Sailing Catalpavideo
What goes overboard? Sailing to & checking into Costa Rica Episode 471
December 6, 2025 · 20 min · 46K views · Costa Rica
What this video covers
Catalpa sails four days from El Salvador to Costa Rica's Bahia del Coco with the autopilot failed, forcing hand-steering for the final approach.▶ 0:35 The passage turns chaotic: a heavy knockdown while raising the mainsail scatters breakfast across the cabin, a bag goes overboard and has to be winched back aboard using a halyard, fishing lines tangle, and the crew catches a bonito and a mahi-mahi.▶ 7:36 Sarah, who admits to rarely hand-steering in ten years of liveaboard sailing, takes the helm in 30 knots while Lee fillets the fish.▶ 4:16 The anchorage at Bahia del Coco is rolly on a monohull; the crew moves overnight after a nearby boat takes a mooring ball too close.▶ 12:40 Checking into Costa Rica requires visiting three offices — Immigration, the Port Captain, and Customs at Liberia airport — in that order.▶ 13:29 The Port Captain alone requires three copies of every document, including three copies of each of five passports.▶ 15:18 Immigration is a five-minute walk from the dinghy landing at the river mouth.▶ 17:32 The airport run costs $2 each way by bus, versus $100 US return by taxi.▶ 19:05 Navionics shows office locations ashore. The Olifly eSIM app provides data connectivity once off the boat.▶ 13:24 Total check-in cost, excluding the bus fare, was nothing.▶ 19:37
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