Back In The Pacific

We anchored at the first island we could find to spend the night. In the morning we started making tracks northwestward, around Punta Mala and on to Bahia Honda. It seemed odd that we had been there just 13 months ago with John, Sue, Jim and Greg, and since then had sailed well over halfway around the world and back.

As we arrived in the bay we were hit with a beauty of a squall, with lightning striking within a few hundred feet of us and the rain falling so thick I couldn’t see the front of the boat. The good news is we got the rain preventer up, and we picked up probably 30 gallons of rainwater in our tanks.

We had dinner ashore at a small lodge started by a Vietnam vet who built the place in the middle of nowhere. The food was great, and the company even better. It’s called Hannibal Lodge and the place is literally in the middle of a jungle. No roads anywhere and the only way to get in or out is by boat. As soon as you land it’s like you belong there. John Morgan, the builder and operator for the last few years just sold it to a Newport Beach man, and they run it as a fishing lodge/cruisers headquarters.

At noon the next day we headed 17 miles out to an uninhabited island called Bincanco. A 50-acre jungle island with rain forest and crystal blue water and not a soul anywhere to be seen. The anchorage was perfection and at night we could hear animals that could only exist in our imaginations. Probably just some kind of mating call of a deranged beetle, but we were sure we’d stumbled onto Jurassic Park.

The following day we headed another 17 miles northwest to another island, Isla Seca, and here we found another perfect little jungle island.

Our rain preventer malfunctioned at Isla Seca. The skies opened up for a couple of hours and the three of us ran around taking rainwater showers on deck and generally making fools of ourselves.

At sunset the storm passed over and the winds shifted. We had to move out of the anchorage as we were blowing onto the shore, so we started to search for an anchorage that gave us some protection from the north wind. As there are no charts of the island it was fun feeling our way into little coves, only to find reef everywhere. Then, just to add to the fun, we ran out of fuel in tank one, and before we could get it switched over the engine died.

Now here’s the deal. The boat is dead in the water with a north wind blowing us onto an uncharted reef. I have to go below into the engine room to bleed the fuel system which takes about four minutes, but seems like an hour. Then we get to start cranking the engine hoping that it starts, because if you will remember, our generator took a large poop and could only be used as a fairly efficient anchor. If the engine cranked too long the batteries would go bye-bye, and if that happened we would have no more engine until we could get to a source of electricity, which was just about as far away as the moon.

But it did start, and we soon found a secluded little anchorage between two small islets, just as the sun disappeared. The clouds dissipated as we barbecued some dead bird that the store swore was chicken, but we’re more inclined to believe was very old seagull, and once again, life was beautiful.

We made a quick stop in Golfito, Costa Rica to check into the country, and spent one night at a marina with electricity, water and cable TV. By the next morning we were pulling at the lines to get away from the boob tube. We were up well into the wee hours watching movies, sports and the Playboy channel. Now I know what captive audience means. I couldn’t wait to un-hitch the cable.

About seventy miles around a bend from Golfito is the Aquila de Osa Inn at Drakes Bay. We had stopped the year before to see my friend Andy who bought some property nearby, and when we arrived at the inn it was like a home-coming. We spent a couple of days there telling stories about our voyage, and one morning Jody talked me into taking a little river cruise.

There is this river that runs 15 to 20 miles into the jungle, and to enter it you have to go through some surf. The waves are breaking all the way into the mouth of the river, and they are big ones. We’re talking waves of biblical proportions here. The original owner of the lodge died entering this river, and there are plenty of widows in the village that can attest to the ferocity of the entrance.

I couldn’t let Jody think I was afraid, so we hopped into a panga with three people from the village and headed the three miles to the river mouth. As we approached it my heart was beating faster than a virgin’s on her wedding night.

We came over the first wave, about seven feet, and surfed down it as the pilot turned on the twin 90 Johnsons full throttle. We surfed ahead of the million or so gallons of thundering water and onto the back of the one in front of it. So far, so good. Then he turns the boat abeam to the waves and looks for a hole. Just about the time my fingers left a permanent impression in the rail I was holding onto he turns it towards the river mouth and guns it again, we surf over two more waves, and I look behind me. I shouldn’t have. It looked like Wiamea Bay in Maui during a surf festival.

Actually we made it in, and barely even got wet. It was then they told us that was the easy part. They said coming out was the fun part, where corpses were made.

We motored at full throttle about ten miles up the river checking out the rainforest and river life. It was beautiful and untouched. The only people we saw were an occasional fisherman, and now and then a camper on the shore. We spent an hour in a little village up river while they unloaded the empty bottles we were carrying and loaded four passengers from San Francisco who were heading for the lodge. Inwardly I grinned as I thought of the ride we had ahead of us, as we cast off and headed back down river.

As we got close to the river mouth I could barely hear the surf pounding over the beating of my heart, and as we made the last curve we saw it. It wasn’t as bad as it was when we came in, but it still looked hairy. Once again our pilot, his face as calm as a preacher giving last rites, headed out into it. The new passengers just stared. Jody and I looked at each other and tried to smile, and then we were in it.

The waves were breaking and coming toward us, and just before they would hit the pilot would swerve to one side or the other to dodge the breakers, and we would ride up over the face of the wave. The front of the boat was waving like Queen Elizabeth on tour. Up one wave, slam into the next, and swerve to avoid the next.

Next time I stay on the LOST SOUL. At least I’m in control there.

Anyway, we made it. A little water in the boat, but no damage and no injuries. As I looked behind me over the breaking waves I found it hard to believe we had actually navigated it in a panga, but I’m here, so we must have.

We spent a leisurely afternoon at the lodge, and that evening at sunset we headed out for a night crossing up the coast. I remembered the little incident that occurred fourteen months earlier, as we came to Bahia Coco to check into Costa Rica. It was here I was unceremoniously thrown in the slammer with just a cockroach for company and later taken to a seedy prison by three guys with cowboy shirts and Uzi machine guns. Needless to say, I had a little anxiety as we approached the anchorage. But we had to stop, because this was also where we met Paul and Penny who run the Bohio Yacht Club, and who also used to own the Galleon restaurant in Catalina, our favorite place back in California.

We arrived at about 4 p.m. and found Paul and Penny in their apartment above the restaurant about to perform lewd and lascivious acts upon each other. Well, it’s okay, they’re married, and to each other, too.

We beat upon the door unmercifully until they got dressed and let us in, and then, for the next eight hours, we relived our year since we last saw them. We had a great time at their club and went to a new French restaurant for a great dinner later. Leaving the next day was hard.

We were off at dawn, heading for Bahia Elena, where a national forest was said to be the home to jaguar, pumas, ocelots and two other rare large cat families, and of course over 60 varieties of bats, Not too mention 1100 varieties of insects!

We never did find the large pussy cats, but I did manage to meet one bat (he took some blood samples from my ankle while I slept), and about 1099 of the 1100 varieties of insects. They also took some blood. I felt like I’d spent a day down-town donating blood. The bat left two neat little holes in my ankle, but the insects just supped wherever they felt like it. I figured we’d better get out of there before I started to look like Pee-Wee Herman, or worse yet, Boris Karloff!

Not to be left out, Jody got wet-eyed over a bee that decided she needed one more breast. It stung her just under her right arm and soon a lump the size of her other two protuberances started to form. It took a lot of antihistamine and about four days for her to get back down to just two.

A papagayo storm was blowing off Nicaragua as we left Costa Rica, and it was right where we wanted it, blowing out of the north-northeast at about 30 to 35 knots. We left under full sail and made great time for about four hours, and then had to reef a little as the wind and seas started to build. It looked like we might be in for a new record run, but late that night it died out, and soon we were just drifting along in a light breeze at about five knots.

But it was a night to remember. Just after a great dinner of roast beef and asparagus with hollandaise sauce we came up on deck and found the boat surrounded by hundreds of dolphins. The water had a fluorescence I hadn’t seen since off the coast of Guatemala some 18 years ago while sailing on the old STONE WITCH, and wherever the dolphins dove they left a sparkling trail. It was just like a light show, and I felt like I was having a flashback from the sixties or something. Bright lights under the sea surrounded us for hours as the dolphins played in the black sea with brilliant green flashes and trails.

We also started to run into our old friends, the Guatemalan speed bumps. Some folks call them giant sea turtles, but since they became an endangered species they have been left alone, and they have gone forth and multiplied. Every fifteen minutes or so you’d see a bird sitting on what looked like a floating rock, and there would be another giant sea turtle. As we passed close our wake caught them and they did roll over and slowly flap their legs to gain their equilibrium.

If nothing else, the seas around Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have an abundance of sea life. We’ve seen more porpoise and turtles here than anywhere. Probably has something to do with the viciousness of the papagayo and Tehuantepec storms that blow up to 100mph on a bad day.

As we came abreast of the Gulf of Fonseca our forward motion was subdued by a south setting current that ran as high as two and a half knots. We’d be motoring along at seven knots and be making just over four over the ground, like snails on Valium or something. It wasn’t until we were off Guatemala, after passing Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador that the current abated. Once again we could make some time.

Oh, the birds. I almost forgot. For over 100 miles we were followed by three of the cutest looking birds. A cross between a seagull and a penguin. It flew like a seagull and looked like a penguin, and the foolish birds spent hours and hours playing some sort of game. They’d fly out away from the boat, and then, in formation, they would fly right at the hull, about three feet above the waterline, and just before hitting the boat they would put on the binders and stop in midair. They did this over and over, from before sunset one night until well into midday the next. Then they flew off.

As we approached the notorious Gulf of Tehuantepec we started to group with a few other cruisers heading north. The Tehuantepec is an area that is known for vicious storms popping up out of nowhere. It is the narrowest point in Mexico and there is a natural venturi effect when there is a high in the Gulf of Mexico that generates winds up to 100 miles per hour out of nowhere. The southern end of the Tehuantepec is Puerto Madero, and as we entered we found AZURA, ARIES II, BLUE IBIS and BITTERSWEET waiting out a storm. We joined them and waited. The afternoon of April 11 Herb on SOUTH-BOUND II out of Canada broadcast on the SSB that we had a two-day window. You’d have thought they were giving away free beer across, as all of us hoisted anchor within an hour of the all clear, and as the sun set over the Tehuantepec we all went to sea. It was all clear, and the five boats kept in touch by radio all through the night, waiting to see if we’d get hit by a surprise wind. By noon the next day we knew we’d made it through the hole and a collective sigh was heard all over the Tehuantepec.