We spent two nights anchored in the beautiful Bahia Santa Elena. We anchored alone on the first afternoon. The quiet was only interrupted by the many birds, monkeys in the trees and fish jumping. It was beautiful! At sundown we were joined by a fishing boat across the bay. Still quiet. We were awakened in the morning by a siren right outside of our boat! We scrambled onto the deck not knowing what that could possibly be here in the wilderness. We were greeted by the Costa Rican Coast Guard! Hola! Speaking mostly Spanish with a few English words thrown in, we communicated with our mostly English with some Spanish words thrown in. They wanted to know where we had come from and where we were going. We explained that we were just resting before proceeding down the coast and checking into the first Port of Entry. They agreed that it was fine. Whew! We had visions of being arrested for being in the country illegally.
Later that day, our friends Jim and Laura on Nilaya showed up. Both boats had a peaceful night and upped anchor the following morning for Playa del Cocos to get checked in.
We enjoyed a nice sail for the first couple of hours. As seems to be our norm lately, the wind picked up. As we rounded Punta Elena we were slammed by 36 knots of wind! This leaned us over until our rail was in the water. Not our favorite feeling! We edged our bow into the wind and reduced our already reefed sail, with much difficulty.
We rounded the point as well as the Bat Islands and what do you know…the winds died! We soon discovered that our main sail had become stuck partially out because of the high winds. Ken worked at it for quite a while and decided that it would have to be loosened from the very top as well as pulled out completely. No wind, so the perfect time to do this. Just as he got the sail (and this is a huge sail!) completely out, the winds decided to blow again….are you kidding? We had to completely drop the sail and lash it to the boom with several lines, all while trying not to have it blow overboard. Done! Now let’s get to a safe bay to sort this out!
We motored to another beautiful bay, Huevos (eggs) fixed the sail, swam and spent a quiet evening.
In the morning we made the short 6 mile hop to Bahia Cocos to get ready for a Monday morning check in.
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 Huevos |
 Cocos |