Costa Rica

 

Hello again friends and faithful followers!

Well we made it to Puntarenas, Costa Rica after spending six days at sea since our last port of call of San Francisco.

Although there was a brief moment when we thought we were going to be one of those cruise ships that you hear about on the evening news hour.

On the day before we arrived, just prior to the early dinner sitting, ole Queen Victoria found herself dead in the water.  Yup, adrift the vast Pacific ocean in 90 degree heat for just about one half hour!!! Thankfully things were rectified and we found ourselves moving along as planned.

The weather and seas have been absolutely perfect, with cloudless skies and the smoothest seas I’ve ever encountered on any cruise to date.

Before I get into all the fun that was had during our stay in Puntarenas, I just want to share some spectacular photographs Rick has taken of the wildlife we’ve encountered over the past six days. Most if not all were captured from our cabin balcony and include both the inhabitants from above and below the sea. Let me say though that to photograph a bird from the balcony of a pitching ship, either fish or fowl could be likened to doing the same whilst running on the spot! So my hat is tipped to my wonderful husband as he continues to sharpen his photography skills during our adventure aboard.

First up is the Masked Booby…These seabirds followed our ship for days along with its relative Brown Booby.

I consulted the ships library in order to learn more about boobies; the birdy boobies that is! Strangely enough though some of what I read didn’t make sense at all, such as the fact that they apparently don’t usually follow ships. These birds were in abundance and followed our ship for days; the masked Booby flying high above and diving for fish on occasion, whereas the brown hovered just above the sea grabbing flying fish in flight.

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Of course a day never went by without a daily aquatic show from our most favourite marine mammal in the world, the Dolphin!

We’ve enjoyed regular sightings of schools of dolphins since we embarked on this adventure, but there should also be honourable mention made to the other sea life encounters we have enjoyed, such as the occasional whale and marlin.

If you stood looking straight down to the sea we found many green sea turtles caught in the ships wake as if swimming in a current pool, although lots would be found outside of it too.

There should be a photo contest on board because Rick would have surely won the grand prize with this photo of a swordfish jumping out of the deep blue sea! Right place Right time!

Below you will see Sandra with the local authorities, notice the bloke at the end…Well he just so happens to be one of the original“fun” people still on board from our original group. Chris and his wife Cindy, obviously not in the picture, hails for Southampton, England and just so happens to be a retired Homicide Detective.

We were standing there waiting for a representative of Adventure Park Costa Rica to pick us up and take us to a resort and canopy tour adventure, aka Zip line adventure. Obviously I was not participating, but look who had the guts to…

The vehicle behind Rick took all the Zippers another half hour up into the mountains where their adventure commenced. Here are a few shots so you can grasp exactly what this tour involves, other than nerves of steel of course…

Of course, wee Shaemus possesses those nerves of steel too, after all he is Irish!

This particular zip line below was 1/4 of a mile long and disappeared into the canopy having not a clue to where it would end.

Below you will notice Rick in the next two pictures compliments of our friend Ken’s camera.

 

 

 

The tour consisted of 23 zip lines and 2 rappelling lines that crossed over many miles of the Costa Rican mountains, plus 11 waterfalls that adorn the ancient rain forests. The tour took about 3 hours finishing off with a traditional Costa Rican lunch back at the resort. Those not wishing to zip had the opportunity to use the facilities of a quaint little resort with a view of the valleys and mountains where everything started. Not to mention enjoying the sounds of birds and the occasional screaming zipper in the distance!

It was a perfect day for all that joined, and an early night in bed for most! So with that my friends I will end here as tomorrow we will be transiting the Panama Canal…actually we have done that already (yesterday), but I want to make a separate post. So stay tuned…

Love Rick, Sandra and wee Shaemus xo