Here we are this morning back in Costa Rica, but this time in the southern part of the country in the little town of Golfito. We had an overnight passage from Western Panama that was not quite boisterous, but certainly rolled us around in 20 knots of wind with just the reefed main up. Once we rounded the corner around the peninsula into Costa Rica the wind died and we motored slowly the last 6 hours to arrive at the entrance this morning after daylight.
After we left Bahia Honda we spent 4 days at the Islas Secas in Western Panama. The plan was to spend 2 days there and then move up to Boca Chica for our birthdays, but when we got to the islands and saw the 80′ visibility in 82 degree water we knew we would just have to miss Boca Chica. We dove 3 days in a row and snorkeled the 4th day. The diving was the best we had seen in all of the west coast and definitely whetted our appetite for Isla Cocos next month.
We spent the night before we left with Buzz & Maureen of Encore, who we first met in Huatulco last spring. They had done a 9 year circumnavigation in the 70’s and 80’s, returned to San Diego and worked 20 years, and were on their encore voyage. As often is the case, it was hard to say goodbye.
But yesterday we actually got lucky and some big winds were coming in to Western Panama, so instead of flat calm and motoring we had a nice breeze behind us yesterday to get us out of Panama. Today we’ll get checked in to Costa Rica and empty the boat of trash and do some laundry. We’re only here for a few days and don’t have much on our agenda except for helping Rob’s book stash for the South Pacific passage. The cruiser spot we’re at reportedly has the best book exchange on the west coast and Rob’s got about 40 read books he’s hoping to trade in.
Next we’ll head for the Gulf of Papagayo in Northern Costa Rica. It’s been blowing 40 knots there for the last couple of days and is forecast to continue at 35 knots for the next 3 days. We need to find a window to sneak in while the wind isn’t howling so we can see T2. We would like to see a few bays near here in southern Costa Rica, but if a window opens up we’ll haul butt (relatively speaking, of course) north. I’ve been watching the forecast for Papagayo for 3 months and it’s only been below 25 knots for 2 days. We’ll see how this goes.
Teresa
