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Paso Canoas in Costa Rica

Visa Renewal To Become a Tico

Costa Rica allows U.S. citizens to remain in their country for a 90-day period.  We arrived at the end of April so our 90-day period was set to expire at the end of July.  However, by mid-July the repairs on our boat had not commenced, so we had to think about visa renewals stat!

Technically, my visa started over when I flew back to the states to see my doctors in June, but Matt needed to renew his visa. So, we decided we needed to make a road trip to Panama for an out of country small shopping trip.  We rented a car from Economy which was a small pain in the a$$.  We did a lot of research online only to be told completely different information upon picking up the car.  You can rent the car for $6/day but the insurance required brings up the daily total to $60/day. And there is a 3-day minimum.

We got up early the next day, hopped in our little SUV and started our 3 hour journey to Panama (time: 0515).  It was a relatively easy route, hop on hwy 34 to hwy 2 until it ends at the border.  We traveled through beautiful country, palm tree farms, lush, green hills, and beautiful coastal villages.

Hwy 34 Costa Rica to Panama

Hwy 34 Costa Rica to Panama

Average speed limit was 60-80 kilometers which is roughly 40-50 mph.  Not very fast, but the roads are curvy with lots of twists and turns.  In addition, you are dealing with motor bikes, bicycles, pedestrians, horse back riders, tractors, and 18-wheelers in your lane.  Made for an interesting trip for sure.

0900.  Upon arrival, we missed our designated secure parking lot.  But, a very eager and aggressive parking attendant encouraged us to park on this corner with about 10 parking spots.  He put a large construction barrel (cone) in front of our car – encouraging or scary?  We paid him $10 to watch the car (the parking fee was $6).  We later found the elusive secure parking lot.  It had been blocked by charter buses and its sign was half falling down.  Oh well.

We are in the small border town of Paso Canoas in the Costa Rica.

Paso Canoas in Costa Rica

Paso Canoas in Costa Rica

One of our local friends told us to pay our “exit fee” first, then go to clear out of the country.  So, we searched for the little office across the street.  Had we not known to do this step, we would have missed it for sure.  This little window handled copies, public service, internet, and the exit tax.

Exit Tax Payment Center Costa Rica

Exit Tax Payment Center Costa Rica

The “impuesta de salida” or “exit tax” is only $8/pp, but you have to pay it before going to immigration.  Then you take your receipt across the street and head to the salida line.  They were very efficient in processing people in and out.

Once we cleared out of Costa Rica, we walked across the border to Panama.  The Panama border was elaborate with a huge wall marking the entrance and exit into the country.  There were not many people there when we arrived so our visa process was relatively easy.

I happened to look up at the clock and realized that Panama was an hour ahead of Costa Rica.  So, we cleared in at 0945 which is important as we need to stay in Panama for 5 hours and we wanted to catch the World Cup games that started at 12.

Immigration Costa Rica and Panama

Immigration Costa Rica and Panama

The only snag was with Matt’s passport.  He has an “extended” passport with extra pages and a few countries skipped a few pages.  So as you flip you have a dozen stamped pages, then a few blank ones, then a few more with stamps.  The immigration officer did not like this and took a good 15 minutes to exam each page.  After speaking to his manager, he took Matt’s fingerprints, asked his profession, and gave him a visa stamp.  Luckily, for me, it only took 4 minutes to process my visa.

Now, it was shopping time.  It is about a 50-60% savings when you purchase items in Panama vs Costa Rica.  Unfortunately, we do not need a lot right now with the boat on the hard, but we can always find something.

There are two malls on the border: Mall Jerusalem de Panama and City Mall.  In addition, there are hundreds of small vendors along the way and on many side streets.  We started at Mall Jerusalem de Panama as it was closest to the border entrance.  It was basically a two-story building with a market, clothing, furniture, housewares, and hardware.  A little bit of everything.  We made notes of what we might want and their prices and set off to City Mall to compare prices.

As we headed to City Mall, we realized we were uncertain as to what country we were in.  Each building lies on the border, so you enter in on the Panama side and exit on the Costa Rica side.  We were so confused one time, that we had to refer to the license plates on the cars to figure out what country we were in!

We finally made it to City Mall and it was more of the same.  A giant two-story building with a market, clothing, furniture, house wares, and hardware.

City Mall in Panama

City Mall in Panama

We were getting hungry and figured it was close to game time, so we asked a tico where we could find a place to eat with a TV.  She told us to go back to Costa Rica, down the street, to a place called Pizza Fabo.  It was 12n, not a soul in the restaurant and a soap opera on the TV.  Hmmm.

After a lot of back and forth, we realized that the game started at 1300 in Costa Rica, so we sat down, ordered a pizza and waited.  Good thing too as it as storming and we really did not want to walk around in the rain.

Pizza was fabulous and Croatia beat England!  Now, it was time to purchase our items.  We stopped by a liquor store where we picked up (5) liters of Stoli for $10/ea and (5) bottles of Rose for $8/ea.  Huge score considering the liter of Stoli is $30 in CR.  We walked across the border, dropped the liquor off to the car and headed back to Panama.

Next, we hit the market and stocked up on a few essential items.  We loaded the car up again and headed back to the Panama Immigration station to clear out of Panama.  Simple enough process, a lot of please and thank yous and we were done.

We walked back to the Costa Rica immigration station where they asked to see our return tickets back to the U.S.  Luckily, we had anticipated this and purchased one way tickets from CR to MIA earlier in the morning.  We showed our itinerary and she stamped each visa with another 90-days.  Whew.  Some countries, require you show proof of leaving their country (so you don’t stay indefinitely).

Armed with new 90-day visas, we headed back to the car to make our 3-hour drive back to Quepos.  On our way back, we stopped in Domincal for a well deserved drink at beach bar during sunset.  Tortilla Flats caught our eye, so we bellied up to the nearly empty bar.

Tortiall Flats in Domincal, Costa Rica

Tortiall Flats in Domincal, Costa Rica

What a long day!  But a successful adventure.  Not sure why GoogleMaps shows it as over 5 hours, it was only a little over 3 hours.  Of course, we may have bumped up our speed to 100 kilometers a few times (62 mph).

As most of you know, our blogs are several weeks, if not months behind “real time.”  As it turns out, we will have to renew our visas a third time in early October.

Travel to Panama

Travel to Panama

In foreign countries, you often find things that make you ask “why” like this pairing of a juicer with toilet paper.

What the heck??

What the heck??

In case you are wondering what a “Tico” is – a local.

Playful dolphins entertain us

Isla Santa Catalina & Bahia Honda

We visit two islands: Isla Santa Catalina and Bahia Honda.  First, a short 13 nm away, is a small island called Isla Santa Catalina.  We pulled up anchor at Isla Cebaco in sweltering heat, with no wind, scattered clouds, and a bright blue sky.  It was good weather conditions to fly the jib with 12-13 knots of wind at 60 degrees.  All of our charts showed many reefs and shallow spots along the way.  And midway between us and our destination was a 4-meter shallow spot that we were trying to avoid.  Strange to be so far off shore in only 7-17 meters of water.  The depth vacillated a lot and quickly.

As we were motor sailing along, we noticed a huge squall off to port.  It appeared to be heading away from us, but as we continued along, it kept getting bigger and bigger.  Lots of thunder. Dark foreboding clouds, and big swells.  We hustled to put the eyebrow and rain shades down before the worst of it hit, but to no avail.  The rain was coming down in sheets making it challenging to see.   In fact, it was coming down so hard that we lost sight of the island that was a ½ mile in front of us.  Luckily, we have 5 charts, all of which combined are decent to navigate by so we were able to drop the hook and retreat inside.

Even though rainy season is not technically supposed to start for 5 more days, we’re thinking it’s here.  We remained inside for the rest of the night as the sky unloaded buckets of water.  It was a peaceful night until about 0200 when it became really rolly.  High tide came in and brought with it some big waves that kept us awake for a few hours.  But by early dawn, it calmed down and became the sweet, innocent anchorage we fell asleep in the night before.

Image:  Top: is Isla Catalina with a dilapidated surf shack and lower three photos are neighboring islands with some serious surf and breakwater.

The next morning, we set our schedule as we periodically have to live by a timeline.  We are trying to make our way to Gulfito without missing the many islands that lay between Panama and the Costa Rica border.  Monica, Matt’s mom, is coming to visit us in northern Costa Rica in a few weeks.  It is a little over 300nm from Isla Santa Catalina to Herradura Bay where we are meeting her.  Technically, we could make that passage in 2-3 days, but we would miss dozens of lovely anchorages, beaches, and islands.

After we created a “soft” sail plan, we got Sugar Shack ready to head to Bahia Honda.  A short 21-mile motor in really calm conditions, no wind, lots of birds and fish, and a few dolphins.

These dolphins always look like they are scratching their backs on the bottom of our bows.  They seem so close.  But, Matt said that our red bottom paint would come off on their silky skin (it’s ablative paint which means it is meant to come off easily but prevent growth).  Since the dolphins had no red tattoos, I assumed they are just barely missing our boat.

As we entered the mouth of Bahia Honda, we were surprised by the tall, green, mountains that make up this beautiful and spacious bay.  Image below: Top entering Bahia Honda (overcast day); Middle little island with trees speckled in white birds; Bottom surrounding islands.

As we were anchoring, a panga approached with an older gentleman and two kids.  They politely stayed back until we set the anchor.  Only then, did they approach our boat.  His name was Domingo and the kids were his grandchildren.  He wanted to welcome us to the bay, showed us where he lived, and told us that he has not seen many boats lately.  He gave us a bunch of sweet finger bananas and a pineapple and asked for nothing in return.  Of course, I scrounged around for school supplies for the kids and Matt gave him a few small fishing hooks.

Around 1500 another squall came through.  At least we were already anchored and prepared, so Matt took advantage of the fresh water and washed off the deck and took a shower.

I love this shot of two of my new favorite bananas.  The small one is a fingerling banana which is really sweet and the two large ones are plantains.  Matt has become an expert at frying them in oil to perfection for a sweet treat after dinner.

Later in the afternoon, Kennedy stopped by.  He is Domingo’s son and the father of the two kids we met the day before.  He told us that he works for an American family across the bay and that they are part of the Bush family.  Interesting.  Kennedy has worked for the family for over 20 years.  He was very nice and asked for a few items to trade as he said that everything is very expensive to bring in from Panama City and he’d prefer to trade for fruit.  They were looking for children’s clothes, shoes, batteries, cooking oil, milk, and fishing hooks.  Across the bay is Isla Bahia Honda where there is a small village, school and tienda (market).

The night was really calm and peaceful.  This is a very tranquil bay, full of wildlife and sweet people.  The next morning, we received another visitor, Santo who is Domingo’s other son.  He was interested in trading his word work for batteries, jackets, shoes.  At this point we are emptied out, not sure what we will do at the next stop.

After a few hours of cleaning, we pulled the hook and headed to our next stop.

COMING UP NEXT:

  • Islas Secas
  • Isla Parida
  • Isla Gamez
  • SUP adventures
Vista Mar Marina pool

Isla Otoque and Vista Mar Marina

Instead of sailing 44 miles straight to Vista Mar Marina, we decided to stop at Isla Otoque.  This island is about 20 miles from La Playita and has two villages Otoque Occidente and Otoque Oriente.  Just a mile away from Isla Otoque is a very, very small island called Isla Bona which used to have an industrial operation in the past, but only remenants of heavy equipment are left behind.

It was a fairly quick motor over to Isla Otoque as there was no wind.  We swung into Isla Bona first as it looked really pretty in our guide book.  However, the wind and current direction made for a bad swell so we decided to head back to Isla Otoque.  There was one fishing boat, close to shore at the entrance.  It was a huge bay, so we selected a spot closer to shore and on the opposite side of the bay.  There is not much on the island other than old, broken down equipment that we could see from shore.  We hung out on the boat, had a great rice bowl dinner with chicken, rice, corn, diced toms, chipotle peppers, black beans and cilantro – YUM!

In the morning, we headed to Vista Mar Marina where we are to drop off our old batteries and meet up with “Itchy Foot.”  It is 22 miles from Isla Otoque to Vista Mar Marina, and to our great surprise, it was a perfect beam reach.  We were thrilled to unfurl our jib and hoist our main.  Just enough wind to keep us going at a steady 7 knots with an occasional 8 or 9 knots.  There is nothing like the feeling of sailing in perfect conditions.  The sun on our back, the wind on our face, and the beautiful sound of the ocean lapping around us.

We arrived too quickly for our liking as we were having fun – 3.5 hours.  We were tempted to turn around and do it again, but alas we had things to do.  The water drops to about 9 meters about 3 miles from the breakwater.  As you get closer it drops to 4 meters.  Very strange.  We decided to fuel up first, so the marina met us at the fuel dock.  Pretty painless and fairly reasonable at $3 per gallon. (about $.20 cheaper than La Playita).

Photo courtesy of Vista Mar Marina

Photo courtesy of Vista Mar Marina

Vista Mar Marina

Vista Mar Marina

After we pulled into a slip, secured the boat, and said hello to Jon and Mia, I headed to the office.  We only decided to pay for a slip because it is really inexpensive.  We thought about anchoring outside, but having access to free water, wifi, and electricity was too good to pass up.  It turned out to be $25 per night ($.50/foot).  Keep in mind that we normally pay $2-$2.50 per foot plus an additional 50% because we are a double wide.  So, this is really cheap.  They are trying to attract more boats to their marina, since they are new.  With rates likes this it is hard to say “no.”  We know of 4 other boats here: Itchy Foot, Freya (from San Blas Islands), Iris, and Kefe.

We headed to the pool to cool off and have a beer with Jon, Mia and Teo (Itchy Foot) and enjoyed a nice sunset.  The top pool is about 2′-4′ and has a nice negative edge overlooking the marina.  The bottom pool / jacuzzi is RED which looks like a pool full of blood in the photo, but in real life it is actually interestingly pretty.

Vista Mar Marina Pools

Vista Mar Marina Pools

The next morning, Mia and I went for a walk and then enjoyed a little noodling in the pool.  I used the water aerobic / noodle routine we did in Bonaire.  The book was written by a fellow cruiser, Awilda (“Willie”) Haskins called “Noodling at Sea.”

Matt took this opportunity to wash down the boat with the pressure washer and fresh water.  He also swapped out our old batteries with the new which was no easy task.  Trying to manuever 90lb blocks within the settee proved to be a challenge, but he got the job done and they are working like a charm!

IMAGE: Top photo is of the old battery bank. Middle photo is the old batteries (gray), with the honda generator and the new batteries (black).  Bottom is the new battery bank installed and working.

Swapping out the house batteries

Swapping out the house batteries

We dropped off two of our older batteries to “White Shadow” (Barry is visiting friends in London), and the marina took care of disposing the other 5 batteries.  We kept one for emergencies.  The marina also took away our old window coverings that had yellowed and ceased being “presentable” and old defunct honda generator.

We finished cleaning and putting oil on our teak sugar scoops and they look lovely, finished our fruit, helped “Itchy Foot” with their rigging, cleaned up the boat, more noodling and pool time.

Sugar Scoops cleaned up with a new coat of teak oil.

Sugar Scoops cleaned up with a new coat of teak oil.

A group of us went to dinner at the local restaurant called “Boga Bar” with Jon, Mia (Itchy Foot), Johana, Timlo (Iiris), and John, Becca.  Not my favorite place, the food was average to poor and it was pricey, but the company was first class.  Top image is the bar and bottom image is Mia and I having a tasty cocktail.

Boga Bar dinner with good friends.

Boga Bar dinner with good friends.

COMING UP NEXT:

  • 150 mile passage around Panama Point
  • Exploring dozens of small islands between Panama and Costa Rica
  • Costa Rica