Costa Rica

Here we are, in Puntarenas, Golfo de Nicoya, Costa Rica.
We are on a mooring in the river in front of the Costa Rica yacht club. The river we have to share with some crocodiles!

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TEHUANTEPEC, VERY BIG WHITE SANDY HILLS.

Nice place, bar, restaurant, swimming pool, showers, diesel and gas on the premises. We are almost the only cruisers left, most boats are further south in Golfito, where we hope to be going in a week or so, we are still waiting for some parts to arrive from San Diego.
The time between us leaving Huatulco and arriving in Costa Rica was interesting to say the least!
The weather window we took advantage of as we crossed the gulf of Tehuantepec turned out to be well chosen and we had no unpleasant Tehuantepecer winds to content with. We continued down the coast, past the Mexico-El Salvador border and eventually we began to make our way down the Niguaraguan coast.

We encountered huge squalls with strong winds on the nose and 2 to 4 kts of adverse current.
We were not making good progress at all despite our attempts to motor sail. In order to be able to switch of the engine, having already used a lot of precious diesel fuel getting nowhere, we headed out to sea, cutting across the wind and current until it seemed there was a better possibility of tacking to lay a course for Costa Rica.
A low pressure cell was reported on the Panama Pacific radio net in the morning of the 28th of May.
We duly plotted its position on our chart, added some wind arrows and figured that it could well produce more favorable winds as the day went on.
The squalls got even bigger and as night came on we decided to heave to under a staysail alone as the wind had picked up to 40 kts.
We found that being hove to on the port tack allowed us to work our way to windward on a course for Costa Rica.
By about midnight our situation of being hove to was untenable and we took down the staysail and let the boat run before the building wind and seas under bare poles.2 or 3 hours later we realized that we were headed towards the eye of something far more violent then the unnamed low we had been expecting!
By 03.00 we registered gusts in the 70 kt range, the average wind at that time being 65kts.
Suddenly the wind died away to a mere 16 kts, we were in the eye!
As the storm moved over us, the winds came back and gusts up to 88 kts became frequent. During this time the dinghies broke lose, the smaller Sabot managing to snare its painter under the edge of a ventilation hatch of the main cabin. The hatch was ripped out and the waves sweeping the decks poured in through the opening.
The inflatable rib crashed into the side of the cockpit and by sheer good luck it did not crush us where we stood trying to steer the boat.
The engine by this time had died and where it had been a useful aid to steering by pushing water passed the rudder we now had lost all control of the boat.
The submersible pump in the engine room was running and we assumed that the engine had aspirated water.
We decided that Jose would call a Mayday on the VHF, but we had no response.
Fearing capsize was imminent with seas in access of 50ft and winds of 80kts, Jeff went below at 08.00 and called a Mayday on the Pan Pacific Maritime Mobile Radio Net.
The purpose of the Mayday was not a forlorn hope of being rescued, it was to inform people where to look for us should the worst happen. By the time Jeff got back to the cockpit the winds were down to 73 kts average and Stravaig was still on her feet despite the conditions. As the day progressed news came that a USA Coast Guard airplane would soon be overhead and indeed they arrived in the afternoon and kept us company for about 4 hours. Before leaving they had calculated our drift and were concerned that we were headed towards the rocky coast of Niguaragua.
Without the engine and insufficient fuel anyway, we were a pretty lame duck. We had learned that the US Coastguard Cutter Chase was heading to our assistance and we could expect their arrival by about 22.00. By the time they had got to us the seas were down to 15 ft and the winds in the 30 kt range.
Just after dark we had got the engine going again; it had not been inundated with water after all.
Two US coast guard Watch Keepers came aboard, making the dangerous jump between the 2 vessels to bring us 10 gallons of diesel fuel and to assess our situation.
They examined the boat and talked to both of us separately and together to decide if we were fit enough to go on to the first anchorage in Costa Rica by ourselves, which was another 14 hrs away.
One of the men gave us his cap, as a memento, they wished us well and continued with their other missions.
As you know we did finally make it to Costa Rica and after 60+ hrs of constantly struggling with Mother Nature, it was wonderful to be able to anchor and get some sleep! We found later that the storm had been given the name Alma and that NOAA had briefly raised its classification of Tropical Storm to Hurricane, just before it had reached the Niguaraguan coast.
Alma was the first tropical storm in 125 years of record keeping in this area!
Cruising sailors have always trusted that these tropical disturbances do not occur in northern Costa Rica. When we encountered Alma, our latitude was approx. that of the Costa Rican border. Times have changed!

We have omitted here to give any of the details of the wonderful help and support we got from the yachting community and the various radio nets that provided the links to the US Coast Guard initially and gave us so much comfort and good advice.

We are completing a full report, which when finished we hope to publish.

So, that was all the technical part of things, the emotional one is more difficult.
We just are so happy that we came through this in one piece
We had quite some time where neither of us thought we were going to get out of this safely; we were ready to abandon the boat if help had been able to get to us in the worst part of the storm. We talked about what we needed to do if the boat were to capsize, what would be the best way to stay with the boat etc. I was very scared, Jeff less so, but I think we kept each other going by talking about what was happening and what we could do to improve our situation. Which was not a lot! I thought a house somewhere in the country started to look really nice!
I had managed to get some things like our papers together in case we did abandon the boat, so we would at least have some identification and credit cards with us.
Later, when it all got slightly better and we couldn’t physically steer the boat anymore because the engine had stopped, I decided to keep sane I would start cleaning things up a bit! Really, you do strange things when you are in such a situation.
It was incredibly comforting to see that US Coastguard plane for the first time and talk to the guys; they kept passing over us and talking to us for hours, when they left we knew it was only a few more hours before their cutter would be with us to give us some diesel.
We were extremely tired and had to keep each other awake and alert. After the cutter left, we had another 14 hrs or so to get to the closest anchorage and we took turns to have short naps to try and feel a little bit better.
Anyway, after about 20 hrs sleep, we left for the next anchorage where we needed to check in. We got so much help and support from all the cruising boats that were there, really wonderful, we don’t know how to say thank you to everybody.
Now we are in a safe place, waiting for our parts to arrive, we are doing some jobs on the boat and relax, will go south to Golfito maybe end this week and from there we will have to see, no real plans yet.
We will let you all know what’s going to be next when we have figured it out ourselves!!

THESE PICS ARE BERFORE THE STORM, THIS WAS WHAT THE SKIES LOOKED LIKE MOST OF THE TIME!