Howzit everyone
Howler Monkeys. I've been lying awake at night trying to come up with an adequate description for what they sound like. Then I realized that the Howler Monkey's tortured sound has been used without modification in plenty horror movie scenes. Its that sound the 5 million year old monster/dinosaur/dragon makes when it finally wakes up really pissed off at the world. Or the sound King Kong made on his way down to earth when he finally fell off the top of the Empire State building. For those of you who don't watch movies, imagine the sound an empty oil tanker ship would make if it had to slowly scrape the entire length of its hull along a massive concrete pier. ehehehehehWWuuuuuuUUUUUUUooOOOOOOOOOUOUOUOUAAAAAAAArgh. My mate Dawie would say its exactly the sound a lion would make if you stuck a piece of 20mm pvc pipe up its ass whilst it tries to roar without any back pressure. Anyway, I am failing miserably with my description. But very early, on the morning after our first night ashore in 6 months, a troop of these Howler Fuckers were right above our jungle cabin. All I can say is that the whole family kukked themselves. It is an ungodly sound, unequivocal proof that aliens visited this area recently (and had sex with the locals). First Indie started tjunking, then Josh joined in. After frantically scrambling for dummies, teddybears and blankies, the whole family clung onto each other in bed, staring at the dark jungle outside their bed on the porch. Holding our breath whilst listening to the troop slowly moving through the branches above our bungalow. Then as the light of dawn slowly starts filtering through the leaves, a myriad of other creatures wake up and start making noises. Besides our howling friends, the loudest of these noises are made by the Scarlet Macaws. These are those big red parrots that are usually found on the shoulders of Pirates. Here they fly in large flocks, maybe 15 pairs at a time. It is exactly like that one Tintin comic where they look for Red Rackham's Treasure on that island. I expect at any moment that one of these birds will scream: 'BLUE BLISTERING BARNACLES IN A THUNDERING TYPHOON!!!' But these Macaws just squawk loudly and seem to take great pleasure in dropping half eaten bits of fruit on your head. Alas, they don't have the same vocab. Unless KAWAAAAARP-KAWAAAAAAARP means 'you poes' in Spanish. Hopefully not.
Our first 6 months has come and gone on board Shimmi. And she still floats!! We now find ourselves on the tip of the Osa Peninsula which flanks the western side of the Gulf of Dulce, Southern Costa Rica. Most of the Osa Peninsula is covered in primary virgin rain forest and as a result it is also Costa Rica's second largest National Park. But its the park with the least infrastructure (euphemism for 'fucked roads'), so its seems to get relatively little tourist traffic. And on the tip of this headland, hidden in the jungle, is a small expatriate community, consisting of mainly Americans. And apart from their nationality, they all have one other thing in common: They all surf. In the space of about 2 kilometers there are 3 bays, and each bay has a unique wave. You will find our little cabin, set back in the jungle about 60m, right in front of the southern most little bay, which is the location of the wave formerly called Hogs Hollow. Nowadays its just called Matapalo. Its an exposed and therefore super consistent right hander, very similar to Mossel Bay Outer, just a lot longer. And like Outerpool, on a small swell and low tide the rocks on the inside can be a problem. But with just a hint of swell it starts to show clean lines, offering lips to smack and faces to gauge.
A bit further down the headland is another beautiful bay with a low tide wave called Backwash. This is a full A-frame peak which like all good A-frames can offer a great back door barrel.
The last wave into the Gulf is the least consistent but highly rated right hand point called Pan Dulce. This is the best wave in the area, but it needs a real swell. When we first arrived on Shimmi, this wave was firing. Its very similar in shape to Vic Bay, a real high performance wave with a lots of good sections to hit the top and get covered up. But I am not going to bore you with more descriptions of waves...although I must add that Chantal had an absolute blast at Pan Dulce. She borrowed a long board off another yacht and within a half hour she owned the place! Some of her rides were so long that I had to go fetch her in the dingy and tow her back out to backline (I only did that 3 times!).
You may wonder what we are doing ashore? The simple answer is that we have plenty of time to kill in Central America...so we may just as well lock shimmi up on a mooring on stay ashore for a while. Our plan is to cross the south Pacific next year, but the earliest that we can start this voyage is late March 2009. So until then we are going to be in Central America...
We had the good fortune of hooking up with a family who own a few rental bungalows in Matapalo, they offered one of the bungalows to us for $500 for a month, at the same time we found a marina nearby who offered to look after shimmi (finding someone to babysit shimmi is the hard part). The third part of this shore-going equation was the fact that a very well priced and competent mechanic would use this time to give shimmi's engines a good once-over. We were also waiting for a new roller-furler part to arrive from the USA...all in all it seemed a perfect time to spend some time ashore. Andy and Terry, the couple from whom we were renting, have a 4 year old son Talon and a 1 year old daughter Cayenne, needless to say both and Josh and Indie were stoked. And with a limitless jungle to play in, huge trees to climb, snake's to catch and a crunching shorebreak to rinse of the sweat, Josh and Talon just went flat out.
Thats all for now!
