"OK, drop anchor!"  "What?"  "I said, drop the #@%$- anchor!"  "You don't have to curse at me!" 'What do you want?"  "Never mind, I'll do the *&^%$ thing myself! "  "Well, I don't know why you have to be such an a-hole about it."  One couple actually had an instant divorce.  She left El Capitan, never to return.  Cruising can be the ultimate strain on even the best of relationships.  For this reason, I recommend taking your 10-15 year old kid.  They're intelligent enough to learn along the way and make great crew, but you can still effectively use the "because I said so" defense when all else fails. With spouses, this technique rarely works.

It was cooler here than Mexico in more ways than one.  You can drink the water right out of the tap in Costa Rica, which means fruit cocktails and salads are not just for the fearless anymore.  Cooler still, was a small restaurant on the beach that featured both pizza and hamburgers.  Jimmy Buffet's take on cruising wasn't hyperbole.  It doesn't take long for the average gringo to start craving that "Cheeseburger in Paradise". 

Oh yeah, there was a black sand beach, and exotic wildlife, and you could see the bottom in forty feet, but geez, that Imperial beer is cold, and those burgers...  Their national drink is a sort of nitroglycerin-sugarcane blend called Guaro.  After extensive testing, I'm still not ready to recommend it.  If you insist, then go with soda, lime and a bit of salt.  But, still, I cannot recommend it in these litigious times. The national saying is "Pura Vida", Pure Life.  The Ticos know how to live and they practice every day.

We met one of those cruising "characters" right off the bat.  Bogey came out in his dinghy as we were motoring into the anchorage to make sure we knew about the big reef running through the middle of the bay.  We did, but that was sure thoughtful.  He told us about the fierce Papagayo winds that had been blowing for days, but we knew something of that as well.  "Bogey's got engine problems", I told Justin, after he was gone.  He agreed.  Small burns and grease stains covered that part of Bogey that was not covered by either his underwear or his pith helmet.  We later found out that Bogey had dressed formally to greet us.  On his own boat he did not wear the pith helmet to greet his guests.

As with any landfall in a new country, we hoisted the yellow "Q" quarantine flag, and I took the ship's papers ashore to find the proper authorities (port captain, customs, immigration).  "Ahoy!"  It was Bogey and his wife at the seaside restaurant interviewing a potential crew over a beer.  "Sit down!" they beckoned.  "Oh, well I gotta get to the port captain's and all".  "There's no hurry" they assured.  He's probably not in anyway, and even if he is, he'll just charge you overtime since its Saturday.  "Saturday?  No kidding, I was sure it was Friday. Miss! I'll have one of those...what are we drinking?"  The more experienced cruisers assured me that being only one day off was pretty damned accurate and midway through the second beer I began to see the wisdom in their words.  I also remembered my crew and called over my handheld VHF radio: "Come on ashore boy, everything's cool.  Let's get a burger!"  And we did.  We ordered a pizza also, just in case we might be missing something.  I found out the next day, they had fried grouper fingers.  Four days of peanut butter, forgotten.

First taste of la "Pura Vida"

We had about a hundred-fifty movies onboard.  Bogey had about five hundred, and a lot of modern day classics, so we traded some.  It was great for Justin to see such gems as "Omega Man" and meet one of the true salts that you run across on the sea.  He crewed on one of the old diesel submarines in WWII, and he and his wife had been cruising for 30 years.  These and other cruisers like them exist, scattered around the world, essentially invisible to the mainstream landlocked rat race.  Bogey is one of those guys you tell, "yeah, some chunks of the boat blew off when the heavy stuff came down, but it only lasted a couple of days".  "Oh yeah, you get that around here sometimes".  If you're expecting sympathy, somebody needs to have at least lost a limb or two.

Sunday, after breakfast, I turned my attention to boat chores.  I had noticed that the waterline was a little shabby, so I decided to do some "snorkel cleaning".  The water was a refreshing 88 deg., and clear, so it turned into a full bottom job.  It's sort of like mowing and weed-eating the lawn, except you don't have to rake, since lots of little fish and other creatures show up to nibble the "clippings".  About the time I was coming out of the water, I found myself in a patch of flotsam.  After the obligatory dog-style headshake, I went below for fresh clothes. No matter how I tried to shake, bounce with cocked head, and administer other remedies for removal of those last pesky droplets, the right ear continued to exhibit symptoms of what felt like something crawling in it.  I had seen some tiny baby crabs earlier in the water and began to suspect the worst. 

"Justin, hey check my ear, I think there's a crab in there."  "Dad, there's no crabs in there", he couldn't help but laugh.  Deeper inspection with a flashlight made me seem even more foolish.  I retired to the head for the application of an alcohol pad.  The alcohol, rather than dry the offending droplets, created a drum solo in my head of Iron Butterfly proportions.  I ran back to the galley in a frenzied state.  "Look in here!"  I shook my ear.  "Oh man that's so weird!"  Justin watched a baby crab scoot sideways out of my ear.  Flushing with fresh water brought forth the remaining two squatters who had found my inner ear remarkably shell-like.  I had originally considered flushing out the interlopers with rum.  Thank God I didn't.  I needed all of that to calm down. 

That night, I dreamt of being drunk on guaro at a beautiful black sand beach.  Slowly passing an endless variety of bathing beauties, I'd give a sly wink to each one as the giant hermit crab legs projecting from my ear drug me along.  "Just follow the trail in the sand Ladies, for some hot crab lovin'." 

Man, sleeping on a boat can give you some crazy dreams.