We first arrived in Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas.

The Marquesas are high, mountainous islands, with beautiful skylines.  The anchorages are a bit rolly in some places, but there are some bays, like popular Anaho, which are true coves and are quite comfortable.

We rushed through the Tuamotus, which was a bit of a mistake, since the barrier reefs which form the atolls there break the sea swell, and we enjoyed our first really flat water anchorage in months in Rangiroa.

We zipped off to Tahiti, where we stayed near the capital of Pape’ete for over a month. We were enjoying watching the games of the World Cup (Viva España!!), and exploring Pape’ete and the surrounding neighbourhoods. The Tahitians take their Va’a (outrigger canoeing) very seriously, and we often had large groups of paddlers zipping past the boat while at anchor.

We had an excellent view from the anchorage of the neighbouring island of Mo’orea, and once our soccer watching was done, we sailed across the strait to check it out for ourselves.

There are a couple of deeply indented bays on Mo’orea, and thanks to the barrier reefs, both are excellent anchorages. We spent a few nights in each one, meeting up with our good friends on Sidewinder for a couple of capsize-free snorkel trips, including one to get up close and personal with stingrays and sharks.

We will soon be off to explore the Leeward Islands – Huahine, Raiatea, Taha’a and the famous Bora Bora.

At Isla Isabela in the Galápagos, one of the trips most people recommend is hiring a panga and guide for a snorkelling tour of the lava tunnels at Los Túneles. So, along with our friends Robert and Kelita from Freedom and David and Suzi on Sidewinder, we hired the panga Inmaculata with its captain Miguel and guide Diego to check it out.

Six passengers set out that day for a five hour tour. A five hour tour.

The panga ride over to the area was very bumpy, as the seas were fairly high and they drive really, really fast. Both Kelita and I were not liking it at all, and we all agreed that a slow ride on a sailboat is preferable. However, as the site is a good distance from Puerto Villamil, a fast boat is the only option. We arrived at the entrance to the area after about an hour, and saw that we would have to negotiate breakers to gain entrance to the spot. We had heard that getting in was an impressive experience, and could easily see that it would be the case.

There was some debate about whether or not conditions were good for going in to the site, but the majority of us onboard wanted to give it a try, and the captain was prepared to go ahead also, so we headed around outside the breaking waves to get a proper angle of approach. On the way we saw a giant ray, well over a metre wide. We followed it around for a while, oohing and ahhing at its majesty. Eventually, it swam off and we went to try our approach to Los Túneles.

The waves near the reefs were about 10 to 12 feet tall, breaking and rolling like good surfing waves. The captain gunned the engine, and we went in between two waves driving along the face. At one point we all realized that there was a reef on our left and a wave on our right, and something had to change. Unfortunately, nothing changed fast enough, and we were hit broadside by a big breaker. Of course, the panga rolled over immediately.

On board, we all knew what was going to happen a split second before it did, so we were all kind of prepared for it — some people grabbed on to the bars which held the boat’s bimini on, others just hunkered down low to try and take the roll as easily as possible. As the boat rolled and filled with water, Suzi and I, who were on the low side, were thrown back into the bimini bars, and had to find our way through the bars to swim out. It sounds hard, but both of us did it automatically and were well away from the upside down boat very soon.

The men all were thrown from the high side when the boat flipped, and Kelita made her way out from under the boat last. Robert and David are both surfers, and I heard Robert shout for us to swim away from the boat. I turned and saw more breaking waves coming, and remembered to dive under when they broke over me as I swam to the nearby reef.

Soon, we were all at the reef, and those who first made it on to the sharp lava helped the others up. Both Steven and I had managed to keep our crocs shoes on, and so we did most of the walking around as the others were shoeless at first and the reef was very uncomfortable on bare feet. We all got on to the reef and took stock of our situation. I had banged my left arm on the bimini bars, and Suzi had hit her neck, but was okay. Most of us had cuts from the reef, but otherwise we were all unharmed.

The panga was upside down in the breaking swells, slowly coming in to the reef. Most of our belongings were floating in the water, also heading in to where we were. We set about collecting as much of our stuff as we could, and soon had several bags up on the reef. However, the tide was rising, and after our carefully acquired items nearly washed away again a couple of times, we agreed to head further in toward higher ground. Steven and I each took a couple of bags, and swam to the next set of reefs, then climbed up. The others followed and soon we had everyone and everything on the higher reefs. By now some shoes had been found, and most of us had something on our feet to protect us.

Now that we were all safe, the captain and guide turned their attention to the panga. They and the men from our group slowly worked to bring the boat through the reefs and in toward where we were camped out. They got in close and tried to right the boat, but it was too heavy. David suggest tying the painter to the middle of the boat, and they ran the line up to where I, Kelita and Suzi were on shore. I looped the line around a lump on the lava rock to keep it from pulling us off the reef in our attempts, and with the guide at the end of the line, all three women hauled on the line as the men pushed on the boat. Timing our efforts for when a wave would lift the boat, we finally got the boat righted after what felt like a long time of trying.

With the boat right side up we could see the damage it had suffered: the only evidence that there had ever been an upright steering station was a couple of broken cables flopping around, the bimini had been completely sheared off and the covers on both motors were lost. Otherwise, the hull was okay. However, there was no way to get it to open water, so we had to leave it tied to a corner of the reef. At this point, our guide, Diego, set off to try and find another tour boat to take us back to Puerto Villamil.

Photo courtesy of Robert and Kelita from Freedom

Shortly he returned, letting us know that a boat was coming. We spent our time waiting by collecting more of our stuff as it floated in, and rationing the fresh water we’d managed to save. We were very glad to see the other panga pull up with its captain, young helper and passengers of three young French guys, who very gracefully helped us.

However, our ordeal was far from over. We couldn’t just drive out of the area we were in with the now twelve of us on board the panga. So, we wound our way through the lava tunnels, sometimes almost portaging the boat over shallow areas, until we got to a spot where the eight of us from Inmaculata could walk to another spot where we could be picked up. A sport fishing boat also come along, and offered to take some of our gear to reduce the weight. We passed one of our bags over to them, and Freedom did the same. Then we set out on a walk over the lava tunnels that most tourists will never see.

Following Miguel and Diego, we walked over some very interesting lava formations, heading what appeared to be nowhere. At one point we came across a lagoon, and had to swim to the other side. We were starting to wonder if we were going in the right direction as we could see nothing ahead. Finally, we came to a break in the plants and could see the ocean on the other side. And there was the boat with its French tourists waiting! We had to swim to the boat, and as we approached one of the French guys pointed at us and said, “They have funny looking seals here. They’re wearing hats.” At the time, this was hilarious.

We climbed aboard, and the captain began to head toward the breaking waves to take us out. We started to get nervous as we approached the breakers, and silently lifejackets were handed around and donned. No one spoke as the captain gunned the engine to start our approach to the breaking waves. No one even spoke when we immediately hit a rock. We didn’t know what to say when a few minutes later one of the motors stalled. Undaunted, the captain restarted the motor, gunned both engines again and charged up the face of a towering wave. It seemed to take forever to crest the wave and run up the next one, but it was probably all over in about five minutes. We were through the breakers, in safe water and headed back to Puerto Villamil.

The ride back to the anchorage was long and bumpy, but we were all just happy to be headed home. Unfortunately, we had a few more challenges to surmount. When we pulled into the anchorage, we asked if we could be dropped off at the main dock, where we’d find a ride back to our boats with some other cruiser. We knew from experience that getting from panga to sailboat was tricky in that anchorage, but we were told that the Port Captain’s rules meant that they couldn’t take us to the dock since we hadn’t left from the dock. Reluctantly we agreed to be dropped off at our boats, and we made for Sidewinder first. As we approached, the panga nearly collided with one of their solar panels, and after a few attempts David and Suzi scrambled aboard their boat.

We then headed to Freedom, where Steven and I decided we’d disembark, then get a ride to Scream from Robert and Kelita later. As we approached Freedom’s stern, the panga all of a sudden sped up and rammed Freedom abeam. The boat then drove straight over the painter line tying Freedom’s dinghy to their boat. The painter got caught in the props of the panga and we untied the painter and scrambled aboard Freedom, with a fair amount of angry shouting, I’ll admit. Then we saw that the captain of the panga was holding the throttle for one of his motors in his hand, several feet away from the motor it belonged to. The throttle had broken off in the on position as we’d approached Freedom, and luckily the run in with the dinghy painter had stopped the motors.

They motored away on their remaining engine, and shortly thereafter the sport fishing boat arrived with our stuff. Nervous about them getting too close, we had them toss the bags to us, and of course ours ended up in the drink. Everything had spent a long time in the water anyway, so that was no matter and we waved them off as Steven dove in to rescue our bag. We had a moment of respite on Freedom before getting a ride with David from Sidewinder back to our boat.

The next day we saw Inmaculata being towed back to port past our boat, its hull intact if a bit battered. All in all, quite the experience. But we never even got the change to make a radio out of a coconut.

There are three places where boats can visit in the Galápagos. Going anywhere else requires special permission and a guide on board for $200 a day. This is a real pity as being in the Galápagos has really made me wonder what characteristics 19th century Latin Americans desired in their ports. There are lots of nice coves in the Galápagos, while we are restricted to three marginal anchorages. From east to west the ports are:

1. Isla San Cristobal, Puerto Baquerizo MorenoThe port here is a good tourist town with plenty of attractions. There are seals everywhere: in the crystal waters of the anchorage, on the docks, the beaches, the roads, and on the swim deck of every vessel that has one (

   Scream does not). Provisioning is okay, if clearly less good than on the continent.

   

   Excellent snorkelling can be found by walking to Tijeretas, taking a cab to La Loberia, or by boat at Isla Lobos. We took a snorkeling tour of Lobos and Kicker Rock. At Lobos we swam with sea turtles, seals, rays, and various tropical fish. Kicker rock rises vertically from the depths to about 100m above sea level. We swam with reef sharks there.

   We also went to the tortoise breeding centre, where we saw a handful of adults and dozens of young tortoises.

   The anchorage is open to the north and the west, so the predominant SW swell rolls right in. The anchorage is large, which is good considering that several dozen cruising sailboats share it with an equal number of anchored local boats and a few small ships. The bottom is sand, mostly 40 to 50 feet. Shallower depths can be found along the east shore, but there are patches of rocky bottom there.

   
   

2. Isla Santa Cruz, Puerto AyoraPuerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos, but the anchorage is by all accounts far worse than the other two. After rolling around in San Cristobal, we had no interest in experiencing far-worse, so we sailed past.
3. Isla Isabela, Puerto VillamilIsabella is a tropical paradise! The water is clear and the exotic wildlife is plentiful and frisky. Most mornings we watched penguins and seals fish for their breakfast in the shallow water near our boat. Swimming lizards, flamingos, sharks, blue footed boobies, and eagle rays are also on display. The snorkelling the anchorage is good and even better snorkelling can be had in the swimming hole by the dinghy dock.

   The tortoise breeding centre here has five different species with 895 tortoises as of 2009 year end. The walk there is past/west of town and is very nice.

   

   Unlike the other two, Puerto Villamil is just a small town with sand for streets. There are a few hotels and restaurants, but the shopping of all kinds is marginal. Internet access was out everywhere about half of the days we were there. Town was always hot when we visited.

   Easily the best of the anchorages, in a small, shallow harbour between Isabela and barrier islands. Anchor in 10 feet, sandy bottom and crystal clear water. The south west edges of the harbour have depth, the middle is shoal. There were no mosquitoes while we visited, but various kinds of flies were a little annoying.

We’ve already discussed the bureaucracy. Suffice it so say that Ecuadorians seem to feel the need to make everyone’s lives difficult, especially their own, for reasons that no one can fathom.

Quito

We had a 7 day upwind slog to get here, and we were luckier than most since we actually sailed the whole way having left from Costa Rica. However, that meant that we missed Panama, and we’ve heard that the cruising in the western islands is among the best in the Pacific, and the provisioning is also excellent.

Once in Ecuador, you are only allowed to stay in the country for 90 days within a 12 month period, and this period of time does not reset should you leave the country. This is often not long enough for boats waiting for March or April to cross the Pacific, hence many people take overland trips into South America or fly home for a period.

The bureaucracy to enter Ecuador is also surprisingly difficult. Regardless of what you may read, you do need an agent in order to arrive, which is an annoyance and somewhat expensive. Upon entry, we had to pay about $35 to the Port Captain, $80 for aduana ($20 to the officials and $60 for a taxi to take our pasports to Manta) and $40 for the pilot. As of March 2010, Puerto Amistad in Bahía de Caráquez is charging a fee to act as an agent – one $50 USD payment when you arrive and another when you leave. Generally these fees are in addition to the ones listed above.

As we discovered when we left, the port captain requires cruisers to go through Puerto Amistad in order to leave, even if you are only moving on to another domestic port. We were able to negotiate with Puerto Amistad to include the port fees (about $18 for us) in with the $50 agency fee, since we did not require immigration or customs and had supplied all our paperwork.

The facilities in Bahía are okay; there is limited provisioning in town, many good restaurants, and easy transportation to Manta where shopping is much better. However, it is a good 45 minutes to Manta by car and much longer by the circuitous bus route.

The mooring fees at Puerto Amistad have also increased substantially over the past two years: as of March 2010 fore-and-aft moorings are $330/month, the dinghy dock fee for anchored boats is $6/day and there is a $1/day fee for unattended anchored boats (this does not cover boat watching services, which are extra). There is now a night security watch in the anchorage, after a string of thefts occurred from anchored boats. However, the high currents in the estuary caused more boats to drag than we have ever seen elsewhere. All were successfully rescued and re-anchored, but some collisions did occur.

All in all, while mainland Ecuador is a beautiful place, we wish we had gone to Panama and traveled to the Galapagos from there instead of coming to Bahía first. Between the high fees, insecure anchorage and difficult bureaucracy, for our money Ecuador is just more trouble than it’s worth.

Huanchaco is much like San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua – a quaint surfer town, full of tourists, ex-pats and beach bums. It was a very nice and relaxing holiday for us, and we spent the time enjoying the beach, doing a little surfing and bodyboarding and generally chilling out.

The indigenous peoples of the region used incredible reed boats, now called Caballitos de Totoro (little horses), to surf the waves while fishing. Today, you can hitch a ride on one of these boats for a wet trip out and back. However, they are still used by the local fishermen, and we often saw teams of them bobbing on the waves in the mornings.

Our friend Andrew happened to be traveling in Peru at the same time, and we were lucky to get to meet up for a couple of days. The three of us visited the ruins of Huacas del Sol y de la Luna and Chan Chan for a day, which were much more impressive than I’d imagined. Huaca de la Luna, which is actually a temple to a nature god rather than a celestial one, is remarkably well preserved in parts, due to its Moche builders habit of burying old versions and rebuilding bigger, better ones over top. The painted walls were most impressive.

Chan Chan, a site of the later Chimu culture, was equally impressive in its huge size and intricately carved walls.

The Malecon has an IMAX theatre, a couple of playgrounds, restaurants and many statues along its path, both the typical ones of political leaders and more modern artistic types. There is also a large tropical garden with a duck pond and many beautiful plants.

Guayaquil also has the most impressive bus terminal we’ve ever seen. A large, three storey affair, the terminal houses the ticketing agents for all the bus lines that travel to and from Guayaquil, making transfers extremely easy. The terminal is also a good-sized shopping mall and has many eateries. We were able to kill 6 hours of waiting time between window shopping, eating and finding free wifi on the top floor.

We visited old town and new town by ourselves. They are quite pretty and remind us more of Vancouver than of other Latin American cities. We strolled through many parks and browsed little markets of paintings and crafts. Cabs in Quito are somewhat difficult in that many of them do not know where anything is, one even couldn’t help us after we provided the address. Luckily trams run through town down the major arteries and cost only $0.25.

We visited the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana where we toured their museum. Their collection of pre Columbian artifacts is impressive, while the remainder of their collection is underwhelming.

We very much enjoyed the Museo Guayasamin and the Capilla del Hombre, both of which are galleries of Oswaldo Guayasamin’s art. The architecture of the Capilla del Hombre is wonderful, and we enjoyed Guayasamin’s art. Both of these are on top of a hill north of downtown. Due to errors in reading the our tourist map, we got off the tram at the Canadian Embassy and walked the rest of the way to the Capilla del Hombre. This was about 3 km, with probably 300 meters of vertical, most of which came in the second half. Needless to say at 3 km altitude above sea level this walk took a lot out of us. We highly recommend taking a cab.

We also took the gondola up to the Teleferiqo, which is a simple lookout at 4100 m or about 1 km above the city. This was fantastic.

We planned this trip excessively. The passage profile is uninviting, even at the ideal time of year, November through March. The trades here blow consistently out of the SW, shifting closer to S as the coast of South America is approached. This means that you’re close hauled against the wind and waves for the whole 600 mile trip. Add the Humboldt current pushing you NE as you near shore, and the whole trip can be a nightmare.

We left from Costa Rica in order to be able to sail without having to beat. Boats leaving from Panama need to beat against the wind and current. However, this means that we missed Panama entirely.

In practice the trip was better than we expected if still uncomfortable. We made the passage in one hour less than 7 days. We had 15 knots SSW to WSW for the entire trip, with 1-2m wind wave at 5-6 seconds. We stayed close hauled on starboard tack for the first 6 1/2 days. We found that the motion of the boat crashing into the waves was uncomfortable when we were at speed (say 6 knots), so we backed off to 3.5 knots by reducing sail and found the motion much more comfortable. We think that we had favourable current near the beginning and we did have opposing current on the last day, but all of the currents were one knot or less.

We checked into the Panama Pacific SSB Net every morning, except for one day when the radio propagation was poor. They run on 8143 USB at 14:00 UTC. They use 6130 USB as an alternate frequency when 8143 has poor propagation, which was most days of our passage.

We saw almost no vessels during the days. On the night we left Costa Rica we saw several ships going to or leaving Panama. The next night we saw one vessel approaching Panama. We then saw no vessels for two solid days. We saw Isla Malpello during the day, and were honestly shocked to discover later that it has a 25 nm range lighthouse working on it. That night we passed very close to Eva, who were on the reciprocal course from Ecuador to western Panama. We chatted with them on the VHF.

The next morning, we were approached by a pair of pangas at dawn. These are 25 foot open boats with outboards. They were engaged in fishing operations perhaps 150 miles from shore in over 2km of depth. They came alongside and asked us about “Cigaros”. We thought they were asking about radios, and confusion ensued. We eventually gave them a few cookies and they went on their way, with a promise in English to “See you tomorrow”, which we eventually determined was a poor translation of the Spanish “Hasta Luego”.

That night, still over 100 miles from shore we stumbled into a traffic jam just after dark. Two large power yachts were north bound along with a freighter. Two other freighters were southbound, all of us within 10 miles of each other. One power yacht approached fairly close to us: the wind was shifting and going from 15 to 20 knots so we were not keeping a steady course. In response they were swinging side to side like a slalom skier trying to avoid us, showing us red then green and steadily approaching. We ended up calling them on the VHF, and they thankfully spoke English. We sorted the situation out but they did pass just a couple hundred meters away and swung along behind us to take a look before continuing north.

On the next night, still about 100 miles from we ran into a field of fishing boats with long lines. They had weak flashing lights on the end of their poles, and I had great trouble identifying them until they cam quite close. We also almost ran over a small panga. It had a pair of weak orange side lights, mounted less than a meter above the water. When I first saw them I thought that they were a freighter more than 20 miles away, falling in and out of sight with the waves. Actually they were probably only 200m away. I might never have figured it out if the two lights hadn’t started to move in opposite directions when the panga crested a nearby wave. With them just meters away and us close hauled under wind steering and the engine off and them just to leeward, all that I could do was shine my pen light on their hull as it passed.

The last day we started to get pushed by the Humboldt current and fell off of our desired course. We saw a pod of short finned pilot whales, but failed to get a good photo. We ended up motoring overnight to Bahia Caraquez in order to make the high water slack entrance over the bar on November 11 at 10am EST.

Our track is online at http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=VA7WHM

After our passage we met with other cruisers who made almost equally comfortable passages from western Panama. While officialdom in western Panama is a pain, this route has a lot of merit and should not be dismissed lightly as western Panama is supposedly quote pretty. Practically, your options for checking in and out of western Panama are the open roadstead at sometimes open Puerto Armuelles or going up the shallow, poorly marked channel to Pedregal at high water.

Be cautious as you approach as Punta Rincon has a shoal less than 2 m extending perhaps a 1/4 km ENE from its tip that is not depicted on the charts that we have. The bay itself is mostly 20-25m depth. In the extreme SW corner anchorage can be taken in 10m about 25m from shore. I wonder if there enough depth in our entire swinging circle at low tide, but as we haven’t had wind to speak of in a long time we took our chances. More prudent vessels would anchor further from shore in 15-20m. The bottom is mud, and the anchorage is perfectly flat, troubled by neither swell nor wind.

The road to Puerto Jimenez runs along shore, but it is hidden from view by the jungle and has little traffic. The town of Rincon isn’t visible from the anchorage, nor is it clear in which direction it lies. There is some settlement along the road, but the area is rural. We stayed five days but did not go to shore as there didn’t seem to be any attraction.

Our tour went to a privately owned observatory, where we and seven other folks walked through the rainy forest to a very pretty waterfall. We then hiked back and hung out at the hotel on the property, watching the cloud-shrouded volcano carefully for signs of lava flows. We did see a few bright sparks that were molten rocks bouncing down the sides, but the sound of the lava flow was much more spectacular than the views. It was like listening to popcorn popping right next to you, and we were several miles away. Very impressive.

We were then taken to Baldi hot springs, which is a hotel and resort with several pools ranging in temperature from hot to way too hot. We had a nice buffet dinner there, then spent a few hours mincing around between the pools trying not to get lost or cooked. It was a great way to wind down after a couple of days of hiking, though there was very little of nature visible at that facility.

We started and ended the trip with the 7 hour ride on the Tracopa Bus to San Jose ($10 per person each way). We tried to leave on Monday but the bus was booked solid, so we went Tuesday instead. The bus is comfortable but it is still a long trip.

Our first night in San Jose we got off the bus intending to walk a couple blocks to our hotel. After walking a couple blocks through the red light district, we determined that our bus had stopped at a different station than our guide book had indicated it would. We hailed a cab to our intended hotel, Posada de Don Tobias. Tobias was cheap and priced accordingly ($25 for double occupancy with private bath). We tried to wander around town but discovered that Tobias is in a poor neighbourhood; almost everything closed by dark and there were homeless people sleeping on the street.

Luckily Tobias is literally next door to the bus station for Monteverde. We caught that bus at 7am ($4 per person) and enjoyed the 4 hour ride through the mountains. In Santa Elena, the town at Monteverde, we stayed at Monteverde backpackers, which was comfortable ($20 for double occupancy with private bath).

We caught the minivan-boat-minivan to Fortuna from Monteverde, which is described as jeep-boat-jeep. We paid $25 per person for this trip, better shoppers might pay half. Or there is a 6 hour bus for $5.

Fortuna is a beautiful little town that is exists solely for the tourists coming to see Volcano Arenal. We stayed at the lovely La Roca Virgen, which was only $16 for double occupancy with private bath, and was easily our favourite of the trip.

From Fortuna we caught the bus back to San Jose. We bought advanced tickets ($2 per person), which gave us first pick of the seats but I believe cost more than the locals paid. This was well worth it as people we standing in the aisle for almost the entire 4 hour trip.

We decided to try somewhere in San Jose closer to the center of town, and ended up at Principe. Principe charges by the hour and its clientelle mostly doesn’t stay the whole night. We knew it was bad as soon as we walked in, but we were too tired to do the right thing and walk out. Particularly as we had just been swindled by our cab driver. Principe was $20, but it was uncomfortable and unsanitary. We hated it so much that we took out our frustrations on each other both that night and the next day. The centre of San Jose, while busy, wasn’t anything interesting either. There were lots of fast food restaurants and sketchy-looking bars, but we failed to find a single restaurant with tables and waiters on our walk.

For anyone following in our footsteps, taking this trip from Puntarenas while leaving your boat at the Costa Rica Yacht Club would be a much better plan. There are buses to Monteverde and Fortuna from Puntarenas, which is closer than San Jose. So you save two days on the bus and two nights in San Jose.

However, most boats in transit use the facilities at Land Sea, which has a handful of moorings, as well as a dinghy dock and clubhouse for boats on the hook. We kept Scream on one of their moorings and had Tim, the owner, keep an eye on the boat when we traveled inland. Tim also has a great book exchange, wifi, and a work area that cruisers can use for mucky jobs (we painted our oars there).

The town of Golfito is mostly laid out along one road that follows the shore. From Land Sea, it’s a bit of a walk to “downtown,” where a couple of supermarkets can be found, along with the inevitable hardware stores, shoe shops, restaurants and the post office. Further along is the port captain, coast guard facility, some hotels and then the very odd new raison d’être of Golfito: the Deposito Libre.

The story goes that when the banana exportation business died, Golfito was on the ropes as a town. So to bring some economic life back, it was allowed to build a duty-free zone, that is a large area of warehouse sized stores, selling cheap appliances, booze, imported food, electronics, kitchen goods and clothes. It’s free to shop there, but you need a permit which becomes valid 24 hours after you get it, necessitating an overnight stay in town. You can see how the economic stimulus works, considering that many of the products available at the Deposito are much less expensive than at local stores in Costa Rica. There were many people shopping when we visited.

As a stop for cruisers, Golfito is a classic meeting point. Between the marinas, economical services at Land Sea, great anchorage and full shopping, it would be a cruisers’ paradise even if it weren’t almost right on the Costa Rica/Panama border and a Port of Entry.

We skipped the butterfly gardens, the guided hikes in the national park, the Sepentarium and insect zoo, bungee jumping and a couple of zipline canopy tours. We did visit the Ranario (frog sanctuary) and the SkyTrek facility.

The Ranario was a great find, and for a small fee you get multiple entry to their many frog terrariums, so you can visit at different times of day. We went in the afternoon, and got a guided tour by a fluent English speaker who was very knowledgeable about the frogs as well as funny and entertaining. It was raining pretty hard when the tour was done, so we hung out for a while while our guide showed us videos of frogs and toads on YouTube until his laptop’s battery died. We returned the following evening to look at the frogs in their night habitats, which was really cool. The frogs are almost all very small, so visiting a facility like this is a must if you actually want to see them up close and personal.

We spent the majority of our time and budget on a visit to SkyTrek, a zipline and suspension bridge facility in the cloudforest. I was worried that it would be overly developed, and the whole zipline canopy tour seemed just plain cheesy. As it turned out, most of the facility is a well groomed but wild trail though the forest, with several suspension bridges over valleys along the trail. We spent most of the morning walking this path, having many amazing birds, plants and insects pointed out for us by our guide. It was a fabulous hike, and was well worth the price of admission.

As for the zipline, it was surprisingly fun, though you really don’t see a lot while whizzing over the treetops at 40 miles an hour. The views from the takeoff and landing platforms were pretty fantastic, though. The zipline package at SkyTrek comes with a ride up their gondola, which was very pleasant. I’m glad I did the zipline, though if I were going again I’d stick to the walk and maybe a ride up the gondola for the views.

We started out with a quick trip from Punta Leona, where we were comfortable and happy, to Bahia Herradura. Despite the barrier island and deep bay, Herradura is a rolly anchorage. We were not impressed and left after one night.

Our next stop was Quepos, which we knew was a marginal anchorage at the best of times. With an above average swell running 2m, Quepos was horrible. There used to be room to shelter behind a breakwater, but construction of a new marina has taken all of that room. You’re left to anchor wide open to the South and the West. I had to hang on to the boat to avoid being thrown around for the entire five minutes we stayed at anchor.

Luckily, anchorage may be taken just south of Quepos on the North side of Punta Quepos. This is a picturesque anchorage with light swell. If it had access to land I’m confident that no one would ever stop at Quepos proper again. There are two rocks off the north side of the point, and a third east off the mainland. Their positions are listed in Sarana’s Guide. We anchored at 9 24.3N by 84 10.15W. Stay north of 9 24.3N until east of 84 10.17W, then head south into the cove before 84 10.13W.

Without access to land and still bothered by the swell, we headed out to overnight to Golfo Dulce. As we left Quepos we encountered 2-3m swell at 8? seconds, which tossed us a bit. We mostly motored south, with a little sailing and some motor sailing. We managed to avoid any squalls until shortly after nightfall. We had five squalls roll over us that night. The wind would pick up to 20 knots, rain would fall, and the lightning got closer. A hour later the wind would ease and we’d motor through another short calm. This wore us out.

Gulfo Dulce has convinced us that we don’t understand swell at all. The Gulf is open to the south, which is the direction that the swell comes from, but the swell starts to ease as soon as you come through the deep water, 5 mile wide entrance. By the time you’re approaching the anchorages the sea is flat, even though there is no obstacle to the swell that we could detect. Needless to say we are thrilled to be here.