Summertime, and the Living is Easy
Costa Rican Summer by Sea
After the whirlwind of travel back and forth to the US we wanted to take it easy for a while. We left the marina and anchored in a protected cove called Nacascolo, with a beautiful beach, inside Culebra Bay. There is something freeing about anchoring out! Part of it is the low cost, but most of it is lack of connection to land-life, and floating serenely in our self-contained home. We stayed in the anchorage for a couple of weeks, just enjoying the simplicity of life near a beautiful beach, with nothing but swimming and relaxing to think about, accompanied by the low, haunting growls of the howler monkeys at dusk and dawn. We loved swimming from the boat to the beach to go for a walk in the mornings.
Shortly after we arrived, another couple anchored near us. We could hear them playing Irish folk music on guitar and fiddle in their cockpit, which sounded delightful. After meeting them the next day, we found out that Stu and Steph on Matador have been cruising for over 16 years, after leaving England, with the intention of heading to New Zealand.
Stu is originally from New Zealand and Steph is from England. They invited us to come to the marina (a short dinghy ride away), where they planned to play with friends that evening. I brought my drum and tried to improvise.
Irish music is either written in the reel which has a 4/4 time signature or the jig which has a 6/8 or 12/8 time signature. I had learned both 4/4 and 6/8 in my drum lessons of middle eastern music. It was fun to actually play with other musicians and put my learned rhythms to use. Soon we were all playing music together.
One evening, after we had been practicing for a few days, Peter brought his recording equipment over to Matador, and recorded about eight to ten songs. I love practicing my drum with these recordings when Stu and Steph aren’t around. In this recording Steph played her fiddle, Stu played his guitar and I played my frame drum to I believe a 3/4 count which was something I had to improvise.
The next day they invited us to learn how to wing foil, starting with getting up on the foil while being pulled behind their dinghy. Wing foiling is a relatively new sport, very similar to kite foiling, which is in turn a development of kite boarding. In kiteboarding, the rider rides a board something like a wakeboard, and uses a large kite in the wind to pull themselves across the water. The foiling part comes from a hydrodynamic foil, the same shape as an airplane wing, hanging from a strut on the bottom of the board. As the rider picks up speed, the foil generates lift, and pushes the board (via the strut) up out of the water. Wing foiling replaces the kite with an inflatable wing of about three meters in breadth, so there are no long kite lines to get tangled in, and relaunching from the water is much easier. The difference with foiling versus boarding is you feel like you are floating on air!
This video shows Peter starting to get up on foil while being towed, before falling back into the water in ignominy and despair:
We both had a go at it. Eventually, I was able to get up too, although it took a while before we were actually foiling, but it was so much fun trying! Below is Stu showing us how to use the wing with the foil board. The conditions were perfect as it wasn’t too windy. I can see how it’s a great sport while cruising because it keeps us active while also challenging our minds. By the time we were ready to move anchorages, we were hooked on learning.
After a couple of weeks foiling, playing our instruments, swimming, snorkeling, and doing yoga on the beach, we decided we wanted to head North, which was the same direction Stu and Steph were going on their way to Mexico. They sailed from Europe through the Caribbean and then the San Blas Islands and Bocas del Toro for a couple of years before transiting the canal and heading up to Costa Rica.
We had heard about Santa Elena being a beautiful nature preserve that most cruisers stop at on their way down from Mexico before officially checking into Costa Rica. We didn’t stop there because we had a crew member who needed to fly back to the States, but now we were looking forward to spending some time surrounded by jungle. But before the jungle, the grocery store! We wanted to stop in Playa de Coco to get some provisions that would hold us over for a couple of weeks.
We loved Playa de Coco because it had an awesome little Italian restaurant we discovered while hunting for groceries. It was perfect for lunch! There was a lot of food to eat, and between our lunchtime glasses of good Italian wine, and the free after dinner drinks, we had plenty of time to sit and digest. We mostly cook on board, so the opportunity to eat out at a good restaurant was a treat.
The next morning, we took off for Santa Elena, which was about fifty nautical miles to our north. As we were headed almost directly into the wind, we motored up to the Murcielago archipelago, where we were able to turn to the east, rounding Cabo Santa Elena. Once we started to make the turn around the point, the wind filled in, and we were able to fly our spinnaker all the way to the entrance of Bahia Santa Elena.
The weather was awesome with very calm seas and a picture perfect sky. We floated and chatted for most of the afternoon.
Steph was pulling Stu on the foil board while the rest of us waited for our turn. After the beach party we all went over to FKL where John and Tess hosted us for a birthday dinner with a cake and everything. Stu and Steph and I brought over our instruments and we played some of the songs we were practicing together. It was a great way to end a perfect birthday celebration.
Peter and I trolled for fish during the sunset with me driving and Peter fishing. This is us coming in after about an hour, having only caught a barracuda, that we threw back. Of course, later we wondered if maybe it had been a wahoo.
It was always sweet to sit and watch the rain hitting the quiet Bay.
The wind was predicted to come from the opposite direction so we all anchored on the other side of the Bay. We decided to go for a hike and came upon this view of our boats in the background.
After two lovely weeks in this beautiful Bay, it was time to head south. We only had a ninety day visa to explore Costa Rica, with only two months remaining for the rest of the country. It was not easy saying goodbye to Steph and Stu. We enjoyed their company, their music and their inspiration to learn how to wing-foil and all that they shared with us about cruising. We will miss them but we hold on to the hope of running into them again at some point on our path.
As soon as we got to the anchorage all hell broke loose. One thing about having a fairly fast boat is that sometimes we can out race the storms. This time we got lucky, and were anchored before the winds rose over 30 knots. Unfortunately Mike and Taylor were following us and didn’t get to protection before it hit. They were stuck out in the storm for a couple of hours. They couldn’t believe how fierce it was, and all they could do really was point downwind and hope they wouldn’t get struck by the lightning. They made it to the anchorage just after dark. We guided them to anchor close to us. All was good by the end.
We met up with Leah and Kyle on Jubel for some beach time in the Huevos anchorage before heading back to Playa de Coco for some more provisioning. We were getting low on Italian groceries and wine, and we wanted to get as much of Peter’s Italian cooking as possible.
We were really enjoying the beginning of summer in Costa Rica and looked forward to discovering what the rest of this nature-focused country had to offer us as we continued south down the coast. We were loving it so far.
Next time we get deeper into the jungle, and have a close encounter with one of the most poisonous vipers in Central America!
Are you planning to get across Panama canal to the Caribbean side?
Photos look so beautiful! Costa Rica
is such a beautiful country.