Cindy Southgate's Travels

February 12

I was up around 5 a.m. which would be the trend for most mornings. We enjoyed breakfast on our patio while watching a squirrel chow down on some fruit that was hanging on a nearby tree.

I had tentatively booked a snorkelling boat tour for today but discovered that the owner of Cabinas Jimenez, John, offered the same tour for slightly less money so we decided to go with him. We were joined by a few people including a couple from Pennsylvania and a man from the Netherlands who we enjoyed chatting with. We headed out to deep water in search of dolphins and were lucky enough to see several. We hadn’t seen any on our two previous trips to Costa Rica.

Mike and I spent a fair amount of time up front on the raised seats. It was a fun place to sit and gave us great views.

John took us down a small river. It took some very careful manoeuvring to enter the area, which we better understood after seeing the aerial picture from our flight in. When the tide was out there were several sand bars stretching out into the gulf. The river was quite beautiful and we saw a few birds including some Ibis and a Roseate Spoonbill.

We toured around the Gulfo Dulce. ( Sweet Gulf) This gulf is home to one of only 4 tropical fiords in the world. Then we headed over to the other shore to eventually stop and do some snorkelling. The coast was quite beautiful with lots of sand and palm trees. And we had a gorgeous sunny day to enjoy it.

The western coast of Costa Rica doesn’t generally have very good snorkelling, but this spot wasn’t bad. I was pleasantly surprised. They had added some underwater structures to encourage reef growth and attract more fish.

To complete the tour, we were offered a chance to try riding some boards John had made. While being pulled by the boat over the snorkelling area you could tip the front of the board down and go underwater for a view of the fish and then up to catch your breath. It was really fun but the board was a bit heavy for me so I was only able to go underwater a few times.

The tour was longer than expected which was great. We really enjoyed our time on the water. We got back around 2 p.m. and headed to our patio where we had last evening’s leftovers for lunch.

After lunch we wandered down to the store again to pick up some ice cream and food for the next day’s breakfast. This dog joined us and even came in the stores with us. She was very playful. We later found out she is one of John’s rescues and her name is Lucky. She is indeed!

We had dinner at our usual spot again and enjoyed some downtime reading on our patio.