Can't slow down

Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica

 

Like something out of a suspense novel, our part showed up at 6PM, just after my last post. The yard manager delivered it to us, on the boat, in person.

 

It appears to be an exact match for the old unit. For some reason I was half expecting it to be the wrong size or something worse. I guess I worry too much. I had the old oil cooler off and the new one installed in under an hour, being extra careful not to screw anything up by over-tightening or some such. I ran the engine and put it in gear to check for leaks and make sure the oil was flowing ok, then once again drained and refilled the transmission with fresh ATF - it has now been flushed 3 times and hopefully should have little trace of seawater in there anymore. I ran it up to temperature and made sure everything looked good before I could possibly get a good night's sleep.

 

In the morning we arranged for our national Zarpe, allowing us to leave Quepos, then around noon we headed over to the fuel dock and topped up the diesel before leaving the marina around 1 PM. We planned to go to Bahia Ballena, only 55 miles away and decided it was easier to do as an overnight passage, arriving at first light today. We anticipated very light winds and expected to motor for much of the way. We were wrong!

 

Shortly after leaving the marina, we hoisted the mainsail, double reefed again, and brought out the Genoa. We had a great beam reach in about 10 knots of wind all afternoon. Since we had lots of time, we tried to extend the sail into the early evening, even though we had almost no wind. For a change we had a bit of a favourable current which helped. Unfortunately we found ourselves drifting into a bunch of local fishing boats, with all their confusing lights and stobes, so we had to motor around them for a couple of hours.

 

Later, a brisk North wind came up and we did some close-hauled tacking back and forth until the winds settled on coming from the NE, allowing us to use a single tack to our destination for the rest of the night. The winds steadily increased until we found ourselves in steady 15 to 20 knots, coming out of the Golfo de Nicoya, which has enough fetch to build up some impressively nasty wind-waves, hitting us from the side. In order to keep our speed down so we did not arrive at Ballena in the dark, I had the sails reefed right down and was deliberately trying to go too close to the wind, close-hauled, somewhat stalling the boat that just wanted to charge ahead. After a bouncy few hours, we entered the bay at around 5:30 AM. We chose to anchor on the north end of the bay, in case those Papagayo winds sneak into here too.

 

Interesting note. This passage is exactly the same length as the one that took us into Quepos. Instead of 4 days. we did this one in 15 hours, almost all under sail, and we were trying to go slow.

 

{GMST}09|44.538|N|84|59.319|W|Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica|Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica{GEND}

 

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Down to the wire

Quepos, Costa Rica

 

Tomorrow we get kicked out of our spot in the marina and we still have not got our new oil cooler. Each day we are told it will be here tomorrow, or this afternoon, or whatever it is we want to hear, and each day it does not put in an appearance.

 

 

It is after 5 PM now and no part has shown up. I have reinstalled my jury-rigged broken cooler so that we can at least run the engine, I have topped up the ATF and run the transmission for a while to see that it at least works for short periods of time. If we don't have the part by early morning, we will have to limp out to the anchorage and hope it holds out long enough for us to get the hook down. We are not happy campers right now!

 

 

{GMST}09|25.5708|N|84|10.0602|W|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica{GEND}

 

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No progress

Quepos, Costa Rica

 

Predictably, our vital oil cooler part has not yet arrived. Apparently it did not leave Miami until Monday, which would normally mean we would see it on Thursday, however because Holy Week (Semana Santa) was this week, everything shuts down from Thursday until the next Monday - no one could possibly expect anyone to do anything during that time period. So we are again playing the waiting game...

The beach, at low tide

 

One good thing about being stuck here is that we are managing to avoid a late-season bout of strong Papagayo winds - they have been blowing hard the entire time we have been here and are not expected to let up for another week or more. You can see the current forecast on the accompanying picture - we are located at that little blue dot, while the strong winds are depicted just some 100 miles or so to the north, coming across Lake Nicaragua. It is possible that the timing might work out well for us after all.

Meanwhile we fill our time taking short walks and reading and watching movies and such. The Marina has been very busy all week, with music or movies on their big outdoor screen most every night. Lots of people on the big party boats during the day too. Today, Sunday, the town of Quepos is very tranquil - just a few restaurants and bars open for business (and one very nicely air-conditioned ice cream shop).

Party boat, complete with water slides

 

Yesterday, much to our surprise, another cruising yacht arrived - our friends Wally and Lori on the sailing vessel Stella Blue, here for a couple of days. They are also making their way to El Salvador - no doubt they will be there long before us. It was sure nice to talk to some fellow cruisers for a change, and get caught up on the status of some of our other friends, most of whom seem to have been hanging around Panama City lately.

 

Tomorrow is the start of another week and hope springs eternal for the imminent arrival of our new oil cooler. Stay tuned...

 

{GMST}09|25.5708|N|84|10.0602|W|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica{GEND}

 

 

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Marina life

Quepos, Costa Rica

 

We are settling down to the hectic life in a marina, for the first time in over a year. The last time the boat was tied up to a dock was at Puesta del Sol in Nicaragua, on our way south last year.

 

Marina Pez Vela is a very upscale place, catering to the mega-yacht and sport fishing crowd. At times the docks around us are very busy with fishing charters going out in the morning and returning at dusk, plus a couple of "party" boats and smaller para-sailing adventure boats coming and going. As far as we can tell, we are the only real "cruising" boat here, but that is not too surprising with transient rates at $2.50 US per foot per day. We certainly wouldn't be hanging around so long if we had any choice. Having said that, though, this is a very professionally run marina, with excellent shore and dock facilities and access to two restaurants onsite plus the town of Quepos only a 10-minute walk away. Security is very high.

The weather remains very consistent, highs each day in the low 30s, cooling off to maybe 23 at night. The humidity is high, but not as bad as back in Golfito. We have not seen a drop of rain since we have been here - it is the dry season.

 

I have managed to arrange for a replacement transmission oil cooler to be shipped from Miami, hopefully arriving around next Wednesday. We have a bit of a deadline here as there is a major sport fishing tournament coming up on the 9th of April and the marina is completely booked - we will be forced to leave at that time, ready or not - basically they are not too sympathetic towards cruising yachts with problems - the almighty dollars that the tournament brings in are much more important.

 

The town of Quepos is a pleasant surprise. A bit touristy, but containing a nice selection of stores and restaurants and such. Re-provisioning here should be no problem.

 

Only 7 kms from Quepos is Manuel Antonio park. There is a frequent bus that runs back and forth to the park gates, passing a bewildering variety of tourist shops, cafes and restaurants along the way. Yesterday, we took a half-day tour in the park, which is a dense biological preserve with some magnificent beaches. You really need to have a guide who knows what to look for if you want to get the most out of your time here. We were surprised just how busy the park, and the surrounding area, are. We are told it is going to be even busier in the coming week, when Semana Santa (Easter) arrives - we will probably be keeping a very low profile for a while.

 

{GMST}09|25.9|N|84|9.67|W|Quepos, Costa Rica|Quepos, Costa Rica{GEND}

 

 

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Challenging times

Quepos, Costa Rica

 

Over the last few days our sailing, and general coping, skills have been tested!

 

It all started at the end of a lazy day in Bahia Drake. We had decided to leave real early on Saturday morning, anticipating a fast motorboat ride to Quepos some 55 miles away. Since the marine forecasts were calling for almost non-existent winds, we figured that making the whole trip using the engine at full speed, all during daylight hours, was the best course of action. We were kind of looking forward to making a passage that did not happen at night for a change, especially as we were experiencing a "new moon" right now and it is so awfully dark at night. But that was not to be...

 

Friday evening I was doing my usual check of the engine oil and such, when I spotted this interesting pinkish soup in the bilge. This can't be good news! Indeed, it was very bad news.

That nasty sludge turned out to be a nice mixture of seawater and automatic transmission fluid. It didn't take long to spot where it was coming from - I could see the stuff oozing out of the overflow valve on the top of the transmission. Since I had not been adding fluid to the transmission, obviously it was coming from somewhere else. I pulled the dip-stick out and was greeted with a small geyser of seawater.

 

The only possible explanation for how this can be is that the oil cooler (basically a heat exchanger using seawater for cooling) was compromised. This is not something that I can fix and I do not carry a spare, so there was little I could do about it. We went to bed knowing we would not be getting up early in the morning to motor to Quepos.

 

In the morning, I did what I could. I disconnected the hoses that send transmission oil to the cooler and rerouted them so the oil just returns to the transmission without any cooling, used a hand pump to extract as much seawater out of the transmission as I could get, then refilled it with some fresh ATF. I really need to do this another time or two to get all of the seawater out, but I don't have enough ATF - it takes over two litres. I did some research on the web (I have Internet access using a simm chip we bought in Golfito) and determined that I could run the transmission this way for no more than a few minutes before it will overheat. But it might be better than nothing.

 

Bahia Drake is a lovely spot, but not a place where we were likely to get the help we needed. Quepos was a possibility and they have a big new fancy marina. Susanne was quick to remind me that it is only 55 miles away and we have a "sail"boat - we don't need no stinking engine! So we decided to go for it.

 

We had to wait until around 10:30 AM before a bit of a breeze came up, then we hoisted the mail sail and brought in the anchor. About 3 hours later, we had crawled out of the bay and were pointed towards Quepos.

 

What followed was some of the most challenging and frustrating sailing we have expienced to date. The only winds we saw were some onshore thermals which started around 11AM and died around 6PM each day, almost never more than 7 or 8 knots, and always from the west. We had a consistent counter-current of between 1/2 and 1 knot the entire time, pushing us backwards whenever the winds stopped. We spent some long, tiring nights attempting to catch little zephyrs of wind to try and keep from giving up whatever distance we had gained in the afternoon. Each morning we were just about ready to give up, then each afternoon there seemed to be a little glimmer of hope. The only good thing was that we never had to change our sail plan, keeping the full main sail and full Genoa out at all times.

 

We each cope in our own way

Dolphin, not a shark...

We can see the marina up ahead

In the end, it took us 4 days to get to Quepos. We had contacted Marina Pez Vela via phone and VHF radio and they assured us that they had a slip available, but after numerous requests for some help (possibly a tow) into their entrance channel, they were not ready when we got to the entrance, and we really couldn't stop to wait for them. We had little choice but to sail right into the marina. I was able to limit the engine use to only a few minutes while maneuvering into the slip.

 

We covered a total of 124 miles on this 55 mile passage. Susanne has pointed out that we could have walked it a lot faster.

 

We were tied up to the dock by 5:30PM yesterday.

 

Man, did we ever need a good night's sleep...

 

 

 

{GMST}09|25.5708|N|84|10.0602|W|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica|Marina Pez Vela, Costa Rica{GEND}

 

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