Costa Rica

Our first stop in Costa Rica was Playa del Coco, in the Papagayo Bay. We spend 3 days there, mostly scuba diving, and exploring the surroundings. It's a nice little town, but complicated to go to shore since you can not leave the dinghy on the beach without getting it stolen.

Anyway, we had a good time, did some nice dives, finished the open water and rescue diver courses and said goodbye to Johanne and Martin.

After they left we spend a night in marina Papagayo 4 miles away to clean the boat and fix a few things before continuing. It is a beautiful marina with facilities like a 5 star hotel.

We then sailed for 2 days before arriving in Quepos where we had planned to check out of the country, but no one was working in the customs and immigrations offices because of Semana Santa (easter week). So we had t continue to Golfito, where we arrived this morning and got all the official paper works necessary to clear out taken care of. Took us only 3 hours.

Golfito is a very pretty little place, surrounded to all sides by tropical green rainforest. It looks like we might get some rain for the first time in maybe 8 months, the rainy season is just starting here.

We are now relaxing and catching up on some much needed sleep before leaving Costa Rica early tomorrow morning to be able to arrive in Panama City Friday evening.

El Salvador

Here we are crossing the sand bar and surf to get into Marina Bahia del Sol. Very interesting experience, hope it will be a little more calm when we leave tomorrow. We have 250 miles to go to Bahia Papagayo in Costa Rica where we'll stop next. Should take us no more than 2 days to get there.

3 days ago we arrived in El Salvador after just over 3 days sailing (motoring mostly) from Huatulco. It was an uneventful stretch right up until we arrived to the place we had been told to meet the pilot boat assigned to guide us over the sandbanks and into marina Bahia del Sol.

From there we had to go straight thrue a crazy surf and 3 meter waves, while trying to avoid getting pushed to the shallow part of the bank where there was high risk of going aground.

We made it thrue safely, though it required a bit of cleaning inside the boat afterwards. We thought we had secured everything, but many things still fell down. Now we know what to secure before our departure tomorrow.

The place here is very nice, it's a little hotel and Marina in an estuary in the middle of the jungle. The nearest village is 4 miles up the river by dinghy.

Yesterday we all hired a van with driver and went into San Salvador for some shopping, haircuts etc. The capital is 85 km from the marina, it is mostly very poor and polluted but it has a few nice spots also. One of the highlights was the huge open air market, where you can buy just about everything you can imagine for one dollar.

The climate here is hot and very humid, and we spend the afternoons lazing by the pool side drinking the local one-dollar beer, Pilsener.

Our next stop will be Costa Rica, it should only take us 2 days to arrive in Papagayo where we will stop to clear into the country.