Tag Archives: rumpleteazer

Quepos and Sunset

Amigos de Costa Rica

One of the blessings about being in the same place for an extended period of time is that you get to establish new friendships.  We have made a lot of new amigos de Costa Rica.

RumpleTeazer

Yep, that is the name of Sugar Shack’s sister boat that has been on the hard with us and is now located in the marina.  Her owner, Keith is from the UK and is very lovely.  He has sailed all over the world, around the Cape, and landed in Costa Rica about 2 months ago.  He is trying to sell his 43′ Catana and has been doing a lot of work to get her ready for the survey.

In between our boat projects we tend to meet up at the Captain’s Lounge in the marina where there is good wifi, AC, water, bathrooms, and snacks.  He mentioned that he was taking the new owner out for a sea trial and asked us if we wanted to tag along.  It was such a sweet gesture as he knows how hard it is to be land locked.

We had a wonderful day out on the water, got enough wind to put up full sails and just tooled around the inner bay.  Matt and I tried to be as useful as possible and worked the fenders, dock lines, raised the main, trimmed and tacked the sails and generally talked up Catana boats.

RumpleTeazer on Sea Tral

RumpleTeazer on Sea Trial

Freya – 65′ Sport Fishing Boat

We met “Freya’s” crew, a 65′ sport fishing yacht at the apartment as their boat is on the hard as well.  Patrick took us out for a Sunday Fun day since he had a car.  We drove to Domincal for a great lunch, some whale watching, and an afternoon out of Quepos.  We’ve had several nights of debauchery and truly enjoy his epic stories and jokes.

There were lots of surfers trying to catch the perfect wave.  We were told that this is a pretty challenging surf area with the rip tides, rocky shore, and big waves.  Of course I zoomed in for the photo so you can’t tell how big the wave actually is.

Surfer in Domincal

Surfer in Domincal

We headed back to Quepos and arrived just in time for sunset.  What a great way to be welcomed back into town.

Quepos and Sunset

Quepos and Sunset

Quepos and Sunset

Quepos and Sunset

Little did we know, Patrick is a great chef.  He decided to cook steak and pork chops along with roasted tomatoes, asparagus and rice.  It was totally delicious and we are fast becoming good amigos.

Patrick's Amazing Dinner

Patrick’s Amazing Dinner

Quepos and Manuel Antonio are small towns so we often see our vendors and friends out and about as well….

  • Dorit, Gizelle, and Reina from Manuel Antonio Estates (they work at the apartment where we are staying)
  • Aracelio and his team from AG Marine
  • Justin, James, and Carter from Marina Pez Vela
  • Ben White from Bristol
A Visit with Dad

Happy Dad: Rain, Avocados, Sodas & Casadas

My dad came for a short visit and delivered a suitcase full of boat parts.  We were thrilled to host him in Costa Rica even though we were not staying on the boat.

We decided to rent a car to pick him up at the San Jose airport (3 hours away) and to do some recognizance shopping.  At some point before we “splash” we will need to provision the boat and stock up on staples so we wanted to find good “box stores”.  In addition, we were looking for hardware stores (Ferraterias), car stores (PepBoys type places), and big box stores (Wallmart).  We set a few pin marks on our trusty Maps.me app and drove the 3 hours to San Jose.

We managed to find several stores, scoped out a few places to return to and made a few small purchases before my dad’s flight landed.

On our way to Quepos, we stopped by crocodile bridge over Rio Tarcoles.  The theory is when the tide is out (like the image) they can sunbathe on shore and as the tide comes in it is flooded with fish to feed upon.  However, many locals are worried for the safety of crocodile viewers and the crocs themselves.  The bridge is ridiculously narrow and has heavy traffic making it dangerous for tourist.  How many do you count in this photo?  (Answer at bottom of blog)

https://news.co.cr/costa-rican-mayor-taken-task-dangerous-crocodile-viewing-bridge/62990/

https://news.co.cr/costa-rican-mayor-taken-task-dangerous-crocodile-viewing-bridge/62990/

Next, we did a drive by in Herradura to show him where Sugar Shack was anchored when she was struck by lightning.

We caught a beautiful sunset at Jaco beach and stopped in for dinner at Ridiculous Burgers.  My dad had an “all american burger” and Matt and I split a Mahi burger.  Sound healthy?  Well they did serve this ridiculous 6 patty burger shown below to a group of 4 people.

Dinner in Jaco with my Dad

Dinner in Jaco with my Dad

We finally arrived back at the apartment around 2000 and started to unpack.  My dad brought a suitcase full of boat parts, a gray backpack full of important stuff (money, passports), and a Swiss Gear new black backpack for all of his clothes.

He opened the Swiss Gear backpack and realized it was not his.  He thought it was ours which we quickly denied.  Unfortunately, he had swapped backpacks with someone else.  Yikes.  See image below for photo of both backpacks.

Inside this backpack was a Dell Computer with an “Asset tag” which identified the company.  There was several resumes, a hard drive, thumb drives, glasses, medicine and miscellaneous items.  We found her boarding pass, looked her up on LinkedIn and Facebook and sent messages through both social channels.  There was no other contact information.

My dad called Alaska Airlines and the local airport and filled out a lost baggage form.  Then we waited…

Day 1

No response from the backpack owner, so we called her company and left a message on her work voicemail.  Next, I called the SJO Alaska airlines office and to our surprise, our mystery woman had already called and was returning my dad’s bag that same day.  Yeah.  When she arrived, they got her phone number and had her call us.  We made arrangements to bring her bag back and retrieve my father’s bag on Friday (when he flies back to the U.S.)

In the meantime, we need to get him some clothes.  He borrowed a few shirts and flip flops from Matt and off we go into “town.”

We scored some new outfits, met Matt for lunch, walked to the marina and then walked back to the apartment.  My dad is not a big walker and he was shocked to realize he had put in 3.2 miles of walking.  Yeah dad!

Runway Grill For Cold Drinks

Runway Grill For Cold Drinks

Day 2

Dad wanted to check out a local fishing village and fishing processing plant.  Barrio el Cocal is “the” place to go to see the local fisherman.  We swung by a plant that let us look around, watch them cut and clean their fish, and put the heads in storage – all really gross, but dad loved it.

Love the “Pura Vida” lifestyle in Costa Rica…

Pura Vida with Dad

Pura Vida with Dad

Came across a local avocado seller and dad was surprised at the size of the local avocados – these are not your average California avocados.

Dad with local avocados

Dad with local avocados

We stopped  at Bahia Azul for a cold drink and Tiquicia for lunch before heading back to the pad.

After thoroughly exhausting him, we headed back to the apartment for a little R&R before going out for dinner.

Much to our surprise, it has not rained in the first 3 days of my dad’s visit.  Super strange, as it it normally rains every day for many hours a day.  But we finally received some rain in the afternoon for a couple of hours.

Being from California, he had not seen rain in a very long time.  In fact, now he is mostly seeing smoke and ash in the sky from the horrible California wildfires – so rain is a pleasant surprise.

We hopped on the public bus and headed to Manuel Antonio for happy hour.  We were treated to an awesome lightning show (it is only awesome because we were on shore and not on our boat).  Cold drinks overlooking the Pacific at Bar Code 506.

Matt, Dad, and I at Barba Rosa

Matt, Dad, and I at Bar Code 506

Day 3

Time to show dad the boat.  We swung by the marina a few days ago, but we were not able to show him the interior of the boat because we had workers all over the place.

First, we took him to see RumpleTeazer, our friend Keith’s boat which is a 43′ Catana.  I wanted him to see what a “livable” boat looked like before we took him to see our boat which is all torn apart.

Keith was super kind and let us poke all around.  We then walked over to the yard to show him Sugar Shack and to his surprise he really could tell the difference between a 43′ and a 47′ catamaran.  Even though it is only 4′ shorter and maybe 2-3′ skinnier, the spaces feel bigger.  I didn’t get the idea he was very impressed with our boat but who could blame him as it was a total disaster.

We had another casada at Soda Sanchez, our go to spot for spectacular food.  As you might recall, a “Soda” is not a drink but a local eatery.  Sometimes they appear as businesses, sometimes they are on the front porch of someone’s house.  A “casada” is a typical local meal that comes with a salad, veggie, beans, plantain and your choice of either meat, chicken, fish, or pork.  All for the low price of 2,500 colones or $5.00.  Tasty and cheap!

And, to my dad’s surprise, he walked another 3.3 miles today!  I will get him walking and drinking water if it kills me!

It was hard to send him off after such a short visit, but hopefully we have convinced him to come back once the boat is back in the water.

We got a little Capuchin love on dad’s last night at the apartment.

Monkey Love

Monkey Love

The boys contemplating life…

Dad and Matt chatting

Dad and Matt chatting

Short and sweet.  We rented a car to return dad back to San Jose and pick up Wayne.

Costa Rica Airport

Costa Rica Airport

We went straight to Alaska Airlines to swap bags.  It doesn’t look like they are 100% similar because the lighting was different, but they both were black.  Not sure who grabbed whose bag first, but at least they are both back with the rightful owners.

Bag Swap

Bag Swap

Giant sloth at the airport posing for photos

Giant sloth at airport

Giant sloth at airport

Poor Matt had to walk to the marina to get his wallet with his driver’s license (which needed to rent the car).  On the way, he walked past a man spraying bug spray trying to kill the bad bugs.  Unfortunately, one of them ran from the bug spray right into Matt and stung him on his ankle.  All he saw was a big black something and then the pain and swelling started…

Matt's fat cankle

Matt’s fat cankle

Answer: 11 crocodiles spotted in photo