Tango time

The latest version of our plans goes something like this...We've put the boat to bed for the season at the Costa Rica yacht club in Puntarenas. Now that it's all tucked in we are heading south to do some inland traveling in South America for about 10 weeks. Today we took a bus to a town near the airport in San Jose. Alajuelas is less confusing than going into San Jose for just a one night stay and is closer to the airport. Tomorrow we hop a plane to Buenos Aires, via Mexico City. Yep...it seems we just can't stay away. This circuitous route may not be the most direct but it did cut $400 off the price of our 2 tickets.
I'm taking my new Canon 4oD camera along, determined to get comfortable with it and see what I come up with. The only reading material I'm taking along is a book on just how to use this big guy. I should be a pro with it by the time Karlene and Thad's wedding in September.
More soon

Monkey stuff

Here's some pics from our tour of Manuel Antonio Nation
al Park

Bahias in Costa Rica

Santa Elena was one of our first stops in Costa Rica but we stayed in many lovely bays; Bahia Potrero Grande, Bahia Huevos, Playa Del Cocos, Bahia Guacamaya, Bahia Samara, Bahia Ballena, Puerto Leona, Bahia Herradura, Puerto Quepos and then to the Costa Rica Yacht Club in Puntoarenas.In Bahia Ballena we met Frank and Patricia Francis who run an almost restaurant with the best food and great stories that Frank tells about his days in Long Island as an ice cream man, among his other numerous adventures. One morning we walked down the road into the town of Tambor, where we spent time at the bar, on the internet. the resort is "Tambor Tropical Resort", just beautiful, all teak buildings with hand carved doors. It looks like a great place for a secluded holiday. There has been so many places that look to be wonderful places for such get aways but I think I prefer the ever changing views aboard Sailfisher best of all.
I think our fav spot was outside of Puerto Quepos, in a little Bay right below Manuel Antonio national park. We stayed for several days with occassional visits from small boat ferrying tourists to snorkling sites. One afternnon I had this great idea...I thought. So I got in my kayak and headed for the beach, but the catch is that I was pulling a buggie board with Al aboard. It didn't work out as well as I thought it would, paddling was not fluid but real jerky stop and starts; Al let go when we reached the surf and...yep I got tossed out. Not bad though, glasses didn't break, no injuries. As they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
We took a guided tour of Manuel Antonio and it was great, got to see lots of monkeys, iguanas, birds and even some bats, all with the aid of the guideds high powered telescope. There's 2 beautiful beaches you can walk to in the park as well. The ride up the hill from the center of town is definitely an e-ride experience. The town of Quepos is a good spot for cruisers and the resorts on the way to Manuel Antonio are great for people looking for a really nice place to have a holiday in Costa Rica. If you're coming to Costa Rica bring money...it's the most expensive place we've been to in a long while but it's really a great place to visit.

Costa Rican daze

Once we left Nicaragua it was clear sailing to Costa Rica, well...actually that's not really true, we did get plenty of wet weather on the way. The plan was to get through Costa Rica at a fairly quick pace to be able to get to Ecuador by mid June. As usual, our plans have a way of changing, but then again, that's all part of cruising. The Sarana cruising guide to Costa Rica describes so many beautiful places and anchorages to explore that we couldn't resist wanting to visit as many as we could. After having been here a month we have gotten to stay in so many beautiful bays. We anchored in Bahia Santa Elena, where we met 2 geologists from Texas while we hiked to a waterfall. We weren't sure if we were turning at the right dried creek bed and as we pondered that, we spotted a 4 wheel drive coming our way down this dirt path. Out popped Volken and Jake and with their hand held GPS we discovered we were on the right path. We hiked for about an hour to the waterfalls and both enjoyed a cool dip. Once we hiked out again we marked the path with a mound of rocks so our new friends could find it later. I received an email from Jake, he said they found the falls and aside from being a place to cool off the falls were of geologic significance. So we did our bit for science.