The drive from Arenal to the airport took about three hours. Fortunately we were not stuck behind any slow moving traffic on the narrow roads but we did have to wait for a truck having problems on the road for about 5 mins and for about an hour we had really thick fog. At the airport we quickly checked the flight and departure was on time. We had three hours so we popped to a nearby restaurant for drinks and lunch. Helen, John and I had only a small appetizer as we were due to meet Jason for another lunch later. Ben and Jess were facing current day airline food so needed feeding.
After dropping them off we headed off to meet Helen’s ex-colleague Jason outside a huge supermarket called Hipermass. We had 3/4 hour to spare so we shopped meeting Jason at the end where he helped us at the check out.
We followed Jason to his home which was right next to the school where he currently teaches. We stayed there a while before going out for an excellent rotisserie chicken meal at a nearby local establishment. Our thanks to Jason for this meal.
We were soon on the road back to Puntarenas along a newly built highway/road. It took much less time than we expected and were aboard before dusk. We’d left the freezer on while away and had no idea how the electrics had stood. We must have had plenty of sunshine and wind while we were away as we found the batteries topped up which was pleasing.
We loaded all our shopping aboard and set about settling in. John’s PC and Helen’s eReader had both run into problems while we were on the road. John was able to fix his PC with his repair disk. I earned a few brownie points by fixing the buttons on Helen’s eReader.
Today we have lots to do. We need to check out everything on the boat to make sure there are no impending issues. The dinghy needs to be prepared for ocean travel. I need to drive 20km south to Caldera to check out of the country. We need to do some final shopping. We had hoped to leave tomorrow but high tide is at 8am leaving us little time for contingency. We are expecting a replacement sump pump to be delivered tomorrow. Right now it’s in the capital and could possibly arrive today which would allow us to possibly leave tomorrow. It’s looking more like Wednesday now. When we do leave we want to stop somewhere nearby to check / clean the hulls one more time before setting off for the Galapagos. The current wind forecasts suggest a very slow ride but that won’t stop us. Reports from other boats suggest winds a little stronger than we see on our downloads so we’ll see when we’re out there.
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