I’m on my midnight watch, the winds are light and we’re motor sailing. We have, as the crow flies, 688nm to go. There are no crows out here which is fitting as we won’t be going the route they would take anyway.
I was off the boat before 7am yesterday morning to catch a bus into Puntarenas town center. There I located the bus that would take me to Caldera. I was at the Capitan de Puerto’s office by around 8:10am. It took a mere 30 mins to obtain my zarpe internacional. Feeling quite excited that we now had no impediment to leave I started walking the main road from the port back to Puntarenas hoping to either hitch a lift, catch a bus or taxi. The taxi option arrived first so I was back shortly after 9am.
Next stop was to move the boat through the tight mooring field to the fuel dock where we filled up both tanks and the jerry cans we’d emptied on our way up through the windless seas of Panama and Costa Rica.
That being done I paid up all our dues and we were off at around 10am. Motoring west out of Puntarenas we had 13 knot apparent wind which turned into a light beam reach once we’d rounded the peninsular. It was so light we unfurled the Code Zero hoping for some better assistance. The wind continued to die until all of a sudden it picked up to 20 knots in just a few minutes. This involved a little yelling when instructions to fall off (to reduce luffing and strain on the running rigging (and my hands)) were implemented as heading up. The new wind direction was from the SSW so we had to quickly furl and drop the Code Zero and sail under main and headsail. We had been aiming for Islas Negroes to stop and clean the props/bottom but the new wind angle suggested we head for Bahia Leona.
We made it there under wind power with the hope that we may be seeing an end to the endless motor sailing we’ve been experiencing. We stopped there and John and I donned our diving gear to work on the bottom while Helen ran a wash, flushed the tubes on the aircons and cleaned up topside. We finished our bottom work just as the washing machine finished, quickly stowed gear and were off before sun down.
At this point the wind and currents were becoming less cooperative. The SSW wind was staying put which the direction we wanted to go. It had died down to about 12 knots while we were working on the boat so we used a little assist to get us through the chop. After a few hours of tacking we weren’t getting too far against the current so eventually pointed the boat closer to the wind and used more push from the electric motors.
Since then we have continue to motor sail into the night. The winds have died down and shifted direction more to the NW. At 6 knots it’s not much help so we’re in our planned 4 knot routine running on the electric motors and charging 1/3 of the time.
I’ve noticed a problem on the depth sounder. When we’re in deep water it starts to show readings from 20-30 feet which is disconcerting. This may explain our feeling that our charts were off weeks ago as we entered Costa Rican waters. Not sure what I can do about this at this point.
You may see blogs from Helen and John this trip. They agreed to do so and we agreed not to read each others entries until we arrive at our destination. Blogging the trip to the Galapagos is a warm up for blogging the long trip where our different perspectives day by day could become interesting.
Leave a Reply