Gulfo de Nicoya

We departed Puntarenas the afternoon of January 11th for a nice break from boat work. On the way out of the marina, fish were breaking water and Tyler hooked into his first pescado. Excited about the early catch, Chad and Tyler deployed Firefox (our 14 foot dinghy) to chase after the fish. Firefox returned with a skipjack about an hour later as the Broken Compass was cruising in 25 knot winds. We never quite made it to our planned destination, but it was a great shakedown for Tyler and Nicky on the boat as we scurried to a familiar anchorage (Punta Leona) to avoid the swells. It was a rocky night chalk full of lessons on how to (and how not to) anchor in heavy weather. The wind shifted during the night, putting us in a precarious situation. Seeing a small fishing boat anchored next to us was reassuring until they were towed away by our buddies, the Costa Rican Coast Guard, early the following morning.

We subsequently hauled up our fouled anchors and pushed across the bay to a calmer anchorage, ironically named Playa de Muertos (beach of the dead), which we renamed ‘Paradise.’
The beach displayed coconut trees and the 30 year old ruins of a catamaran originally from Coos Bay, Oregon. We dove and collected dozens of oysters and conch. We learned the best way to remove conch is to boil them after nearly 2 hours of pounding and breaking drill bits on their shells. Unfamiliar with island life, we attempted to several techniques to procure coconuts. Tyler had a crack shot at a coconut with the compound bow, and it narrowly missed him as he tried to pull the coconut back down (we retired this method).


We subsequently broke out the climbing gear and attempt #2 yielded coconut milk for our beach bonfire. Makai had a close call with a fellow predator during the fire, which sent Tyler on scorpion watch for the rest of the night.




















The weather normalized and we headed back up the gulf to Puntarenas and spend the past few days finishing overdue boat maintenance, re-working our itinerary, and hanging out with the local fishermen. A local charter fishing captain, Marcial, has made it tough to leave Puntarenas due to his hospitality. Off to southern Costa Rica and Panama this morning for some island hopping and to knock off a few hundred more miles.