Just One Storm
Sweet hot damn we got a storm here yesterday. I was sitting on the second floor at Landsea Marina in Golfito, Costa Rica, dicking around on the computer and generally savoring the last tendrils of civilization before we head out for the long journey on Friday, when the northern quarter of the bay disappeared in a white haze. For the last month, we’ve witnessed quite a few powerful storms in the distance, but we’ve really only had one solid night of rain. Otherwise, they just put on a light show and blow by without rustling our sails.
Not this time. She hit like a hangry luchadora when the taco stand is closed.
She didn’t move fast – rather she built up a head of steam for an hour before plowing into the marina and obliterating the landscape. It was the kind of rain that would drown you if you looked up into it. There was a steady tattoo of thunder, and I thought one of the boats in the harbour got hit by lightning (it didn’t). The lightning bolts were as thick as tree branches – one cracked horizontally down the bay, roaring through with a visceral tearing sound and leaving a distinct ozone smell. It was fucking epic.
It poured for hours. The storm worked its way south along the bay, then turned around and came back to dump another Great Lake’s volume of water on us again. I couldn’t see more than two hundred feet off the dock, and wouldn’t have wanted to be out sailing in it without a radar (which we don’t have). Oh, plus the whole lightning-rod-boat-mast thing…
She finally fizzled out around dinner time and a nice breeze came up. Golfito had been scoured clean, and the temperature had cooled off to a manageable 27 degrees or so. Everything was soaked, but otherwise there was no harm done.
Let the rainy season in Central America officially begin. We celebrated our survival with a bbq and a few beers.
Then this morning I poured chicken stock instead of milk into my coffee. Unrelated fact.
