Tag Archives: costa rica

Turtle Rescue | Sailing Zingaro shorts

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What we found 130 miles out to sea will shock you. While sailing to the most remote island in Central America, these sailors come across a turtle caught up in a fisherman’s long line. We jump in to help the little guy out.

Join us on our longest journey ever! 1,000nm from Costa Rica to Ecuador via Isla Del Coco …

Please make sustainable fish choices. Go here: Good fish guide: mcsuk.org/goodfishguide

Become Part of the CREW via PATREON: patreon.com/svzingaro

-Kim & James

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Hauling out the boat in Costa Rica

beaching the boat

After beaching the boat for two days straight (3am-2pm) there was just too much wave action to get the bottom painted.

hauling out in Costa Rica

So we bit the bullet and paid $900 for a week on land. Lots of work to do, paint, repair, straighten the bent rudder and bent port strut (that is not perfect from last haulout).

While James is working on the boat, Kim is just travelling back from Berlin to Costa Rica. Arrival in San Josè: this evening. 🙂

The ONE time a catamaran SUCKS

When trying to find a place to HAUL OUT on the pacific coast of Central America.

Why? Because I want to copper-epoxy the bottom of the boat. It’s greener (no ablative paint to fall all over the coral), it’s easier to clean (no ablative paint in our skin), it’s stronger (no ablative… you get the picture).

marina-pez-vela

BUT it’s been the biggest PITA! Listen to this BS:

  • So I went to the only marina that could fit me in Pacific: Marina Paraiso (Panama): They wanted $3500, and I couldn’t live on the boat, or WORK on my own boat. Lol. Right.
  • Marina Puerto Amistad (Ecuador): They sent us a semi-reasonable quote, told us they could fit us, then 1 WEEK later, when we were just about to leave, told us sorry, they messed up, can’t fit.
  • Marina Puntarenas (Costa Rica): FINALLY! Called them from Panama, they can fit us, at a great price! Yay! So we sailed 250nm and…. oh… oops… they measured wrong. 7m wrong. Morons. Seriously wtf.
  • Marina Pez Vela (Costa Rica): They can definitely fit us, the manager offers me $500 off if we promote the marina! Sweet. Go to do the paperwork… they require FULL COVERAGE INSURANCE. Ever try to insure a 34 year old home built boat travelling through Central America? Not going to say it’s impossible, but I haven’t found a way. It’s kinda funny, I have to explain to everyone what Airex foam is… I should just lie and say fiberglass.

So… looks like I’m holding on to the 3 gallons of epoxy I purchased for this job. Guess I’m going to have to beach her and paint her. At least it’s cheap. I’m just so sick of the paint. I have to clean the bottom every two weeks here. No shit, it’s pretty crazy. If I let it go a month there’s some big ass barnacles.

There’s one other option. Marina Caldera which isn’t really a marina, as much as a piece of land with a crane. I’m wondering what will happen if they drop my boat… Plus it’s $70/day. Damn rich guys charter fishing for Marlin here. That’s the entire Pacific coast moneymaker. Every damn boat here. Using 200gal/hr of diesel fucking up the environment for a unicorn fish.

Ok. I’m done ranting. Now I’ll suck it up and figure out how to do this by myself. Get ready for an interesting video!

-James

PS – The image is Pez Vela. See the fishing boat at the bottom? I’m anchored between him and the wall. Can’t get internet, but easy to flag down a fisherman to take my boom in to get welded… more on that later.

PPS – I’m really not trying to be a downer, it’s really nice here. Cost Ricans are some of the most helpful people in the world. Super cool. Just needed to vent. I keep getting comments that I complain too much. Well those guys need to try to find a marina to haul out a 6.1m wide cat. In Spanish.

Sailing Zingaro Live from Costa Rica

Want to sail around the world? It’s not as easy as it looks …

Cruising is HARD!!! In this stream we talk about the hard parts of cruising, our sailing plans for the next months, and we have a special interview with another captain that sailed with us for two weeks, a Q & A, & we also respond to some YouTube comments at the end of the show.

[Streamed live on Jun 25, 2018]

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Livin la Vida Broka (5): Rigging with Dyneema | Sailing Zingaro

How to install synthetic standing rigging on a sailboat, how to splice a deadeye, and discussion of the pro’s and con’s of steel rigging vs synthetic.

In this series of Livin la Vida Broka, I take you step-by-step through changing out my 1×19 steel wire rigging for synthetic Dyneema rigging.

You can’t find this anywhere on the internet, it took me a long time to get all this information, then put it to use, learn from the mistakes, and ultimately make this video.

I’m proud to put this out. It’s the only one of it’s kind. Between this and the last video it’s everything you need to replace your standing rigging with synthetic, in one easy place.

DISCLAIMER: This is an example of how I changed MY rigging, please refer to professionals for specific installation procedures, BEFORE touching the rigging on your boat.

**PATRON ONLY OFFER: If any of you want to replace your standing rigging, I will be your consultant free of charge. Contact me through Patreon. I have relationships with Colligo Marine, the rigging dr, and can get you dyneema at a reduced price. 🙂

Much love!

-James & Kim

You like our content? Please don’t forget to like, subcribe and share!
… or spend us a cold one on PayPal and become landcrew on Patreon.

Made it to Costa Rica!

So, the journey up to Costa Rica was… LOUD. We motored more in three days than we have in the last 3000 miles combined. Started off beating into 15kts – Zingaro was doing great! We were moving at 8kts or so for the first 4 hours, storms forming all around us as we headed out and they headed in towards land. Got some really cool videos of that.

Then… dead. 3kts for the next two days. We had to motor so long I ended up freaking out at 5am and we drifted for a couple hours as I contemplated buying a trawler. 😀

We shut the motors down to eat, and sunsets, but we basically had to motor the whole way up here less 7-8 hours. It was a 52 hour journey.

We’re getting moored at the yacht club that I called from Panama, verified the size of the lift, and reserved a spot to get hauled out. But they gave me the wrong Information: We don’t fit in the lift!

Options:

  • There’s a huge yard for the big fishing boats that can haul us right near here: for $200/day!!
  • Sail back down 100 miles to the only 100T travel lift in Central America (and pay ~$800 for the haul out, plus yard fees). Trying to get a quote has been difficult.

So we’re kinda stuck, but this is boating. I’m really glad I speak decent Spanish now, I’ve got some locals helping me out. Nice people here.

Lastly, coming to Puntarenas to check in was 100% the right thing to do. We sailed an extra 150 miles to get to the Port Captain with the most experience, because we didn’t have proof of yellow fever vaccines. Turned out we didn’t need them, but the other guys asked for them and the Port Captain told them it wasn’t a real law and we didn’t need them. Woohoo!! May have gone differently in a smaller port. We heard of people being turned away!

Stay tuned for an update on the yard, going to buy epoxy now in the capital city 2 hours away. 🙂

– James

Costa Rica – the world’s first decarbonised country?

Carlos Alvarado, Costa Rica’s new President said: “Decarbonisation is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first.”

The small country in Central America is well-known for its environmental commitment: Costa Rica already generates more than 99 percent of its electricity by using renewable energy sources.

That`s great!

Read more about: www.independent.co.uk

Goodbye Panama! Off to New Shores!

Today we are leaving Panama for Costa Rica (this time for real!). We are looking back on 8 months full of adventures, doubts & challenges. The last weeks and months we couldn’t wait to get out of Panama to see different countries, but when we checked out we asked ourselves if we really had seen enough … All of the sudden it seemed as if we had so much more to do here!

And YES, there are tons of places yet (by us) unexplored places even here in this relatively small country. And yet it is time for us to leave, because there is a whole world to be seen. I guess it is like that with traveling. The more places You get to know, the more places you learn to miss.

Ahoy!
-James & Kim

Zingaro LIVE & with LOVE from San Francisco

Just a little update to let you know why we’ve been radio silent, announce a couple really cool things going on with Zingaro, and set to rest some questions we’ve had from our viewers. We’re talking about cats vs monos, cruising routes, our favorite places in the Caribbean (most of which you probably haven’t heard of) and our cruising plans for the rest of this season.

Ahoy Kim & James

Sailing Zingaro – Live from Panama City

We’re giving back to the community that has made this adventure possible. We hit some major milestones this month: 1 million views, 20,000 subscribers, the Pacific!

In this livestream we discuss about transiting the Panama Canal, our cruising plans, Zingaro’s sails (old/new), travel to USA in April, thoughts on this channel after 1 year and about James’ sailing history …