BOUND FOR COSTA RICA VIII: PUNTA BURICA
At sea off Punta Burica, Panamá/Costa Rica, Wednesday, 16 December 2009

I suppose we could just have missed the anchorage on the Panamanian side of the long point that becomes Punta Burica. One side of that long finger is Panamá and the other is Costa Rica; the border runs more or less down the middle or the mountain ridge. We would have saved probably ten extra miles if we had been prepared to accept an overnighter from Isla Ladrones around to Punta Burica, up the Costa Rican (west) side of the cape to Pavones. But, if we don’t actually have to do overnighters, we don’t. We like day-trips of about 25-35 Nm that start in the cooler dawn hours, and try to have the anchor down by early afternoon. The sky is largely overcast this morning and threatening a squall or two both over the mountains to he NW and S over the sea. They never show up, but there is lightening around. The clouds at least keep things cooler, and with the ambient temperatures lower the engine doesn’t get so hot either.

The funny thing about the anchorage behind Punta Burica near Punta Balsa is that it is really just an wide-open roadstead. No cove, no actual punta or outcrop to hide behind. What makes it calm is the long sandbank running out from Punta Burica to the east over which those huge SW ocean swells break and lose their potency. Powerful waves broken by sand; there’s a sermon in there somewhere. Dropping the anchor onto a sandy bottom in only 25 feet of clear water, we are still at least half a mile out from the wooded shoreline where there are in fact a few houses (including some old-fashioned wooden ones and one really garish, two-story jobbie with a long yellow wall running in front of it. Ghastly!). There is no wind. So we wait till the anchor is down before dropping the mainsail. No other boats about except one or two fishing lanchas and the water like a millpond despite the fact that you can see breaking swells half a mile or so away to the south. It’s calm and shallow and good holding, but I let out all the chain and a lot of nylon rode because I am apprehensive about being so exposed. Quiet. And dark at night, too! At night we were remote enough despite the distant electric lights of Puerto Armuelles and even, over the horizon, David, Panamá’s second-largest city. Well, not totally quiet, I can hear dogs barking on shore and, later, howler monkeys in the palm trees that line the whole beachfront.

The only disappointment is the huge - and I mean really big - dorado that we hooked on the way in. He started leaping out of the water and doing his rodeo stunts and after five minutes he had freed himself and was gone. Too bad! I was already thinking about how to prepare him. Nothing much better than fresh dorado (mahi mahi).

Tomorrow’s run, probably our penultimate day, will start earlier so we can do the extra ten miles around Punta Burica and on north up the western side of the Costa Rican side. First light is always now around 0545 now, and you can see well by 0600. The sun is currently over the Tropic of Cancer (24o S). so the actual sunrise is not until round 0630. If we can keep up 4 knots tomorrow we shall be anchored at Pavones in Costa Rica by mid-afternoon. We should have a flood tide to help push us along during the morning.