Golfito, Costa Rica

Talaria on a mooring ball

Old train from the days of Bananas in Golfito

the local hospital

The University of Costa Rica has taken over buildings from United Fruit Co.

We are in Golfito and plan to do some hiking in this tropical rain forest, rest and then sail to Panama. We are staying at Land and Sea marina and find Tim and Katie wonderful hosts. They are a wealth of information for those passing through. Being on a mooring ball is healing for us after our experience in El Salvador and Tim reassured us that the mooring is 1,000 lb with a 1/2" chain only 3 months old.

the train in its prime days

The United Fruit company opened banana plantations and exportation to this area and built up this town to support it in the1930s. Then when prices fell they left in 1985 and the community has found ways to utilize the buildings they left behind.

Bahia Drake, Costa Rica

Dorado Rick caught on the trip to Bahia Drake

 Bahia Drake was a great stop on the way from Manuel Antonio Park to Golfito. We planned to stay for a few days but the swells were rolling around the point making for a rough anchorage. We had a great dinner with the Dorado ont he grill.

Bahia Drake so quiet and calm

The entrance to Bahia Drake is strewn with rocks

The lagoon with a landing for dinghies has breaking waves at the entrance

Manuel Antonio Park

There are many kinds of lizards in the park

Male frog rides on the back of the female until he fertilizes her eggs

Manuel Antonio Park was started in 1972

We spent 2 1/2 days in this park, with a half day hike with a naturalist who taught us how to recognize critters that live here. One afternoon we hiked trails by ourselves and saw 4 Toucans flying in the trees, eating fruit but we didn't have the scope of the naturalist to capture pictures. The following picture of mommy sloth is amazing even to the naturalist we hiked with.  The beaches were beautiful and snorkeling would have been good but we had big surf the day we went making visibility poor. The 3 days we spent in this park made some of the difficult times sailing this Eastern Pacific ocean worthwhile.

Two toed Sloth with baby sleeping in a tree

Three toed sloth

Capuchin Monkeys

A family of bats sleeping under a branch our of the rain

bark of this tree peels to protect it from parasites and it has a powder under the bark used in cosmetics

beautiful anchorage

looking out to the Pacific Ocean

 We were the only boat the first night in the anchorage at Manuel Antonio Park.

Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica

 Bahia Ballena is the first calm anchorage upon entering the Golf of Nicoya. It has a fishing village, Tambor, where we anchored off the pier. We found great provisions at the small tienda and internet at Tambor
Tropicale, a beautiful lodge. We rested up for 2 days in this quiet bay.

fishing pier

Talaria at anchor

yummy Dorado Rick caught

Tambor Tropicale

beach off Tambor Tropicale at low tide

Tambor school

Checking into Costa Rica

We stopped at Playa del Coco and checked into the country.  It took 1 and 1/2 days to do this including two $30 taxi rides to the customs office at Liberia airport.  They gave us the wrong paperwork the first time, and made us wait 3 hours the second time.  We were required to go to the Port Captain office, than to Immigration office, then back to the port captain, then to customs at the airport, and then back to the port captain office.  Only good aspect was there were no charges for any of this other than the taxi fares. We also had a terrific cab driver, Victor that gave us side trips to see the country side and information on the history and life of Ticos and Ticas (what they call the Costa Rican people). We went to a bar, called Coconutz, to use the internet and they had license plates from Wisconsin on all the trees.

Santa Elena

cloud formation out over the Pacific Ocean

foot print of tapir

waterfall

Santa Elena was our first anchorage in Costa Rica.  It was one of the most relaxing places we have stayed.  It is part of the Santa Rosa National Forest, so there are no houses or developments.  Instead, there are many hiking trails with lots of animals to see. We hiked to a waterfalls that was small due to the fact we are at the beginning of the rainy season. We saw big, heavy footprints that later we were told were proably from a Tapir. It had 3 toes in the print but we didn't see the critter. We saw prints from small deer and a cat like animal.

tapir

Rick fishing

huge bee or hornet nest in the tree