A quick stop in Punta Leona (and a new word)

By Nicole

We don’t get as many rail-in-the-water sailing days as we’d like, but with a steady 20 knots of apparent wind, we were able to blaze a trail across the Gulf of Nicoya.  You gotta love windy, blue sky days! With the wind roaring in from the open Pacific Ocean and only a small headland and tiny reef to block the swell, we figured the anchorage at Punta Leona would be super rolly.

[Sidebar] Guess what? I just learned “rolly” isn’t even a real word, despite the fact that virtually every cruiser I know uses it. Can you believe that? “Rolly” is the perfect term to describe the fantastically unpleasant motion of, well, rolling back and forth non-stop when the boat gets sideways to the waves. It’s what chases many people out of otherwise gorgeous anchorages and what often makes me green on passages. Imagine you’re in your kitchen making a sandwich when your entire world tilts to the left … and then tilts to the right .. and then tilts to the left … causing the tomatoes to roll off the counter and the mustard to slide precariously back and forth. And now you’re in bed trying to sleep without getting tossed out onto the floor. Now you’re in the bathroom bracing your left foot here and your right elbow there in order not to topple over while brushing your teeth. Anyway, you get it. And I know given my editing background I shouldn’t use made-up words, but hey, “rolly” should be a word. So I’m just going to deem it one. Take that, Merriam-Webster. :)

Okay, so if this anchorage is too rolly, we said, we’ll just stop for lunch and continue on. But the lovely little bay was surprisingly calm. So we dropped the hook, had some lunch and took the dinghy to shore for some pre-rainstorm exploring (it is the rainy season, after all).

Pretty Punta Leona

I found a piece of a unicorn horn!

And Aaron found a little cave. No treasure inside, though.

Snail trails in the sand

Punta Leona headland (thanks for blocking the swell!)

Dang, that’s a big ocean

Bit o’ coral

Look how we even managed to get Bella Star in the arm shot!

Bella Star and a rainbow. What does it mean?! It means we got to see our first Scarlet Macaws flying around the anchorage! These beefy, colorful birds are are sure sign that we’re moving from the dry tropical rainforest of the north to the wet tropical rainforest of the south. Nice.

After a stellar sail, Bella Star rests off the beach in Punta Leona (and yes, that IS our staysail on deck, thanks for noticing. We actually flew all three sails!)

That was it for our exploration of Punta Leona, since we were underway before sun-up the next morning headed for Quepos, home of the famed Manuel Antonio National Park. Our visas and cruising permits are expiring soon, so we’re making tracks down the coast to Panama—our sixth country!