Note: this post is a companion to our video Sailing around the Osa Peninsula to Puerto Jiménez, Costa Rica
Weighing anchor at 5am, we make the passage from Drake's Bay to Puerto Jiménez in 13 hours of daylight.
With storms in the area, and light winds, we make no effort to sail, prioritizing getting miles under the keel. The diesel pushes us slowly toward safe harbor.
The passage takes us around the horn of the Osa Peninsula.
For hours along the way, we see almost no evidence humans have ever been here, since this huge swath of the peninsula is the Corcovado National Park. Vibrant, emerald green jungles fall steeply to the rocky shores where small waves crash.
A wall of gray stand in front of us as we near Punta Salsipuedes. Its a curtain of heavy rain. Sal si puedes means "leave if you can". I get a look with the radar and it looks like a small cell about 5 miles wide. I'm not seeing lightning, so we'll push through.
We've see lightning somewhere on the horizon every day since Bahía Drake, and the night before leaving was a particularly dramatic display of lightning. I slept fitfully, with the flashes of brilliant light half-waking me into considering delaying our departure, but the morning had been calm and beautiful.
These rain ahead doesn’t look ominous, but I know we’re about to get a bath.
I rut through a compartment to grab my a foul-weather jacket and steer Miette into the deluge. Shawn goes below for a nap, as there’s no point in both of us getting soaked. There are no strong winds, the seas are calm, and the rain pours down and down, fat drops slapping the solar panels above me. There's nothing to film, so even the GoPro gets stowed as it's been losing water resistance with age.
After an hour, my rain jacket has nearly lost the fight, the insides starting to feel wet, just as we come out the other side. Broken clouds now billow white, silver, and gray against the overcast.
We round the peninsula up into Golfo Dulce, around to Puerto Jiménez.
I don't know why this is called a Gulf instead of a Bay, or if there's rhyme or reason. Same goes for bahía, ensenada, or caleta - seemingly interchangeable Spanish names for bays and coves.
The ocean swell doesn't reach around here and it looks like a big, flat lake surrounded by thick jungle clawing their way up mountains rising in the distance.
The further we go into the Gulf, the calmer it gets, but the calm will only last a few more hours.
There are two main types of waves. Wind waves, that are blown up by the wind, and swell, which are wind waves that have joined forces to travel in steady rhythmic packs across hundreds of miles or more.
Wind waves are usually smaller, short-lived and more chaotic, but the longer the stretch of water, the more time the wind has to blow them bigger. That distance is called fetch.
Our first night here, a storm just happens to blow at us over the entire length of the Gulf, something over 10 miles of fetch. We are protected from the ocean swell, but we're getting bigger and bigger wind waves.
We batten the hatches, take all hanging laundry below deck, and secure the boat.
By 9pm, Miette is bucking hard as white horses run by, big waves whose crests break and roll down the wave face in a mad white froth.
We normally sleep in the v-berth near Miette's bow, but it's hard to sleep when your bed is trying to catapult you.
It's also our first night in this anchorage and it's my job to worry about the anchor holding. The seabed is flat then very steep, plunging from a depth of 15 to over 100 ft very quickly, with a tidal range of nearly 10 ft. I keep an eye on our GPS track with my phone.
The winds have put us on a lee shore, which means there is now land behind us. It's dangerous but our best option is to stand watch, ready to act of the anchor gets unset. I turn on the cockpit instruments and go up to look around. The small, light fishing boats are rocking far more violently than Miette.
There's a catamaran near us, pitching nearly as hard as we are, and nobody is aboard. If it comes loose from its mooring ball, or drags the footing, it'll come right at us.
We ride the bronco for hours, sitting nearly horizontal so the motion is tolerable. I'm making an effort to keep my adrenaline in check, easier since we've been up since 4am and I'm too tired to feel very anxious.
Around midnight, the seas calm and I put my head on a pillow. I'm out like a light, but Shawn stays up past 2am.
We wake up to a strange calm. It feels wrong since we're so used to constant motion, having been either sailing or living at anchor for over 2 months. It feels like we're on solid ground, but the depth sounder shows there's plenty of water underneath us.
After breakfast, we launch the dinghy and row ashore. It is laughably easy to land the dinghy in the beach, in waves that could be measured in inches.
The day passes peacefully as we explore the small, quiet town, buy a few things and return to Miette. We float on our backs in the placid sea next our boat, washing off sweat and letting our bodies relax. It's like being in a swimming pool. The next day isn't much different.
Days drift by like the cotton-ball clouds passing overhead. On one evening, we are treated to the most unusual sunset, the sky looking as through it’s been oversaturated with ruby red. I snap a photo and it looks as if it were heavily doctored, but it’s the real deal.
The Gulf is not very big and feels more like being on a lake. Because the beach landing is so easy, we go to shore nearly every day.
Twice, we walk the dirt road out of town to the north and turn off onto smaller roads that wind through the jungle. On another day, we rent bicycles and ride down an even smaller dirt road under the jungle canopy. One of Shawn’s “happy places” is on a bike.
We decide to depart Puerto Jiménez the coming morning, so we go to shore for dinner. Shawn needs a break from the galley.
It's Sunday, and so many things are closed. Shawn notices a flyer posted to one shop. I don't really understand it, but it's advertising an event with horses. Gran Cabalgata Familiar, it says. Great family horseback riding?
It's today's date, but earlier. We missed it.
Walking up the main street through town, we hear loud music coming from the church grounds. I smell them first, then we see horses. At least a hundred of them. We walk into a crowd standing around the grounds around the low church.
The inner part of the Osa Peninsula is largely farmland, and the ranchers have come into town to put on a show.
Riding a running horse through tight turns, a young woman in cowboy boots, jeans, leather belt, long-sleeve white shirt, and cowboy hat is effortlessly putting the horse through its paces. She's got the biggest smile, as do the children standing around watching. There are many lean, sun-dark people dressed like this cowgirl.
Just a few nights ago, being aboard Miette in that squall sure felt like we were riding a 7-ton horse!
The main event is over, now people are just hanging around eating and talking.
Horses are tied nearly shoulder to shoulder to the fence around the perimeter, so we walk around the outside to see their faces. Few make eye-contact. Their massive eyes are open, but they are staring at empty space.
A few could use a veterinarian, but most seem healthy and strong. One gray mare is tired of the party, huffs, stamps her front foot a few times, then turns to look for her people.
The band is awful and turned up twice as loud as they should be, singing flatly over keyboard preset instrumentals. Nobody is dancing in the large covered patio because the dancefloor is an area of ear-damage.
We find dinner and return to Miette in the dark.
Thanks to paved roads and a bike-lane (a bike lane?! In Central America?! What?!!) we easily stock up on provisions and buy 40 liters of diesel at a gas station, taking turns pulling our cart. If you’re thinking about sailboat cruising in the developing world, get a cart. In many places, the roads and sidewalks (if they exist) might be too rough, but when you find them, it makes provisioning vastly easier.
Even locals are impressed, asking where we bought our carrito.
There's no hurry the following morning, and as we're getting ready to leave, the caretaker of the nearby American-flagged catamaran comes by for help with a dead battery. He's relieved that I speak Spanish and am comfortable with sailboat electrical systems.
He says to call him Cali, and takes me over to the boat where I show him how to use the house battery bank to start the engine. Did I just help a stranger hot-wire a yacht that doesn’t belong to him?
Cali is nervous about electronics, then I notice his burns. He explains that he doesn't know much about electricity, but he's worked aboard boats for a long time.
He'd once been taking care of a fishing yacht. The next thing he knew, he woke up 2 months later from a coma. The fishing yacht had exploded, which can happen when gasoline vapors build up in an unventilated space.
He's got burn scars all over, the whites of his eyes look like they tried to melt over his corneas, and says that his lungs were also burned. He pantomimes struggling to breathe. Since then, electrical wiring makes him nervous. I said, you know that diesel doesn’t explode like that, right? He says, yes, yes, but still.
With his engine started, he returns me to Miette where Shawn's standing by, ready to go.
We weigh anchor and over the next week, explore the remote corners of this Gulf, seeing almost no people.
The nautical charts in this area turn out to be unreliable, with the charts showing one thing and our depth sounder showing another.
With Shawn at the bow looking into the water with polarized sunglasses, I tiptoe Miette into anchorages, then make figure 8s and big circles so I can figure out where the seafloor is before making anchoring decisions. In various parts of this gulf, we've seen the depth go from over 100 feet to 15 in just a few boat-lengths. Add in rocks jutting out of the water or just below the surface, and it makes sense to go granny speed.
Once I'm happy with a spot, the anchor has bitten, and the engine is turned off, we find we're surrounded by nothing but quiet beauty and the soft sounds of seawater lapping at the jungle.
I thoroughly enjoy reading of your adventures, Prado. :)