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Jay & Nicole's Trip to Costa Rica - May 2007 (click any small picture to get enlargement) |
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This
page picks up during the first week of Nicole and Jay's trip
to Costa Rica. |
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| After
a few days on the ship, we were into the "Jammer
routine".
An early-riser can begin their day at sunrise with a Bloody Mary and sweet 'sticky buns' ... then at 7am the breakfast bells are rung throughout the ship, inviting us to get up and begin the day. |
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After
breakfast, the Captain calls everyone together on top deck for "story time".
Our Venezuelan Captain would then explain the sailing plan for the day. Other crew members are then called up to describe the varied activities available during the day (hiking, diving, etc.). |
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| The group of passengers were quite varied in age and size ... which made for an interesting trip. | ||
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| The
Captain told us that the tropical storm was getting worse and that he had
more changes to announce ... what?
We had already skipped Quepos and now we learned we would also skip Drake's Bay and Golfito ... the storm was making those areas too dangerous to visit. He explained that we were going to sail away from the storm and enter Panamanian waters ... to visit some small islands. We had never visited that area, so we were happy! |
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| We
kept close to the coast, which was largely uninhabited. We could see bad weather gathering behind us ... On On! |
The ship is registered in Trinidad, so this flag is now displayed! | |
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| The coastline ended and we were looking west to the Pacific; strangely though, the Captain steered us back north, towards the bad weather instead of south towards the clear skies. | ||
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the same time we saw the crew members running around like mad ... what was
happening? Then I saw that the crew was unleashing the sail covers ... they were finally going to raise the sails! |
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Captain, over the many speakers placed around the ship, requested that any
passengers who wanted to help pull the ropes to raise the sails should meet
on top deck.
The song Amazing Grace was played loudly over the speakers; the sails then slowly rose; wow! |
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 As we turned south towards the clear sky, the last sail was raised ... this is true open-water sailing! |
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| After
enjoying the breeze in our hair for awhile, we settled down into the daily routine of
reading & reviewing the tour books to re-analyze where
we were.
The crew was kept busy by cleaning & painting; they were very hard workers. Our whole Wednesday was spent sailing. |
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 The Chef decided that all the meals were to be eaten outside today ... above, lunch is being prepared; the food was great! |
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We took advantage of the lull in activities to re-plan our second week in Costa Rica; we had to change our initial plan since we didn't get to the places on the Windjammer itinerary. Luckily we were visiting during low season and advance reservations were not a requirement. Also, since there were so many hotels in the country, we could keep our plans totally flexible. |
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| The next morning was a great looking day; several pods of dolphins welcomed us to Panama! | ||
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The clouds gave an interesting background to the sails; we had very smooth sailing so far! |
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 We began to see many islands, which are either in the Gulf of Chiriqui Park or the adjoining Coiba National Park. |
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| We passed many islands and were wondering where we would stop for the day; the Captain guaranteed it would be 'special'! | ||
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| We
saw a cute little island; can we stop here? Just then a bright flash of
lightning over a big island caught our attention ... oh, no! The crew dropped the sails in case the storm turned our way. |
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ship drifted towards the little island and we got a better view. It stirred thoughts of
secluded pirate hideaways or of being stranded like Robinson Crusoe,
which would be interesting ... |
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We heard a loud noise ... huh? ... the anchors began to drop ... wow, this IS our "special place" ! |
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The Captain instructed us to gather up our beach & snorkel stuff; shuttles would begin shortly. |
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 We took one of the first boats to shore and staked out a spot under a palm tree; the 100+ passengers took over the island! |
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As we relaxed on the beach, we realized how special it was to be on such a small secluded island; it was far away from land & accessible by only small ships ... a magical Windjammer moment! |
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| The island was occupied by thousands of little hermit crabs, who enjoyed cleaning up after we had some fruit snacks. After a few hours of swimming & snorkeling, we returned to the ship. | We quickly rinsed off our sandy things and sadly waved goodbye to the island as we departed. | |
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The Captain announced that we were headed towards a small Panamanian port; he needed to get permission for us to leave the country and pay some taxes. We would be allowed to go to shore and, since we would spend the night there, we had time for excursions. |
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| The coast of Panama, with dark volcanic sand. | A small village with complicated fishing nets in the water. | We began to slow down, so this port must be our destination. |
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The Captain went to shore with the Activity Director, who was going to line up some activities. |
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After a long time they both came back with frowns. It seems that the pier, which looked decent, was actually in total disrepair; it was too unsafe for us to unload at and we couldn't stay here. |
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| Over
dinner the Captain explained that the tropical storm had weakened and hit
Nicaragua, but that there were still some strong swells ... which meant that
we could not go to any of the destinations that we had skipped on the
earlier part of the trip.
The only thing he could offer was to return to Costa Rica, and to visit some little islands near where we departed from. So, we sailed all night and part of the next day. The blue dots to the right show our return voyage. |
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| Some
people were upset that the ship didn't visit ANY of the coastal places in the
itinerary. These folks didn't plan to spend any extra time in Costa Rica, so
they didn't have a chance to see much of the country... no one can control the
weather!
Nicole and I enjoyed the sailing & islands, which were our main focus ... so we were quite satisfied. |
 We headed north towards the tail end of the tropical storm ... lots of clouds and T-storms. |
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| On
Friday afternoon we arrived at a whole family of islands; it was quite a
nice looking area.
Once again, much of Costa Rica has been declared as parks, so luckily most of what we saw was protected & thus unspoiled. |
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weather was quite variable, with strong wind and rain followed by hours of
calm.
We meandered around the islands until it seemed the Captain has found his destination. Navigation in this area would be quite difficult! |
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The ship dropped anchor in front of Tortuga Beach, which is a popular day-trip destination for many tour companies. We were not used to having to share our beaches with other people! |
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boarded the first shuttle & headed towards the beach, which wasn't as
heavily populated as we had feared.
We were passed by the 2nd shuttle, as it had less people. As they approached shore, their engine died & they called for assistance; we had to pull them back to deep water. |
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| We
approached the beach and everything looked nice and calm.
All of a sudden we found ourselves being lifted by a big wave that came out of nowhere. We went sideways and almost tipped over when we hit bottom. The Captain ordered us back to the ship, as landing was obviously too dangerous. |
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| So,
it is ironic that even the last portion of our trip did not go according to
plan. We dubbed this as 'the trip that almost was', as nothing went as
it was supposed to go... but at least we survived!
To appease the passengers, and to waste a little time before heading back to port, the Captain announced that the swimming pool was now open. We all looked around with questioning faces, until a crew member jumped off the side of the ship and scattered a few life jackets in the ocean. We also jumped off & enjoyed an hour swimming around the ship... too bad there was no pool bar! |
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| After we showered, the crew lined up for photos; good job! | We then enjoyed a delicious Captain's dinner, ended with ... | ... a peach flambé cooked up by Popeye, an age-old crew guy. |
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This concludes the story of the first half of our trip to Costa Rica. While aboard the Windjammer's SV Legacy, we traveled 600 nautical miles (650 standard miles or 1070 kilometers). We didn't get to see any of the advertised stops due to weather issues, but we got to visit some unscheduled Panamanian islands. We enjoyed the cruise and now looked forward to seeing the rest of the country, beginning with the central coast area. Use the menu below to select the next page of the story: |
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