Lightning update: insurance

By Nicole

I remember watching the lightning storms roll through El Salvador. We would sit on Bella Star or Panache with our heads tilted upwards, transfixed by the bolts as they struck the hills surrounding the estuary. The power of the lightning was undeniable, but still we sat, oohing and ahhing like kids watching a 4th of July fireworks display. “Ohmygosh, look at that!” We’d yell to each other over cracks of thunder. “Dude! That hit the tower! Did you see that?” We couldn’t get enough of the nightly entertainment.

What they say about ignorance being bliss? It’s all true.

Fast-forward to Playas del Coco in Costa Rica. We’re ashore, enjoying our first Costa Rican beers—frosty Imperials—and watching the intense lightning storm that rolled in just seconds after we landed our dinghy on the beach. The rain was Biblical. The thunder was deafening. And the lightning was striking all around the restaurant. Awesome!! Or not.

You know the rest of the story. About how we dinked around town after the rain let up, not in any real hurry to get back to our boats. About how we had a hard time finding our boat in the dark anchorage because the anchor light wasn’t on (even though I knew I’d turned it on before we left). About how we climbed from the dinghy to the boat and knew something wasn’t right—the CO₂ detector was chirping madly and the electrical panel was dark. And about how we hurriedly flipped on breakers and tested electronics with a sick, sinking feeling in our stomachs. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Struck by lightning.

Early the next morning, under vibrant blue skies (and with puffy, I-spent-a-good-portion-of-last-night-crying eyes) we went into town to call our insurance company. I had to call our car insurance company a few years back after someone crashed into our parked car on Halloween (long story; don’t ask), and while it wasn’t a terrible experience, it wasn’t super awesome either. So I was pleasantly surprised when I called Pantaenius Yacht Insurance and got a real person—one who could actually help me—straightaway. I got set up with a claims adjustor on the spot, and after talking with her for only a few seconds, I knew that everything was going to (eventually) be okay. She gave me all the details about the process, reassured me when my voice cracked and allowed me to take a deep breath for the first time since stepping aboard the night before.

Aaron limped Bella Star the seven miles from the anchorage at Playas del Coco to Marina Papagayo, where Pantaenius said we could keep the boat—at their expense—until this was all sorted out. Without working nav lights, a VHF or a way to charge our batteries, we were unfit to remain at anchor or to get underway. Almost before we knew it (just two days later), they flew a surveyor down from Florida to take stock of the situation. He spent the entire day performing a full survey on the boat and made a detailed assessment of what was damaged, what might be repaired and what needed to be replaced.

After the survey, the claims adjustor worked with the surveyor to verify the list of damaged gear and advanced us money to start purchasing replacements. Bing-bang-boom. Well, the approval process did take a little more time than we were expecting, but the extra time allowed us to go off exploring Monteverde, so all wasn’t lost. Once the bulk of our gear was delivered, we submitted our receipts, and the rest of the money was wired to our account. Just. Like. That.

So would we recommend Pantaenius? Yes. Definitely, yes. In our experience, they have excellent customer service, they handled our claim professionally yet compassionately and they got us sailing again. What more could we want? Well, I guess we’d want competitive rates and a generous cruising area. We got that, too.

They also include this cool sticker with your official paperwork:

Thanks, Pantaenius!

Got more questions about our insurance experience? Just ask.

A tour of paradise (Paradise Tropical Garden, that is)

By Nicole

Back when I was in high school, I had a serious crush … on a shampoo. It was Paul Mitchell’s Awapuhi Wild Ginger. I had to beg my mom to buy it for me. I just had to have it. I don’t know if it did anything for my hair (or, in fact, what it was supposed to do for my hair); all I remember is being infatuated with the sweet-and-spicy fragrance of wild ginger.

So imagine how excited I was to hold a real awapuhi blossom in my hand, to smell the heavenly scent of wild ginger and to squish the waxy bloom and feel the viscous, soapy liquid ooze out and slide between my fingers. Even better? Being able to take a few of the “shampoo ginger” blossoms home and shower with them! The shower onshore is cold-water only, so I pretended like I was bathing in a waterfall. It was fabulous.

 
Squeezing an awapuhi blossom for the first time and feeling the slippery “shampoo” ooze out was quite fun

Isn’t it lovely? It’s like a soft pinecone sponge filled with sweet-smelling, soapy slime!

But “shampoo ginger” wasn’t all we saw on our tour of the Paradise Tropical Garden. After exchanging a few emails with Robert, the owner, we arranged to meet him at his mamón chino stand in downtown Golfito. (A mamón chino, or rambutan, is sort of like a lychee or a large, peeled grape—it’s this sweet, juicy fruit encased in a spikey, reddish pink husk. Peeling back the outside, removing the translucent fruit and gnawing on its flesh is extremely satisfying—and addictive. I’ve eaten way too many of these guys lately. Good thing the season only goes for two more weeks!) Anyway, we met Robert at his stand, doing a brisk business selling bags for 1,000 colones (about $2US) each. After stowing his colorful umbrellas, we piled into his Isuzu Pup pick-up truck and headed off for a private tour of his garden in the nearby town of Rio Claro. We were his first tourists in two months.

Bristly on the outside, smooth on the inside

Mamón chinos ripening on the tree. They look like something from The Lorax.

Ready for harvest

The Paradise Tropical Garden opened in 2001, but Robert and his late-wife, Ella, settled the farm back in the early 1960s when this part of Costa Rica was still wild, and Chiquita Bananas were still grown and shipped all over the world from Golfito. Now, though, the Pan-American Highway runs in front of their property, and the last of the banana fields have been replaced by African palm oil plantations. Robert farms palm oil, too.

Stately (if controversial) African palm oil trees line a grassy boulevard at the garden

Robert showing off one of his palms

Ever smell Chanel No. 5 perfume? Here’s where the primary scent comes from—the ylang-ylang flower. The sweet fragrance is intoxicating and heady. I carried the blossom around with me all day so I could sniff it.

Pretty in pink

It’s fuzzy! Lovely heliconias like this are found all over southern Costa Rica.

Heliconia “Sexy Pink” and “Shogun" (on their way out, but still gorgeous)

Baby pineapple bromeliad. Awww.

What you can’t see in this picture are the dozens of squirrel monkeys in the trees above us! We didn’t get any good pics, but trust me when I say they are really stinkin’ cute. According to Robert, 140 of them visit his property. He got that number by “counting the feet and dividing by four.” :)

 
The puppy pack

After trotting us around the garden for an hour or so, with his pooches in tow, Robert brought us back for an unexpected (and delicious) lunch—just for us. We felt a little guilty having his daughter-in-law prepare the enormous spread of arroz con pollo, black beans, fried plantains, boiled plantains, boiled yucca, yucca fritters and two kinds of empanadas, but they insisted. So we ate. And ate! Plus his son made fresh grapefruit-ade (try it instead of fresh lemonade; it’s amazing). I drank about a liter of the stuff.

Robert’s daughter-in-law preparing lunch on the wood-burning stove

Not only was lunch prepared just for us, but the show-and-tell table was, too. We talked through the various folkore and alternative remedies for treating everything from high cholesterol to skin cancer and got to try fresh turmeric, Meyer lemons, sugarcane, tamarind and cacao from his garden. We also nibbled on freshly cooked palm fruit from the African palm oil trees. The fruit is bright orange, has a nutty, butternut squash-like flavor and is quite tasty (and it differs from palm kernel oil, which is processed from the seed of the fruit and is used, controversially, in consumer products).

Show-and-tell table covered with edible and medicinal specimens collected from the garden

Love chocolate? Me too. This is what it looks like raw. The white stuff is sweet-tart and feels like a combination of snot and marshmallow crème. Pretty gross. I’ll take my chocolate in bar form, please. And make it dark.

Jeepers creepers, where did you get those peepers?

The day was so unexpectedly wonderful. Robert and his family went above and beyond to teach us about their treasured plants and way of life. Did I mention that the entire thing—from getting a ride from Golfito and back (30 minutes each way) to the garden tour to the tasty lunch to the presentation of folklore remedies was FREE? Robert is a great guy who we can tell is loved by his family and the community. With his generous spirit and infectious enthusiasm for life and botany, it’s easy to see why. We made sure to give him a donation to help keep up the garden—it’s a special place that deserves a visit. And if you’re ever in Golfito during mamón chino season, stop by his stand and pick up a bag!

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Mmmm-mamón chinos! Robert’s (in the blue bag) are the very best.

Seeing friends and spotting monkeys in Quepos

By Nicole

What’s better than watching sloths and monkeys crawl around in the trees? Getting to spend an evening with friends from Seattle! The timing was perfect ... We sailed into Quepos just two days before Stacy, Brett and their adorable girls arrived, and we were lucky enough to enjoy cocktails and an amazing dinner at their villa only a few kilometers from the harbor. Fantastic!  And so much fun.

Stacy and I stayed hydrated with gin & tonics. Thanks for an awesome night, guys!  Dinner was such a treat!

The big draw in the little town of Quepos, besides our friends, is Manuel Antonio National Park. This is the most popular park in Costa Rica for good reason—it is packed to the gills with monkeys, sloths, birds and gorgeous sandy beaches. Hoping to avoid the masses that descend on the park each day and to catch the critters when they were most active, we made sure to get there right before it opened at 7 a.m. By the time we left five hours later, the place looked and sounded like Disneyland. We even passed a dude playing a recorder on the trail. Really? We couldn’t get out of there fast enough! But in the morning, the place was incredible.

A white-faced capuchin monkey keeps an eye on Aaron

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a monkey.

Deserted beach at 8 a.m., Waikiki at noon

 
The rare and illusive “Aaron”

Three-toed sloth going about his sloth business. So cute.

Tropical paradise

Marbled sand

 Snoozing howler monkey (look how his tail is holding on, too)

 Pretty sure it’s a male …

Wish you were here!

Steamy jungle

Tree-guana

Beach in panorama

Hatching baby coconut

Capturing the moment (or trying to, anyway)

 
Yes, we’re sweaty. It’s the freakin’ jungle!

Quepos has a casual charm and natural beauty (not to mention a bakery that Aaron loved and the best gelato I’ve had in ages) that under different circumstances would’ve kept us around for a long time. But with our visas just days away from expiring, we had to high-tail it down to Golfito near the Panamanian border. Which is where I sit now, writing this long-overdue post. More on Golfito, our day at the border crossing and what’s next for us soon!

Sipping microbrews in the Costa Rican jungle

By Nicole

So what do you do when you a) have some time to kill while waiting for parts to arrive, b) want to treat your spouse to a getaway for all his hard work and c) are craving the taste of a good, microbrewed beer?  You take a trip to Costa Rica’s best (and only) microbrewery hotel, of course!

Truth in advertising

Volcano Brewing Company is located on a hill overlooking Lake Arenal (which sounds less like a kidney disorder if you pronounce it in Spanish as ah-ray-nahl), an easy two-hour drive from Marina Papagayo (no dirt roads!). It’s an all-inclusive joint, which means that for the price of a room (which is pretty cheap to begin with), you also get to eat all you want from their tasty restaurant AND drink all you want from the bar. You want to have four microbrews with lunch? Okay! You want to have five gin & tonics over dinner and then have two desserts? Do it! Although I don’t know anyone who’d do such a thing.

 
Craft beers in frosty mugs … it’s been a looooong time

They brew the beer right below the bar. How convenient.

Mila, the Volcano Brewing Company’s pup, shows her appreciation (Aaron is the best dog-petter I know)

Our special keep-out-the-riff-raff gate

The view of Lake Arenal from our room. Pretty!

 Sunset at the Volcano Brewing Company

 Rainbow over Lake Arenal (it tried hard to be a double rainbow, but it wasn’t meant to be)

This is what happens when you have an all-you-can drink policy

The next morning after breakfast, we set out to explore the area with an eye toward hiking in the Tenorio Volcano National Park.  It was windy, gray, cold and drizzly (very Seattle), but the scenery was stunning!  Rolling, pastoral hills dotted with palm trees and cute cows fanned out in all directions. As we bumped and bounced down the red-dirt roads, we found ourselves mesmerized by the bucolic beauty. We even saw a pair of toucans!

Misty hills and palm trees

Baby cows! Nuzzling! OMG, the cuteness.

Aaron said, “C’mere, cows!  C’mere!” The baby cows sensed stranger danger and ran away.

As I mentioned, it was windy.  Well, apparently that’s not a random occurrence, considering that in addition to farming cattle, they also farm the wind here. Dozens of giant wind turbines churned away on the hillsides.

 Wind turbines dominate the hilltops

Cowboys and wind turbines – a mix of old and new

Narrow wooden bridge

While we made it to the beautiful national park with hopes of hiking to a blue waterfall, the mist that became drizzle finally became rain … and we wussed out. Yes, we’re from Seattle and know the joy that is Gore-Tex, but we figured having a few beers in the warm bar of the Volcano Brewery sounded a bit more enjoyable. So back over the rolling hills we went, keeping an eye out for anteaters.

Watch out for, um, anteaters!

A break in the clouds

After lunch and a nap, we set out again (this time in the sunshine) for a “secret” waterfall. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the waterfall wasn’t really a secret, but it still made for a nice little hike. Besides, Aaron has a serious thing for waterfalls.

 Downstream from the falls

Shhh!  It’s a secret waterfall!

Aaron gets his waterfall fix

 An arm shot for you, Mom!

With our craving for delicious craft beers and gorgeous scenery satiated, we returned to Marina Papagayo refreshed and eager to get cracking. The very next day, more boxes arrived, and we got right back to work. Perfect timing, perfect getaway.