Leaving Golfito Again

It’s almost 10 AM we are sailing the last little of bit of Costa Rica… for the second time. We did this the night before yesterday, in fact we were in Panama, but the wind, the rain and the swell made it impossible to continue. We were more than half way, with the conditions looking worse every minute, the wind has reached gale force (40 knots), it is frightening. Matt considered that the safest course was 180 degrees back to where we came from. He stayed out in the cockpit watching and imagining the worse case scenarios and the best possible escapes, tethered onto the boat, wearing full weather gear, but getting soak anyway and fighting his exhaustion. The girls were sleeping in apparent peace and I… I was praying. I managed to fall asleep, but only to be awaken a few minutes later by the plates, the cups and the books flying out of the covers and by a wave that splashed down the galley vent and by Trinidad who thinks we should be laying down together and by Sami complaining that there is a drip of water over her head. I was extremely queasy. My thoughts were those of desperation; I want out! I want out right now! I want a helicopter to come get me! I want to push the button to stop the show!, %$#%@^##! Matt told me we should be there in about 2 hours, those were one of the longest 2 hours we have had in this trip. What a difference! Once we made it back into Golfito, the rain and wind continued, but the water was calm. We had a good sleep then. Now, where is Ganymede? They most likely put up with the conditions and made it all the way, we had no way to communicate with each other, they carry a turned off VHF radio, only for their emergencies.

The big issue was that we were officially illegal in the country, we checked out the day we left and therefore we were not supposed to be there. I imagine that under the circumstances they would understand, but we were not about to check, we just had to sneak into the Bay, anchor and remain in the boat the whole day we were there. We didn’t make a lot of noise or wake; we just caught up on our sleep and tried to decide when to try again; with the afternoon high tide (Friday the 13th???), to sail overnight or with the morning high tide, to sail during the day. I voted for day! We certainly don’t want to ever experience those conditions again.