As usual, dear Escapees, we find ourselves in a strange place. I suppose you could ask how could a brand new shiny-pants marina feel strange to a long distance blue water cruiser? We never hang at marinas, new or otherwise, so this place just feels weird. The first thing is the cost. You’d be hard pressed to find rates this high anywhere in the US, but wait there’s more! They’ve got a fifty percent up charge for catamarans. This leaves my poor math skills gasping for air. Needless to say we could not be here without the generous help from Seaworthy, our insurance company. We are tied up stern to the dock which is a mere fifteen feet from a large stone jetty which is so big that they’ve paved a road on top of it so at night we see car lights whizzing past our cockpit. Oh and just beyond that one hears surf, big surf, surf big enough to, well, surf. At low tide we can’t see anything but a stone wall right behind us and a huge sport fisherman to our left and another one to our right.
Night time entertainment also includes armed security guards with serious flashlights, two pairs of handcuffs, and clipboards into which they make copious notes as they pause by our boat. I admit it, I’m curious. Don’t they approve of my knots or have we broken some arcane marina rule? I’m a little sensitive about my knots anyhow. Who knows, they never say anything.
To avoid being swamped in the surf, large fishing boats run into shore just on the other side of the stone jetty, maybe twenty feet or so away, until they’re practically on the beach then they turn hard to port and run right along the beach, avoiding the worst of the surf, until they tuck in behind a bight of land that protects their fishing boat marina from the swell and surf. Needless to say this requires a lot of faith in one’s motors, tide tables, and oneself. I’ve watched several waiting for the right moment to run the gauntlet in the morning. Amazing.
So, as I was saying Pez Vela Marina isn’t finished. The marina is protected by coffer dams and stone jetties to try to keep the Pacific swell at bay, which we are really thankful for because even with a dogleg jog into the marina there is a constant swell in here. Not bad, but constant. It should be interesting setting the mast.
With almost nuts-to-butts sport fisherman it was a surprise when Scott, our man in Pez Vela, said hey, do you want to go for a sail? There couldn’t be more than four sailboats in the whole marina. Why yes, Scott, we’d love to. Turns out a young family wants to checkout their fifty foot Beneteau and Scott had work to do, and could we help out? We ran down the dock. Lovely family, great to sail a monohull again and in a dying breeze we zigged back through the entrance feeling a little bit better about life.
So it turns out I can stop looking for the pool, five o’clock happy hour, the laundry, descent WiFi, oh, did I mention that they haven’t built the pool yet? Ah, effing grand.
Let’s all hold hands above our portable media devices Escapees, and WILL that big box to Pez Vela, before Costa Rica kicks us out of here too!