So after a very long flight on the 25th of November from La Paz, to Mexico City, to Panama City to San Jose Costa Rica… i arrived at my Couchsurfer Carlos’s apartment in San Pedro, the University district of San Jose Costa Rica… i soon met up with Martin the Spanish guy on the karaka trip and we went for some beer and pizza (click any photo below to see full album).

Costa Rica is much more expensive than Mexico… Martin and I decided to stay an extra day in San Jose… went shopping and went on a wild goose chase to find a decent rain jacket for him… we finally find the only store that sells anything decent, North Face rain jacket in all of Costa Rica. I also decided to get a new headlamp since my old one died.

We met some of Martins friends who work for the government and went out for drinks and salsa dancing. Unfortunately later that evening i felt incredibly sick…. the most sick i have ever been in my entire life…. i didn’t want to get up at 6am to catch an 8 hour central american bus all the way from San Jose to Golfito that morning but Martin convinced me and we made it after frustrating cab rides… cabbies really try as hard as possible to rip you off here so you just have to give them less than what they ask and run off…

So we arrived in Golfito in the pouring rain and got soaked after the worst bus ride of my life and made it onto Karaka and met the crew. I felt so bad and it was a horrible way to start this adventure and meet all these great people from so many Nationalities… (first view of karaka below in the pouring rain)

So as for the crew on Karaka from left to right in picture below we have Greg who works for a Gay and Lesbian News Paper in Dallas Texas USA, Captain Tom originally from France who found Karaka in Hong Kong 6 years ago got her for $1 and has been sailing her ever since, myself, Alex from Stockholm Sweden who sails around the islands there, Martin from Spain who’s sister previously crewed on Karaka and then we have Kim who grew up on the coast of Australia mostly in a remote island tree-house who joined the crew about 2 years ago and eventually fell in love with Tom (You can check Karaka’s website for more information about karaka http://karaka.voila.net/).

Shortly after my arrival onboard and meeting everyone I ended up getting sick again that night and thought i might have to go to hospital… thought I might have had malaria or Hepititus… such a horrible fever and losing so many fluids…

After a good nights sleep I felt quite a bit better and the next day I went on a hike through the rain forest with Martin and Alex. It was quite nice though i didn’t feel that great. We saw a sloth, a poisonous frog, spider monkeys and squirrel monkeys, and a fantastic view of Golfito Bay….

If you look closely in this picture below you can see Karaka anchored in the Bay.

Found some nice locals who cut coconuts off their own trees and gave them to us at the end of our hike. Deliciously refreshing!

Back on Karaka

The morning are usually the only time it is sunny here… I thought it would be nice to take the Dug-out canoe for a paddle with my camera to take some nice shots…

I got some very nice shots… but this was a bad idea because i was not aware at the time that the dug-out canoe was not designed for someone of my size and i sunk with my camera and these shots above were the last photos it ever took… Luckily i still had my Sanyo waterproof video/picture camera with no working screen but could still take pictures.

I have been feeling much better, went kayaking all day today after getting fueled in karaka and it was great… some of the heaviest rain i have ever paddled. Used the nice little sit-on-top kayak they have and paddled around and out of the Bay.

we then went shopping for the first week, had another two australian girls join us… Sher who was on the boat next to us and Laura who worked saving sea turtles on the island. We leave tomorrow (December 1st) for northern Costa Rica, Playa del Coco where Cher and Laura will get off and it will be just six for the big crossing…

So yeah… i know it is a bit rushed but i got something up… might get to update again in a week or so but might not…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all!

check our progress on the spot beacon to see how we are doing but we expect to get into La Paz, Baja California early to mid January…

all the best and nobody worry about me! we got all the safety gear and all is well!

cheers,

zack