STL DPB AT SEA - BOOZE CRUISE

Now that I have your attention...

There is still some Costa Rica material to go through. Since I'm not real mobile these days, I need to use what's on hand. 

There are a couple of afternoon boat rides out of Tamarindo. Every few years we go out with Blue Dolphin Sailing on a trip everyone calls the booze cruise. They run a big catamaran that goes around the point in the bottom picture to a cove where you can snorkel. There is a buffet and an open bar - all the wine, local beer and cacique punch you can hold. Cacique is the local sugar cane-based white lightening. When mixed with sweet tropical fruit juices it's dangerous. Where were those life jackets?          

Booze Cruise Revisited

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People who have nothing better to do with their lives than read this blog may recall last year's post from Tamarindo about going out for the afternoon and sunset cruise (known as the booze cruise - open bar) with Blue Dolphin Sailing. It's a lot of fun but a word of warning: you better like Latin pop music played LOUD. It gave me a splitting headache, although that may have been enhanced by the fruit punch with cacique, the local hooch. Someone said it's made from sugar cane and industrial solvents. We're back at the condo now. I put Cosi Fan Tutti on the iPod and things are much better.

In any event, the passengers were young and beautiful, with certain exceptions. Our captain, first below, steered us through some high winds and sea swells. On the way back, the crew started to pull the ladies out to dance, adding to the hilarity.

We've got a day trip today to Palo Verde National Park and the village of Guaitil. So many pictures, so little time.

Temporarily Tamarindo: Booze Cruise

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That's what most people call it, although it's an overstatement. A four and a half hour ride with Blue Dolphin Cruises on a catamaran to a cove where you can snorkel or kayak, or stay on the boat and take pictures. (Who might that be?) A good lunch of arroz con pollo, salad and more, plus all the beer, rum or cacique (a deadly Costa Rican liquor that's sort of sugar cane vodka) that you cared to pour into yourself. No one got tipsy enough to fall overboard, although that might have made for some great pix.

Above, the lovely and exotic Rosie from Brazil, perhaps taking three sheets to the wind. Below, a couple all the way from Finland; relaxing on the foredeck in the setting sun; Capitán Gerardo at the helm and with some of the crew (one of whom is inexplicably wearing a Minnesota Twins baseball hat).

The odds of lots of things happening are tiny but, still, they happen some times. There were 21 passengers on the boat. Two of us were graduates of St. Louis University School of Law. She graduated several years after me and practices in Washington, but we had a long, pleasant talk over cocktails about how awful many of the professors were that we had in common. Go figure.

Once again, it's very late. Downtown St. Louis 365 will go up Thursday morning local time (conveniently, the same time zone as home).