The Costa Rica Incident - Part One

It's difficult to know where to start on this story, it's been an age since I’ve posted on my blog, and this is not a story I ever dreamed would be part of my Sailing The Ring of Fire project. I think my pride has been getting in the way of telling a good story.
Plus there are so many elements to it that a blog is far too restrictive - a deserving rendition of events will make a very long chapter in the book I will no doubt write one day.

Having said that, here's part one of what I'm now calling The Costa Rica Incident:


Was it the mosquito-borne virus “chikungunya” I contracted in Panama, or was it the stomach bug I carried back from Nicaragua? What dropped me to the saloon floor as I sailed single-handed towards Costa Rica’s northern tip, and set Whakaari on a beach between two reefs? Was it really a case of “be careful what you wish for” (I'd been wanting to stop on a beach along this stretch of coast) or did Whakaari just want to come home to the place she was created? Was it my karma that led me to be “the luckiest unlucky guy on Playa Avellana” as I became known.

 
Ironically, the sailing leading up to "the incident" had been the most enjoyable since leaving the Caribbean, and I felt stronger and more rested than I had in a long time. Close encounters with turtles and dolphins, sometimes becalmed and drifting, sometimes ghosting along at 2 knots, occasionally 5-6 knots on smooth seas, determined to sail and not motor, filming on the bow at dawn, looking for anchorages so I could go ashore to experience the current mass Olive Ridley and Leatherback nesting phenomenon, enjoying the “god light” of sunrise pushing through massive bad-boy thunderheads patrolling across the eastern Pacific seaboard. All seemed right with the world, at last, until...

WTF!?!! Whakaari hits something and shudders. I wake in a fog, pushing myself up off the saloon floor, stumbling naked to the companionway. Waves crash into the cockpit, and there's a sudden crunch as the keel hits the sand underneath it and sends me flying. I scream in disbelief - NO! Oh my god, NO! I'm running aground, the wind and waves seem huge, what to do, what can I do??

I release all the sheets to ease the sails, fire up the engine, slam it into reverse and pour on the revs. No help at all. People are shouting for ropes, “Throw us lines so we can hold you off the beach!” There are at least 20 guys in the water; one of them pulls himself aboard and tries to calm me as I try and try to tie a bowline - thousands of bowlines tied without thinking, why can’t I do one now?! Somewhere in there I put on swimmers (back to front and inside out someone pointed out later). Another guy starts yelling, “Abandon Ship!” and slashes away at my sheets with his knife. And all through this Whakaari is being pounded, her cries of agony with each hit killing me, knowing that I did this.

It's no good. Many strong surfers struggle for an hour or more trying in vain to stop the high tide waves forcing the boat up onto the beach. Suddenly the Coast Guard appears in a reasonable sized boat with three 120hp outboards. My best towline is made fast and they start pulling. But salvation is not to come so soon. First their towing bridle breaks, then their engines die. They leave the scene, and so ends the first of many unsuccessful attempts to refloat Whakaari.

To be continued...