Costa Rica to Nicaragua, to Mexico

We picked up Ted (Chief Ted, who is chief engineer on a 600 ft ro-ro) and headed to Marina Papagayo in Costa Rica.

It was a ghost town when we got there, but we headed to our hotel near Liberia and were pleasantly surprised.  The Mangroove (yes that is the correct spelling) and the place was new, hip, and nice.  The food was EXCELLENT.  We wished we would have anchored out in front of the hotel (photo #1).

We headed out early for Marina Pez Vela in Nicaragua.

It was a nice place at one point at time and better than expected, but it was in the middle of nowhere.

We had to walk 1/2 a mile down a dusty road to buy dusty water from the opening in a cage that was a tienda.  Very off the beaten path.  Shake N Bake stuck out like a sore thumb here (photo #2).

We decided to skip Guatemala and do an overnighter.  The ocean was great and the moon lit up the horizon and clouds all night long.

Everything was going great until we picked up to run in the morning and the previously failing oil pressure gauge failed hard.  CAT won't let you run an engine without oil pressure, so we had a pretty major mechanical.

We could not get anyone on the phone, so we called Henriques and Natalia or Maria (I had zero sleep, so I forgot) rattled off 4 phone numbers and we called Ransome CAT.  

Ransome was far less helpful than Henriques, so time to figure it out ourselves.

Ted took one for the team and went into the scorching hot engine room and jiggled some wires.  We fired the mains up and they now work great.  

Ted quickly figured out what was wrong and that the parts to fix it (oil pressure sending unit) did not exist nearby.  

No problem.  Mano, the guy who took care of us at the marina, volunteered to drive us all around town looking for some parts for Ted to go a McGuyver fix of the sending unit.

One hour and 6 stores later and the fix was at hand, with the help from the internet and some local electronics guys.  (Photo 3).

We all are beat and have to get up at 5 to get an early start to beat the Teuhantepec winds across the bay.

More photos and text to come soon.

Once again, a big thanks to Henriques for making an awesome boat and being there 7 years down the road to take care of the third owner.

Captain Mike.