Good day everyone!! Today I got to do a shore dive! I have to say I like shore diving more than most of my boat dives. I think some weren’t bad but the water was calm and clear. The difference is a boat dive is where they take you out to where you will dive, you put your gear on and then you basically jump out of the boat in the ocean some distance from shore and you dive. Shore diving is just walking into the water from shore with your gear on and you keep going deeper and then you can dive. It’s usually not as deep of a dive but it can be depending where you are. Here, today I went down 11 meters or 33 feet. I’ve been down around 90 feet when I was in Jamaica.

We really didn’t see much, there was a trigger fish, a whip tail stingray and a couple of lobsters hiding in a hole. The reef was neat to swim though and I enjoyed the formations. There was some bleaching of the corals here. Not sure if it is from warmer water or from being touched. The reef in places is pretty shallow and is good for snorkeling from shore. I was unable to get clear shots of the fish and ray due to the clarity of the water.

Punt Uva is a great place to do diving and snorkeling, the dive season is more August through November. It also sounds like there’s some diving a couple other months but Francisco wasn’t as clear about when. He did stay stop by and check “if it okay, we go!”

My dive buddy today was Cedric, he is here from France with his family. Emily got to speak with him in French at lunch after the dive. Cedric hadn’t dove for ten years and he had stopped in and asked about diving this morning and since I chose to do a refresher Francisco asked if it was okay, which I think didn’t matter since he already said he could. It was good with me though, I told Cedric that I hadn’t been getting a lot of down time and I was around fifteen dives so I still needed to work on breathing and buoyancy control. He was good with that since it had been so long since he dove. It also turned out that Cedric was not certified yet as a diver either. He told Francisco after the dive he hadn’t taken his PADI test yet, I seem Francisco’s face kind of curl up like what??? After I said that Cedric probably should have done the Discover Scuba class, it’s like the refresher but a little longer. In the end though Cedric did fine on the skills and we had no problems. I wonder if he had been certified through a different dive organization besides PADI.

Emily snorkeled the whole time I was diving. Today I got 45 minutes on air from the scuba tank. Francisco said that my buoyancy was good, I think I can use more practice, some of that is controlled by your breathing, you take in a deep breath and you will go up and let all the air out and then you sink. I was glad to have a good dive and I would dive with Francisco at Punta Uva Dive Center. He was fantastic!

After the dive we had lunch at the little restaurant connected to the dive shop, we really wanted their burgers as the smelled great but they had run out of buns by the time we got to order. We had pizza, it was okay, a little greasy, they may have drizzled oil on it.

This afternoon we went back after settling our stomachs and rested a bit. The beach there is very good for snorkeling and we wanted to get our tine in the water. Francisco says that the swell is coming probably Sunday and it’s going to be two meters or six feet. He said that it will just come up. I’m not sure what that will do to our water activities. It may shut us out for snorkeling and boogie boards. Hope not.

If it does we have a few other things that we want to do. There is a Jaguar rescue and a chocolate tour with a visit to a waterfall, hopefully that involves swimming. If we are shut out the lack of a good hotel pool will be more of an issue.

Be safe!

This morning we took a ride on the scooter to get some colones from the ATM and then I wanted to go see about diving. I’m glad I checked, Fransisco said they got a 4 day window for diving and it closes Saturday. He said they may be able to squeeze in a dive early on Saturday. I will be going tomorrow at 11, I decided to do a refresher because I will be going by myself with Fransisco. I still need to work on my breathing and buoyancy so going alone is good. The other nice thing is that it is a shore dive. So max 15 meters I think he said. It will be shallow but it will be good enough to get a dive in. I’m hoping that I may be able to do the 2 pm dive tomorrow as well or if they can do a morning dive Saturday. Our days here are starting to disappear. We are also looking at doing a paddle trip with Fransisco. I would do kayak and Emily a stand up paddle board (SUP).

We finally had McCloud’s for lunch today, we both had the Jerk Chicken, it was good and had a little heat to it. I debated the ribs but I was hungry and figured it would be a two bone serving. The chicken is always chicken quarters, I don’t know if they ever use white meat for it. Just a little FYI for those thinking about ordering it sometime.

I have a bit of a sunburn on my face around the hairline. It’s a little bothersome. I also have some scrapes on my feet from the coral at the beaches. I would still have them even if I had worn water shoes as they happened yesterday fighting the waves when we went snorkeling.

Today we went snorkeling in Punta Uva, same place I will be diving tomorrow for the most part. From here on I will be using my GoPro for underwater photography.

Punta Uva was a very nice shore snorkeling location. There was more sandy beach and sandy entry into the water. Much easier on the feet! The water was calmer in this area as well, there were waves but the rollers broke out a ways so the water was more choppy than waves rolling in.

Emily spotted an octopus and a ray, we watched the octopus for a while hoping it would come out for a visit. It did not, occasionally it would show it’s tentacles and reach out to feed the edge of the coral it was under. We spent a fair amount of time in the water. There was a guy looking for lobsters, he had one in a bag.

I’m looking forward to diving tomorrow, it will be good to get a chance to practice without worrying about other people who have more experience. Emily is going to do more snorkeling while I’m diving.

So far it hasn’t felt overwhelming hot here. There is usually a nice breeze coming in from sea so sitting in the shade it stays cool. This morning it was a bit humid and warm but it did rain fairly well last night so there was water to evaporate.

Be safe!

I still don’t have any pictures, but Bill should be pulling some off of his GoPro. I bought a new Kodak underwater camera, but it doesn’t take good pictures, so I’m planning to send it back. Maybe I’ll get a GoPro too.

We had a pretty fun day. We had errands to run this morning. I needed some Costa Rican money and we had to find a place to get gas for the scooter. There are no gas stations for miles around, but there is a small quick shop that sells bottles of gas. I’m not sure that’s legal and several people I talked to here didn’t seem to know about it, but at least we have a place to get gas. Bill also found a dive shop this morning and set up a dive for tomorrow. The dive season here just ended, but the water is still good enough tomorrow and maybe Saturday. I’m planning to snorkel, and the shop also has a paddle board river trip that I would like to do.

This afternoon, we snorkeled at Playa Arrecife where Bill will dive tomorrow. It was awesome! Great beaches and really good, safe snorkeling. We saw lots of little fish in various colors, some sea worms and I found an octopus! It was really exciting. I never spot anything and I have a hard time with my goggles fogging, but I spotted it under a flat brain coral (they actually look like brains). Bill got some pictures and video and we watched it for a while. We tried to offer it some toys but it wouldn’t come out of its hiding spot. It did keep sticking its eyes out to watch us and it put its arms out a little ways. I love octopuses so it was really fun to see one up close. They are super smart! We also saw a ray. Overall, it was a fantastic snorkel trip.

There is a French bakery across the street owned by a French couple. I’ve gotten stuff there a couple of times. They have really good deserts. They moved here 8 years ago. They decided that the world was becoming too unstable and they wanted a safer place than France to live. They toured the world and considered moving to Thailand but the Thai government changed for the worse so they decided on Costa Rica instead. Their rationale was that even if the world goes to hell, you can still survive in Costa Rica. It’s stable, it doesn’t have a military so it won’t be fighting any wars. You can grow food here all year and keep animals so you won’t starve. They also love hot weather so they seem pretty happy here. They gave me tips on how to move here. It was a short conversation but interesting. I love being able to talk to people from all over the world with lots of different experiences. I kind of wish I was brave enough to leave everything and move to Costa Rica, but I don’t know how to run a bakery, and they probably don’t need American history professors or associate deans. I need a job where I can work from home and have home be down here!

Emily got to use her new boogie board yesterday! The sea was rough!! Waves were tall and rolling in fast! As she mentioned our first location we were waved off due to riptides. They will pull you out to sea and it can be a long swim back. We moved to where there were lifeguards watching, not sure from where though as I did not see one. They did have a red flag up though. The area we went to was in front of the restaurant we had our first meal at after arriving. Green flag is the best but the lady that waved us off said yellow wasn’t bad if where lifeguards were.

We got to do some snorkeling the last couple days. The pictures are from both days. I used Emily’s Kodak Pixpro camera rated for 15m/50 ft underwater. I’m not a fan. It wasn’t hard to use but the quality isn’t great. The ability to zoom is a nice option but the zoomed pictures didn’t turn out well, it’s easier to blow up pictures from the gopro, I think they are less grainy.

The water quality here is better than on the pacific coast. There is still sediment in the water but overall it isn’t as dark or as cloudy. There is also a lot more greenery close to shore on the Caribbean coast.

Some shots of the Caribe Town Hotel. It’s not a bad place to stay. Location isn’t bad, no crazy partying going on here. I would like a better pool and maybe a little warmer. It’s nice to have the pool option after being in the ocean, there’s no bobbing or fighting waves. It’s nice to relax and swim sometimes without all that action! This pool is a salt water pool so no chlorine. It’s not as salty as the ocean. There is a nice area for yoga and boxing. I didn’t see anything for resistance training but I brought my own bands. I did a workout with them yesterday and they worked well.

I had a delay due to needing to charge the camera to get the pictures off of it.

We are getting ready to take our scooter out and about. We need some Costa Rican money and we need to find gas for our scooter. It’s only down to half a tank with all our riding but we still have to return it with a full tank!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Our trip is now moving along literally and figuratively. We went down this morning and got ourselves some wheels, little Honda scooter. Top speed is 75 kph or 46.6 mph. Most the speed limits are either 40 kph in town and 60 kph in between towns. They also slow just before the bridges to 40 kph. our scooter was $200 for 10 days. Pretty cheap. We shouldn’t need any taxis for the most part and we should be able to do about everything we need to with it.

We got our freedom and took ourselves to the last beach town on the main road, Manzanilla. We met sketchy Walter there, he was trying to get us to take a tour with him. We may.

We then took our wheels north of where we are staying, Puerto Viejo and picked up Emily a decent boogie board. I still have my inflatable one from May. Since we have all the days it’s cheaper to buy one. We also got sunglasses. I had brought a cheap pair but they must’ve gotten left behind either in a cab or at the Hotel in San Jose. I think I like these better.

We usually walk most places, Caye Caulker we biked, and we talked about getting bikes but I think the scooter is going to be a better option here. There are a lot of bikes but it seems like everything is pretty spread out. The bigger towns have more continuous stores/ shops/ restaurants. They don’t have sidewalks or bike paths so they are all on the edge of the road, to me the scooter feels safer. It keeps up with traffic so we can mix in and don’t have to worry about getting sideswiped by a mirror or worse. It’s also a lot faster.

Puerto Viejo is probably the place you want to stay if you want more walking options, there is a price that will come with that though, more tourists. I prefer less tourists. The scooter connects the whole area here so it makes the choice easy if we come back this way.

Still haven’t gotten a complete feel for the place but it’s definitely different than the west coast.

We finally made it into the water today. It was a bit of an ordeal. We have a few options for snorkeling from shore and one is supposed to be just down the road a piece. I thought I seen the sign for it this morning and I looked it up on the map. We ended up not finding the road to the beach and we then looked at the last one which may not have shore snorkeling. We will find out since it supposed to. When we were there I seen two snorkels and they were pretty close to shore.

We found about entrance to another location and tried to walk to the beach we were looking for and there was a sign with a map showing it and the road but we hit a dead end walking. So we went back down the beach and found a few snorkelers. We didn’t think is was a bad spot but the waves and under currents were strong. Water wasn’t completely clear but we were able to see some things. We tried out Emily’s new underwater camera, I will maybe give it a review later. So pictures will be from her this blog day. I didn’t take any on mine.

We seen a big puffer fish and I seen some crabs. Maybe tomorrow we will get some more pictures. I think we are going to try snorkeling and Boogie boarding.

I’m debating seeing about a dive day maybe next Monday. I may look for a dive shop tomorrow, there’s supposed to be one the next town south of us. I’ll go see what the have open and get a feeling for the quality of place it is.

That is one thing I have not seen much of here is places offering diving and snorkeling trips. Seems odd. There are a few on the internet but I was expecting more places you could walk up and schedule a trip.

Hopefully I will get some pictures tomorrow. I need to do some of the hotel. There are some resident sloths here and we got to see them. It was getting dark so pictures were out of the question. Somewhere on property there is a frog pond with seven different kinds of frogs. I did see a little black and green one by the pool yesterday.

Stay safe!

I don’t have a lot to say for today so this will be a short post. We made it to Playa Cocles around noon today. It took about 3.5 hours. However, we figured out why it potentially takes a lot longer. On the road to get here, there are a bunch of one way bridges. At times when the traffic is bad, that series of bridges all back up and that would lengthen the time of the trip significantly! At least we made it without too much trouble.

I had a headache by the time we got here. There was a big weather change between San Jose, which is fairly cool, and Playa Cocles, which is much further south and a lot hotter. I took a migraine pill and slept for part of the afternoon while Bill camped out in the very cold pool. I should be more energetic tomorrow and we will go to the beach. I think we are going to rent a scooter so it will be easier to visit the various beaches in the area.

Our hotel is nice. The pool is small and not very deep, but otherwise, it seems like a place we will like. It’s super green here, much greener than the Pacific side where we have been previously. There are little lizards and geckos everywhere. There is currently a tiny one living on the shower drain. Our room doesn’t currently have hot water, but it’s supposed to have hot water, so hopefully we can get that fixed tomorrow. It will be a cold shower tonight though.

The hotel is owned by some Americans from California. I don’t know whether they are in Costa Rica or not. It’s managed by some Americans from Colorado who quit their jobs, moved their family to Costa Rica and are trying it out for 6 months to see if they want to move here permanently. They have 2 little kids. Bill had a long conversation with the guy who manages the bar this afternoon and he will probably write about that in his post.

I spent part of the evening sitting at the bar with a cup of tea and a brownie while I did some work. A French couple was sitting next to me, so I talked to them for a while. Super interesting people. The woman was a podiatrist who quit her job a year ago and opened a business buying and refurbishing antique furniture. They are both divers. They said the most spectacular place to dive is Tahiti, which is French. The guy said he saw in 1 dive more than he had seen anywhere else. He says it’s spectacular but it takes about 24 hours to get to Tahiti from France so that’s a significant commitment. It’s a long trip for them to Costa Rica too. I’m happy to be getting to practice my Spanish and my French. There is also a young Dutch couple here, but they have to speak to me in English.

I guess that’s all I have to write about tonight. We should have more interesting stories and hopefully some pictures tomorrow. I think Bill may already have a few pictures.

Hello All: Bill and I are back in Costa Rica. We had a relatively smooth trip today with a minor snag at the end. We booked a hotel at Playa Cocles. We looked up the distance between San Jose and Playa Cocles before we left and Google assured us that it takes about 3.5 hours. When we arrived at the airport this afternoon and got a taxi, our driver told us that it actually takes 6 hours to get there. Based on this information, we decided to spend the night in San Jose and go to Cocles tomorrow morning. I contacted our hotel, and the hotel owner told me that the drive is only about 3.5 hours. We don’t know if we arrived at a time when the traffic is really bad to go south or if our driver was wrong. But, Bill hurt his back at work a few days ago so it’s actually working out okay since it was already a really long travel day in uncomfortable airport and airplane seats.

We are currently in a nice hotel in downtown San Jose. I went for a walk earlier in one of the main shopping districts. San Jose is not a city I’d choose to spend time in, but it’s always interesting to walk around and see the street venders and shops. There were a lot of people out and it’s fairly cool in the Central Valley so it was a nice afternoon to walk around. There’s a pretty park right across the street from our hotel. This evening, Bill and I ate at a restaurant down the street. It was partly open air, and we go a little cool. Our hotel keeps hot water and tea available all the time. I can go get a cup whenever I want one, and there is a nice sitting area on the first floor overlooking one of the parks. It’s not a bad way to end a long travel day.

I’m attaching a few pictures below. The first pictures are part of the park and the final one is a plaza in the shopping district. Hopefully we will have some better ones tomorrow.

Howdy everyone!!

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the holidays and are going to enjoy a fabulous New year!!

This is my third time traveling with Emily to Costa Rica. We have been to the western coast twice, this time we are trying out the east coast. The Caribbean side! I’m excited, it’s supposed to be less touristy but hopefully better water for snorkeling and diving. We had put it off because there is a bit of a drive to get there. People in San Jose say it’s 6 hours, the map says 3 and a half plus a few. We opted to stay in San Jose tonight and make the trip to our beach town hotel in the morning. We had planned on going today but with the idea of six hours more we decided not to go.

We’re getting our ride set up through our driver we had last time, Ivan. Sounds like he is keeping busy and things are going well for him. I do recommend to get names and numbers of drivers that you like. Don’t be afraid to ask them questions. WhatsApp is a great way to contact people when traveling.

Our travel went alright today. Our first flight was on time and made good time getting to Dallas. Dallas flight was delayed in leaving about half an hour. We missed the announcement of them boarding our group, I was not pleased with American/Dallas Fort Worth airport for their poorly working sound system where we sat and not updating their signs. I was worried we wouldn’t have places for our bags since we don’t check bags. We had priority boarding so we would have good access to the overhead bins. I did the gate agent, I doubt it went anywhere but in one ear and out the other.

Flights were mostly smooth, a little turbulence on the second flight but not enough that they made any announcements or turned the seatbelt light on.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the beach tomorrow. We are hoping the area has a Brasalito feel to it and clear water with plenty to see. When we arrived at the hotel and were getting on the elevator there was a woman getting on that greeted us in French and Emily got to chat with her. The lady is going to Brasalito after spending a few days in San Jose. We both thought that was neat. While we really enjoyed Brasalito it’s not a popular foreign tourist destination. There are not a lot of options for staying there. They do have a new two lane bridge that was completed.

Kind of light on pictures.