Crew – One member is on board, and the second member needs to clarify a vaccination matter. She will arrive ASAP.

Provisioning of canned food etc is almost done. Fresh food, vegetables and fruits, will be bought just prior to departure.

Refueling situation in the marina is already clarified.

A problem is still the wind. We need to get a better weather window to the equator. Looking further ahead is glass sphere reading. We are currently looking daily into the weather development.

I thought I have a small and good crew but heath reasons again caused the crew to fall apart.

I started already some days ago to look for a new crew and got a few contacts.

I also consider the option of sailing single handed. It’s possible to do it. The radar, AIS, and other Axiom alarms are amplified over the radio, thus they wake me up should any vessel comes into my safety borders being set up to several NM around me.

At sunset I reduce the sail size always for safety reasons. This being single handed or not. Therefore a squall can hit me and I’m prepared.

Concerning sails, I only have the limitation that I can’t use my gennaker for light winds.

Until the equator I will sleep in 20 min units. This works well. I gained experience with 3 and 20 min sleeping intervals.

From the equator on, for the longest part of the sail, I can expand sleeping times because there is no shipping route at all.

On the sail to Gambier i have a buddy boat, the SV Katinka with Gaby & Ralf. We are permanently in VHF radio contact. This allows me longer sleeping units.

So either I get a 1 – 2 additional crew members or I’ll sail single handed.

Don’t be afraid this is not as difficult as it sounds.

The start in Golfito was perfect. 3 min after we reached the bus stop the bus arrived. 3 USD for 55 km, is a fair price.

About the impressions during the bus ride, I’ll write another narration.

Then we reached Canoas International, the border station. The adventurous area when we arrived a few days ago.

What will happen today?

Then Ralf passed his passport through the window to a lady with not the friendliest face. She swiped the passport through a reader, looked at the screen, and returned the passport with the order that we have to pay 8 USD by mobile phone using QR code or go to the bank.

Note: She saw with the code of our passports all of our details including that we have not yet paid our exit fees.

Adventures started!

When we reached the bank only one of us where allowed to enter. Robbery countermeasure. Back pack content was checked.

As the Ralf was the first allowed in, a friendly English speaking lady helped him with the procedure at special banking terminal.

He paid his fees by credit card then took quickly a picture of the proof of payment screen. When he wanted to pay for Gaby, his credit card was not excepted, so was the 2. and 3. card.

I tried my card to pay for Gaby. It worked!

Finally I wanted to pay for me but the card did not work. Tried my card 2. Did not work. Tried card 3. Didn’t work! Then Ralf tried several of his cards. Didn’t work. Tried my first card again. Wonder! It worked! Picture of the proof of payment screen quickly before the screen disappears. We all had the proof that we paid our exit fees.

What will happen next?

Back again 200 m to the “Salinas El Pais” counter, the exit country counter and the same unfriendly lady took the first passport scanned it, did not ask for the proof of payment, put the exit stamp in and handed one passport after the other back. Our other passports followed. No friendly reply to our muchas gracias.

However, we were now legally out of Costa Rica.

During the 300 m walk to the Panamanian border station. “The glass is half empty” comments came up but we decided to keep our classes half full.

Immediately when Ralf handed in his and Gaby’s passport I handed my passport in at the next counter. We both a had all boat papers at hand to start arguing that we can’t leave Panama by bus or plane because we need to get out boats out. Ralf neither was not asked for papers not heard I him explaining the boat story. The officer who dealt with me looked at his PC screen and did asked for anything. What’s going on? Normally they should need to asked for bus or plane ticket out of Panama before they sale is in.

Then I was asked something about a boat. I confirmed I have a boat need to leave by boat. Only then he said that he is the one who stopped us on our way out of Panama. I also confirmed my impression. At the end we got a nice welcome back into Panama and very friendly farewell. We’ll never met again. But never say never.

We are now on a bus to David and on few hours we’ll be back on our boats.

Compared to the last day today was boring.

We got up, walked around the corner for a breakfast (rice with black beans, a small salad, and 2 eggs plus a very (!!!) strong coffee). Then, we took off and walked along the main street to look at what Golfito is.

Without going into details, it’s an interesting town located in several, centers, being separated about an kilometer from each other. Shops central American style. Small not bad assorted, based on a quick view through the mainly open doors.

People are very friendly and help full. Environment appears very safe. No littering in public. A bigger difference to Panama.

As the tide is 3 m, and the shore is pretty shallow, the low tide is quite away from the high tide water line. From the distance the boats in the marina appear to stuck in the mud.

The marina looks pretty good. Modern floating docks. Not much wind and no swell is rolling in.
Prices are lower then Shelter Bay Marina and also a bit under the price of Vista Mar Marina. A good place if one needs to stop at a marina in this area.

At the end of the day we were tied and happy to be back in our little friendly hotel.

Costa Rica it’s really Pura Vida!

Tomorrow we will try to cross over to Panama again. Will it be an adventure again?

Part 4

I decided to put our passports on the same level to avoid a problem when entering Panama.

For each of us a Costa Rican immigration officer filled in an application form with 4 copies. Then this immigration officer accompanied us back to Panama. He handled in the application forms, our passports and explained the story. The application was for cancellation of our exit stamps of Panama. It took about 15 min then our stamps were cancelled but we need to queue for new stamps. Another about 15 min. Out of Panama die the 2nd time. Next walking back to Costa Rican border station. There we got immediately our Costa Rican entry stamp. At 09:00 we were legally on Costa Rica.

Then we relaxed, went for a breakfast into one of the eateries and had breakfast.

Part 3 – because the story is longer than we thought

We thought we have legally arrived in Costa Rica because we didn’t see any border station of Costa Rica.

We found quickly a cheap hotel for a night and had a pizza at an eatery around the corner. All was fine and we planned to go to Golfito next day.

During the night I remembered that we need also stamps for entering Costa Rica which we did not have yet.

Thus, in the morning we searched and found the Costa Rican border station. It is several hundred meters away from the Panamanian station.

We went there. First thing we were asked was the ticket to leave Costa Rica again. “We have boats in Panama”, was not accepted. Fortunately we quickly found the ticket station and bought 3 tickets from San Jose, Costa Rica, to David, Panama. And big surprise Gaby and I got a seniority discount.

Back to the entrance counter fire Costa Rica, i handed my passport in and got it in very short time back. Next Gaby. Then the officer recognized that we left Panama yesterday and refused the stamp. Discussions. Please wait until 08:00. Now we are waiting….

After about 20 Panamanian minutes, which are equivalent to an hour on normal time scale, a little bus came and brought us to the immigration office in David. So we will make it to David, which is just 50 km from the border.

There they told us very friendly to sit down and wait. We saw an official with our passports walking to a few desks and talking. After maybe half an hour he came to us and explained us that we will be driven to the border office.

Thus at about 14:45 we sat in bus to the border office at Paso Canoas International.

“Will they simply kick us out of the country?” was a thought Ralf had.

After about 10 min on the way to the border we had to change the bus again. In the new little bus there were more immigration officers and they collected even more en route to the border station. At the end there were about 10 immigration officers and us in the bus.

When we arrived at the border station and were asked to sit down and wait, we understood that it was the time of changing the shift.

Looking at the very relaxed way people are working at the border station, i got the idea that none of them will die from a stress related heart attack.

Finally it was Ralf’s turn, then Gaby’s and i was last. Plenty of paperwork needed to be done by the officer. Additionally he entered a lot of information into a computer system. I had to sign 6 (six) identical printouts with my signature and the finger print off my right thumb. Finally we all paid per person 55 USD and got a receipt for it. So the over stayed Visa was extended for 7 days.

With that stamp we could queue for the exit of Panama.

We arrived legally correct in Costa Rica!

How will the return into Panama will be?

Ralf & Gaby and me need to renew our visa. For this we need to leave the country walk around the customs building, and come back in again.

Since the early morning time we are on our way. In about an hour, at 0930 we made almost made half of the distance to the border.

The first bus was one, which reminded me by its colors to the magical-mystery-tour bus of the Beatles. Shock absorbers were most likely never built in.

The 2nd one, the one we are on right now, has an air-conditioning running at 19 degC. We will not rot.

10:09, wer are in our next bus which will bring us to David, Panama or 190 km further to the boarder. From there it’s only 50nkm more till the border.

A gentleman who learned that we want to go to David and on to Costa Rica, guided us to the bus stop. This was pretty helpful as the bus stop was around a few corners.

Just before the bus departed, a musician came in with his guitar and sang a song. Listening to the sound of his voice, i got the feeling it must be a love song. He got off at the next stop around 2 – 3 corners.

The bus stops once in a while in the middle of nowhere to pick up passengers. Houses along the road are copies of American houses. They are houses to live in and shops. Just passed a supermarket without any house in the vicinity.

Shortly before 13:00 we passed another one of the frequent police check points in Panama. This time it was also a immigration check. As we were a few days beyond our visa limit, they called us out and explained, we get picked up by a car, and have to pay a fine (50 USD). Then we are free for 7 days. Enough to go the final 50 I’m too Costa Rica for 1 night and then return to Panama and get a visa for another 90 days. Enough to depart with our sailboats to the Gambier Islands.

How do we get finally to the border?

Today, after reading again several emails on entry conditions into Ecuador, our conclusion was that about 600 USD only for inbound and outbound clearance is too much. On top of this, we need to pay marina fees. That will quickly run up to 1000 USD for a few days in Ecuador.

We also know several other boats, which will skip Galapagos or Ecuador mainland because it’s not worth the money you have to pay. Only a few boats with children go to Galapagos.

So we will sail from Vista Mar marina directly to the Gambier Islands in the SE of French Polynesia. Roughly 4500 NM.

The tricky part will be crossing the doldrums. We are checking already daily how the windless zone moves, expands, and closes. So far we hope to get a narrow “wind-channel” that becomes a bridge over the doldrums.

Questions and comments to skipper-cat-mare@myiridium.net

Since yesterday the crew to sail to the Gambier Islands is fixed.

We are sailing at MaRe with Günther, our sailing cook from the Atlantic crossing, Doris, his partner, and Mia who joined yesterday.

To use Guenther’s motto for the Atlantic crossing ” Always say yes to new adventures”; all of us said yes to the sail and the crew.

Katinka will sail with Ralf and Gaby who are since 3 years in the way with her.

What is not yet fully decided upon is the route. In the meantime we learned that is costs 600 USD to enter Ecuador mainland and get out again. We are still looking to see if there are lower cost alternatives for Ecuador. Colombia and Peru, the neighboring islands are out of discussions.

The alternative is a direct sail from Panama to the Gambier Islands. A long sail. But this sail is a once in a lifetime experience for the crews of Katinka and MaRe. Both boats are very well designed and built for such a sail.

As mentioned already in an earlier narration, Katinka and MaRe sail as buddy boats.

We see each other on the AIS screen, there marked as buddy boats. During daylight we might very often see each other just with the eyes during nights there is a radar blip overlaid with the AIS signal. We will have voice contact via VHF and if needed via satellite phone.

Concerning weather, we are watching already daily how the doldrum belt develops and moves. On board of both boats we have 7 weather models. So we have a good chance to find the most fitting one. Additionally we have a landbase in Switzerland. Vili, a sailing friend from Croatia, follows our sail and gives additional ideas on how to get the best winds.

In the link to this page, you can switch on the top left from map to wind. What to see is the forecast of the ECMWF. This is in general regarded as the best. This it should give you a good indication what the weather around us will be.