Jan. 1 – Costa Rican Food

“Step through new doors. The majority of the time there’s something fantastic on the other side.” — Oprah Winfrey

A big part of breaking out of your routine and experiencing someplace new is exploring the local cuisine. Every meal we had in Costa Rica was amazing…the foods was mostly simple but very favorable and extremely good. Here are some of the local favorites in Costa Rica. We didn’t try all of them, but we did enjoy quite a few, plus a few other delicious dishes.
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Be Like Sammy

I don’t think we realize the impact we have on other people’s lives. That being said, sometimes we instantly recognize the impact others have on us.

When Pamela and I traveled south on Drift Away, we stopped at Isle of Hope Marina outside of Savannah…

Jan. 31 – Puntarenas & Atenas, Costa Rica

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” ―Dagobert D. Runes

Our time at the Finca La Amistad Lodge came to an end…we really enjoyed practicing our Spanish with Janet and Isabelle. Maybe next year we’ll be able to carry on a real conversation in Spanish. We drove down the west side of the volcanos and over to the coast to Puntarenas to check out the water. It’s located on the Gulf of Nicoya…as close to the ocean as we’re going to get on this trip. We enjoyed seeing the boats, adding another lighthouse to our list of lighthouses and eating lunch over looking the harbor. The weather was nice, the roads were great and it was nice to see a little bit more of the Costa Rican countryside.
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Be Like Sammy

I don’t think we realize the impact we have on other people’s lives. That being said, sometimes we instantly recognize the impact others have on us.When Pamela and I traveled south on Drift Away, we stopped at Isle of Hope Marina outside of Savannah. W…

Manchester

Manchester has been a major manufacturing center since the Industrial Revolution. Many things were made there, including Jennifer. She was born in Manchester on October 31st and we made an overnight trip there from Liverpool on Halloween to celebrate her birthday. The trip highlight was tickets at the famous O2 Apollo theater for Kaleo, a…

Jan. 30 – Rio Celeste Waterfall

“If you tiptoe into cold water, you’re missing out on the rush of plunging in headfirst.” —Simone Elkeles

As I said before the road from the lodge to the national park is more like a river bottom. We wound up the mountain very slowly, awarded with some amazing views of the country side…not that Stan had a chance to take his eyes off the road to look around. The 3 1/2 miles took us over 30 minutes. You definitely need a four wheel drive vehicle in this area. 
Rio Celeste is located inside the Tenorio Volcano National Park, legend has it that it got its exceptional color after God finished painting the sky and dipped his paintbrush in the river. The more scientific explanation is that volcanic minerals produce the striking color. The river is born at a place called Los Teñideros, where two streams merge, causing a chemical reaction that is visible to visitors as the water changes from clear to an intense shade of blue. 

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Managing Spares

Our goal has always been to never have a trip delayed or cut short due to equipment issues. We have achieved this in 13,500 hours of operation across two boats, by keeping the vessels in a high level of service, having redundancy in equipment, and carrying a large number of spares parts. Having the right…

Jan. 29 – Our Horseback Adventure

“If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” —Ecclesiastes 11:4

We enjoyed the Finca Amstad Lodge, breakfast and dinner were included and we sat in their outdoor kitchen with the other guests. We’ve met couples from Spain, France, Germany and Belgium, it’s been fun trying to communicate and finding out where and what everyone was doing. 

It rained all night, so we decided to wait a day before hiking the Rio Celeste. Instead we decided to ride horses. Just getting to where the horses were was an adventure. The main roads in Costa Rica are pretty good, but the back roads in some areas are just a little better than driving in a river bottom. It took us 35 minutes to travel the 3 ½ miles to the entrance of Tenorio Volcano National Park (where we’ll come tomorrow to hike), Wilson’s house, where we were meeting for the horse riding, was another mile or two down the road. Luckily the road improved somewhat.

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8 Year Report: the Boat


The year for the boat started with leaving Subic Bay for the Holidays and a six-month cruise.  We soon discovered an unsolved drain in the DC side, causing havoc with our battery storage.  We replaced the last of the older batteries and after sure it was not more, added two more 8d Trojan AGM batteries for a total of 6. We are now officially a middle-aged boat, twelve years of very hard service.  We often put on more hours in a year than most do in ten.  Knowing there are things with specific …
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Night Locking at Liverpool Video

We reached the mouth of the River Mersey late in the afternoon of October 30th, 2017 following an easy 150-mile overnight run from Belfast. Night fell as we ran the last 15 miles upriver to Liverpool, and it was completely dark when we reached the city. The River Mersey has a tidal range of 33ft…