Checkout at Playa Del Coco Costa Rica Underway to Las Barrillas El Savador

Written 4/16 OFF THE COAST OF NICARAGUA, 8AM

PLAYA DEL COCO

After a couple of hours of sailing we anchored at Playa Del Coco to check out of Costa Rica and to provision. It only took a couple of hours, 22 miles of walking, 164 papers to fill out and $20 for fees and we were free to roam the town at will prior to weighing anchor and shaking the dust of Costa Rica from our Tevas. An Internet Café across from the Port Captain's office allowed me to send the log that has been accumulating.

Things have been happening fast and so I haven't had as much time to do this as before.

John has been a real source of amusement so I'll cover him first.

John's first chore on the boat was to climb the mast to adjust one of the many thingys attached to it. Now, when Phil or I climb the mast we do it in what is called a bosun's chair that is then hauled up the mast by other crew members using a winch. We may help a little by occasionally getting a foothold and lifting our own weight but it is mainly up to the crewman to do the hoisting. This did not seem honorable to John who is an avid mountain climber.

When he said he would ascend without all that pussy gear I wondered a bit at his sanity but since I was already pretty well convinced that that was not one of his basic traits I didn't say much. When John went for his "equipment" I envisioned him coming back with pitons, carabiners, rock hammers and the like and was more than a little worried about how these tools would impact the boat's equipment. His equipment, however, just consisted of Tevas and a one foot loop of rope. He did a kind of macramé thing on one of the wire shrouds and by main strength and working this loop up the shroud reached the fitting he had to deal with. I was impressed. Mentally I was reviewing what we had in the first aid kit to treat traumatic removal of inside thigh skin since I expected him to shinny down the mast much as a little boy will shiny down a tree trunk and with the same results. He got down OK. No problem.

We left Playa del Coco with a fair wind that was variable for the first 15 miles changing direction and strength and keeping us hopping with reefing, unreefing, trimming, and other sailorly activities interspersed with our primary occupation of popping cool ones, eating cookies, telling wildly exaggerated stories to each other of our adventures while struggling through life. (God, does the grammar checker hate long sentences like that!) We were pretty fair about it and everyone was getting equal time and at least lip service approval so we were "fat, dumb, and happy" when it hit.

The next leg of our voyage, the one we are in the middle of now is across the Gulf of Papagallo, or the parrot gulf. I think that name was chosen more to twist the tongues of Gringos than to be descriptive in any way of conditions or geography. The Gulf of Papagallo is known for "Papagallos". That doesn't tell you much either since in Spanish it means "Parrot".

A Papagallo is a sudden, unexpected, strong wind that stealthily and oxymoronically swoops down on you when you least expect it. We got swooped and the wind changed from a moderately strong 15 knots to 30 knots in an eyeblink. With it came a beautifully developed choppy wave system that happily started to play with us much as a trained seal plays with a rubber ball when promised a nice wet fish for supper.

After a bit we had just about untangled reefing lines, legs, coffee cups, buckets and other sailorly paraphernalia when an unsettling scream met our ears. We looked at each other in horror. Here as we plummeted along at 8 knots, a full knot over the theoretical maximum of the boat under straining sails, some sadistic piscine deity had directed one of the denizens of this particular deep to bite down real hard on our fishing lure trailing behind Misty. The result caused the hook to be embedded in its jaw which kind of set the activity for the next half hour. Since the fish was not willing to swim at eight knots behind us like a good fishy we had to stop the boat or donate our fishing gear to the whitecaps that were clamoring at our side.

We did finally heave to before the line was totally used up and Phil and I turned to John and said: "Congratulations, John, your fish".

John valiantly started cranking the handle of the reel working up a fair sweat doing so. Since cooperation was still not part of our fish's behavior no line was actually reeled in for some time. Even after tightening the drag down turning the crank of the reel was like trying to turn a screw in your flexible flyer after it has been rusting in place since grampaw used it 50 years ago.

Teamwork did win out. With Phil managing the boat, John working his buns off cranking while trying to avoid liftoff from the deck and me shouting advice and encouragement to everyone in sight including the fish. We did get it alongside.

We really did expect it to be about 200 pounds and so were mildly disappointed to see it was probably no more than 30 pounds. I got a gaff in it and we heaved it into the cockpit where it began to donate blood copiously. We were still heaved to and didn't at that point know how prophetic our condition was.

The next half hour was a great action movie type sequence. Phil herding Misty from one chop top wave to the next, John with his toes wrapped around the lifeline casting a small bucket overboard to get water for cleaning blood from the cockpit, the seats, our sun glasses and whatnot, and me half in the companionway with my elbows in the cockpit, wielding a supersharp filet knife to dismember the edible parts of the beast. The scene was reminiscent of the flensing of murdered whales on the deck of Captain Queeg's floating abattoir.

After being heaved to, and heaving the fish into the cockpit, John finally became quite overwhelmed with the comedic possibilities and commenced his own heaving, too.

We got rid of the fishy remains and I repaired to the galley to further process the newly acquired protein.

Damn, at least the galley was on the downhill side of the boat. (Remember this is a Unimaran without the training wheels that stabilizes civilized multihull boats.)

For the next half hour I skinned and trimmed the meat and put it in baggies.

Let me interject here that I do approve of descriptive nicknames for sailors, but that I take exception to being tagged "Baggie Vern" just because I am prone to organize the world by putting things in baggies. I mean John gets "Eight knot John" because he was steering when we first hit 8 knots, and Phil is. "Chile 'n' Rice Phil" that really doesn't refer to any traveling he did in Chile but rather to his propensity to eat any leftovers until the last morsel is consumed even if it is three weeks later. The latest such comestible marathon included a pint of rice and chile that the rest of the crew had long since abandoned.

I must remember to tell you what happened to Wilson.

Anyway… about a half hour after all of this we were just pounding along having fun. John was tits up on one of the cockpit seats bemoaning his conviction that he had accidentally heaved up his appendix while calling O'Rourke. Phil was steering, and I was lollygagging in the companionway with my knee wedged against one bulkhead to keep from banging back and forth.

There it was, that same banshee scream from the other fishing pole. Another fish was hooked and our line was unreeling at a monstrous pace.

With the reflexes and agility of a three legged sloth I sprang to the pole with a box knife in my teeth and in a trice severed the line from the offending reel.

In silence we smiled at each other and I popped three cool ones and handed them around except I didn't really give one to old Eight Knot John who was not into eating or drinking. In fact after the last couple of days we're considering modifying the sobriquet to "Ate Naught and in the John"

Last night at 2 AM our autopilot cratered. This may not seem like a big deal to most people, but what it means is that instead of lounging around the cockpit on your watch eating hot dogs and drinking rum you actually have to hold on to the wheel and turn it all the time. Now that's a pretty sad state of affairs. Anyway we have to do that now. Phil called the manufacturer of the device who kept him on hold for 15 minutes at $1.50 per minute and then told him that they had no support in Central America but might be able to help him in Puerto Vallarta when he got there. He asked what would happen if he ordered parts and hired someone to do the installation. Oh, they said, that would void the warranty. He then called his boat dealer and asked him to overnight the parts to our next destination in El Salvador, so hopefully the parts will be waiting when we arrive tomorrow. We need "Iron Mike" the autopilot.

The Papagallo winds finally abated and so now we're motoring at a speed that will bring us into las Barillas at 5 AM. We called the marina located ten miles up a river, and they will have a ponga waiting for us at the mouth of the river at 5 AM. Now that's service!!

It's the middle of the afternoon that is the slowest time of day. Everyone is hot, full of lunch (Tuna, of course) and ready for siesta. In a couple of hours it will start to cool off and then the air is delightfully fresh for the whole night. In fact it is necessary to wear a jacket or sweater at night unless you just enjoy the feeling of being chilled.

I've discovered a great tropical treat. You butcher a pineapple and put the pieces in a baggie (of course) and add a dollop rum, let it marinate and then consume it with pleasure. (I was going to say "relish" but was afraid you would try it at home and suffer nutritional scurvacity).

Clearly I should not be working on this now….

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