NICARAGUA

Spanish is the language spoken here and the currency is the Cordoba, the exchange rate is about 20 to one US dollar. This makes it very affordable to stay for awhile. The people are really friendly and you feel really safe. Nicaragua has more population on the west coast than on the Caribbean side of the country. There is a lot of untouched land here. Heading from Costa Rica we met up with the well known Papagallo winds. They sneak up on you while you’re sailing along doing about 10 to 15 knots. Along come the Papagallo winds hitting you from the north at about 30+ knots all at once. So we had to motor most of the way and keep the sails reefed in. No sailing at night!

Our first port of entry was San Juan del Sur. The bay was always getting the Papagallo wind going through it so it was really hard to take your dinghy to shore without getting really wet. When we entered the bay we noticed a familiar sailboat anchored in the bay. Viking Heart, the rope handlers that we had through the canal, Les & Lea are crewing for Viking Heart. A great reunion it was, we toured the town together. This part of our trip is really lonely most of all the cruisers are heading to Panama. Seeing Les & Lea was really a great treat.
San Juan del Sur is a small Surf town. Lots of young Americans were all over the place, backpackers staying in the hostels having a great time. The streets were dirt or cobblestone. Property is still affordable here. The new government is stable no wars since the 80’s. I really enjoyed our stay and would come back to San Juan del Sur.

The next few stops in Nicaragua were just to sleep, sometimes that was even hard because of the Papagallo wind. We picked Puesta del Sol to exit Nicaragua. There is a nice little Marina called Marina Puesta del Sol. We stayed a few nights at the marina to get some sleep use the Internet and do some laundry. We had to wash the boat because there was so much ocean salt all over with dried in dirt the winds blew in. The marina was real small I think there were only about 10 boats there all together. The ones that were traveling were all going south. The Resort is truly beautiful and the people were great.

Our next stop will be El Salvador it will take us about two days to get there from here. We have decided not to go into Guatemala because they charge too much to enter the country and they mostly cater to the mega yachts. Then we will head toward Mexico.

Costa Rica

We are now in Golfito Costa Rica; the vegetation is mostly the same as in Panama. In the morning we hear Howler monkeys and birds singing, it’s truly beautiful. It feels a lot hotter than in Panama. I guess it’s because there is no breeze in this bay. By 9 in the morning you start to sweat on the boat. Unlike Panama Costa Rica caters to the cruisers. Right on the waterfront in the bay is a place called Tierra Y Mar Yacht Services (owned by former cruisers Tim & Katie) Tierra Y Mar is their old boats name. They have a nice dock for our dinghies, (hard to find in Panama) Whey welcome you as you arrive offering a cool breeze open area to sit and visit or watch TV, showers, beer, Internet, book exchange and laundry service. The place is a cruisers dream. On the top floor in the sitting room they offer paints and their walls so if you want to, you can leave your boats name along with the others that have passed this way. We saw three boats names that we met in Panama. I think that really cool.

The check-in process into the country is fairly complicated, we needed to take a taxi to four different places including the Capitania de Puerto oficina and provide copies of all our documents for the boat at each place. Sailor had no problems thank god. Everyone uses taxis they are all red so you can identify them easily. They are everywhere. The Republic of Costa Rica (pop. 4075,261) about 28% of its land is preserved in national parks, wildlife refuges, wetlands and biosphere reserves, so eco-tourism is one of its biggest industries.