10 November 2005
Bahia Santa Elena, Northern Costa RicaNorthern Costa Rica pleasantly has delighted us with its remote anchorages and beauty. Being in waters the color of dark jade and dark lapis is a refreshing change. The beauty and wildlife that entices the world's tourists to central Costa Rica, surely extends to the Pacific coast and adjacent islands. We are fortunate to own a boat that enables us extended stays in these less traveled places.
The Pacific coast is irregular and varied; rugged, rocky headlands with the occasional broad, sandy beach or mangrove lined river. We have arrived at the cusp of seasonal transition. Already we have watched in our two weeks in the country, as the leaves of the deciduous forest are starting to drop; bare trees stand majestically against the sky. The floral display has diminished and the fruit have ripened and fallen, scattering seed pods on the ground. The dry season or “verano” (literally known locally as “summer”) is upon us.
Bahia Santa Elena: In previous website entries, we have written of our personal experiences in this large beautiful bay, surrounded by the Santa Rosa National Park, both a historic park and a significant environmental gem.
The National Park was the battlegrounds in 1856, between Costa Rica and the invading forces of William Walker. The Costa Ricans drove Walker out, to neighboring Nicaragua. (William Walker was a notorious Tennessean who sought to “conquer” Central America and establish slave trades in the countries. Off and on throughout the mid 1800’s Walker would wage havoc and war in the countries, until he was finally caught and executed; a historical, bad guy). In more recent historical accounts, the National Park contains lands once owned by Enrique Somoza, the former Nicaraguan dictator. This is one of the many sites where the "secret" USA training forces for the Contra rebels was staged. (Remember Oliver North? North staged his covert efforts of the mid 1980’s on these lands, even a beach named, Ollie’s; a leftover of the Ronald Reagan era of USA unauthorized intervention in Central American politics? (a historical, bad guy for Latin America).
Political historic information is available elsewhere, so I’ll continue with our more personal experiences. Although, I have to mention that the Central America of the 1980’s and the “recovery” or “lack of recovery” since then is evident throughout the countries. How the Latin American people live with the memories of years and years of civil war, often supplemented by USA aid and influence, and still befriend us, continues to demonstrate to us their hearts of compassion. It would be an oversimplified judgment to conclude that the need for “tourist” dollars, absolves us of war and its injustices. Only an opportunist believes that kind of logic.
On safer grounds, the dry tropical deciduous cloud forests are perfect habitats for the jaguar, ocelot, howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, tapers, and anteaters. Now, there is a delicate balance of power. Although, we did not see all of these animals, their tracks were found and their nocturnal behavior kept them safe from our intrusion. Tempted, as were we to rise at 4 AM to go on a nocturnal animal walk, it never happened. Who would have been more scared, them or us?
Bird watching became a favorite sunrise and sunset activity as we sighted green napped parrots (dozens of noisy couples), Laughing Falcon, Tiger Heron, and Vireos, to mention just a few of the dozens of species we observed. Large colonies of brown pelicans live in ecologically healthy conditions. We observed both the migratory and the resident aviary communities. And on the shoreline, we spotted several prehistoric large, slate blue Iguanas and green Iguanas that reminded us that this was the country were Jurassic Park was filmed.
The strong tidal fluctuations provide us with excellent opportunities to observe shore birds, water birds and to beach comb for shells. It is important to watch the daily tidal fluctuations as one can find yourself in a predicament if attention is not heeded.
In Bahia Santa Elena, we conducted necessary boat chores, like doing our laundry at a fresh water outlet that ran into the salt-water bay. It might sound like drudgery to do your laundry in a stream, and there is no denying that it is by far more convenient to load up a machine in some back room, but the experience had some memorable moments.
Before we even reached the outlet, fellow cruisers warned us, to pick up a stick and hit the trees overhead to be sure all the snakes fell out before we hovered over our clothes. And we were reminded that cayman liked to frequent areas of mangroves and beaches. Should we go? Our clothes don't stink that much, do they?
Even with this in mind, we continued, the desire for fresh sheets and shirts overcame our fears. Gaby drove the dinghy. Sami was entrusted to find the snake swatting stick once we reached shore at high tide. We lowered the wheels in the dinghy and then we jumped out, rolled and pulled the two-plus hundred pound vehicle (dinghy, outboard motor, fuel tank and laundry) to shore. Then, we gathered up the three big canvas bags of laundry, our buckets and headed to the inlet, barefooted, through the warm white sand for 500 feet.
When we arrived at the inlet, it was a mud hole. The mud hole pattern was quite lovely from an artistic photographic perspective, but of no value as a wash hole. We could choose to walk further up the inlet through the ankle thick mud, under the low hanging mangrove canopies, which meant using the stick that Sami had found for swatting snakes. However, I made an executive decision to abort this laundry hole and go elsewhere. Why wake the critters of the mangrove forest and tempt the snakes to nibble on us?
Gaby reminded us that another cruiser had mentioned a fresh water inlet, about 1500’ from this one. Cruising kids are real troopers, no whining, even when we were hot, frustrated and discouraged. Both girls continued to try to find an option through our obstacle.
We reloaded the dinghy. Sami pulled up the beach anchor. And the three of us pushed, pulled, and cajoled the dinghy back into the water. It took us a while, and several times I had wished I had done more push-ups and had stronger arms and legs to help free us from our circumstance with more ease and less struggle and strife.
At the next inlet, we found fresh running water. There was no waterfall as described by others, but we could damn up the stream, to create a well to soak the clothes and scrub the soiled spots. The experience had some wonderful moments as we peered up through the tall mangrove roots at large termite nests, watched iridescent blue butterflies and yellow tiger striped butterflies flitter by us. We were in what our family calls, “A National Geographic moment, all we needed to be was bare-chested.” The girls went to a natural waterspout and filled three six gallon Jerry jugs while I scrubbed.
Our water maker was failing and thus instigated the need for immediate conservation of our limited fresh water supply. Identifying alternative fresh water sources became essential. Many boats do not own water makers and cruise around the world finding natural water sources or buying water at Ports; so we knew that this would not be a difficult obstacle to overcome, a temporary change to our lifestyle.
When the Jerry jugs were filled, we loaded them into the dinghy and sent Gaby back to the boat. Cruisers have been tapping this water source for washing over the last several months with no apparent problems. The water appeared fresh and clean. Although, we did not conduct any test, the watershed appears to not be near pastures or human occupation.
Meanwhile, Sami and I continued to have fun sitting in the cool stream scrubbing. We were nearly done, when Gaby returned. Gaby noticed that the salt water was making its way up the inlet. The tidal shift was quickly in progress. We hurried to beat the shift. We worked together, throwing laundry back and forth, laughing as we tossed and missed, rinsing quickly then maneuvering to carry the heavy wet canvas bags of clean clothes, to the dinghy without dragging them through the mud. Then, we had to hoist the bags up to our waistlines (we are short) as we had to walk out to the dinghy, now floating off shore. Once all the laundry and buckets were loaded, Sami grabbed the anchor, threw it into the dinghy, Gaby jumped in and pulled the cord on the outboard motor, then we began the heave-ho-heave-ho to pull the dinghy away to deeper waters. We got her launched, climbed in and we were on our way.
Nearby vultures had descended on a recently dead Olive Ridley turtle. We circled the three-foot long turtle, nearly going aground, but saw no sign of what was its cause of death. This would be the second turtle we would see dead and afloat, in two days. We spoke a prayer for the life of the turtle hoping that it died of natural causes and not from ingested plastic or poison.
On arrival to the boat, the Captain, grinned and asked us how it went. “Well, six hours later, I can report that I've never thought doing the laundry would be such an adventure, but it certainly can be. I guess, we are stronger for it, but right now, all we want is some dry clothes and something to eat. Then, we'll get on with hanging the clothes to dry so the wind whips ‘em dry.” Ah, the cruising life.