust to Colones. We quickly discovered that Costa Rica has about the same prices for everything as the US and double the prices for anything related to marina fees and boat related costs. We will not be staying in any marinas here if we can help it. One thing we loved and worth the money here, was the fried plantains. We had “nachos” with friend green plantain instead of chips as part of our first Costa Rican meal. Yum!

During our 5+ miles walk about, we stumbled upon a Canopy Zip Line tour company called Vista Los Sueños Rainforest Tours. We decided to splurge this one time and schedule a 10 platform zip line experience for the next day. Everyone was so excited! First thing the next morning, we rowed to shore and made our way up town to Vista Los Sueños for our 10 am tour. We were the first of our tour group to arrive, so we given bracelets stating we were #1, which meant that we got to go first! The staff at Los Sueños were super nice. They are all bilingual and well trained. After a safety intro, we took a tractor ride up the rainforest’s hill to platform 1 of 10. After another quick instructional talk it was time to start. I went first, followed by Ellamae, then Taj (yes, Taj went all by himself!), followed by Nina, then Christian.

The tour itself was about 2 hours. We all had a blast! At the completion, they give you a nice cup of seasonal fruit.

Afterward, we got a shuttle ride into Jaco, the tourist surf town nearby. We were in search of coffee and wifi, but instead found an acai bowl/yoga studio place called B-Fresh that offered amazing smoothies, acai bowls, panini sandwiches, kombucha on tap, and cold brew coffee for the after fruit sugar crash. It felt like we were in California again, in a good way. The prices were expensive as far as our cruising status was concerned, but still a little cheaper than California.

Before heading back to the boat we tried our first Costa Rican “Soda” place for dinner. A Soda is basically a cheaper typical food restaurant. Sometimes more like fast food, and not quite as expensive as a tourist oriented restaurant. It was good, but it was not the Mexican food we had been spoiled with for the last 2 years.