First thing this morning I sent Desirea an e-mail asking if she wanted to walk. Immediately she let me know she and Kealy were headed out to fish at Punta Mala, and I was invited :)
Punta Mala is a 45 minute walk up the beach. While I was waiting for them, I shot the photo of Sunny and Harley on the beach and Mainor's boats in the morning sunlight.
On the way we passed an area where water often flows from the hills during the rainy season. Right now it is very dry but apparently full of crocodiles....This was the most tracks I have ever seen there. Crocs in the ocean the past few days and now here...yikes.
When we got out to the reef we were the only ones there who were not tico. All the fishermen had hand lines which is the most common way to fish here. Kealy was the only one with a rod. Standing up high on the bluff, several times we saw a rooster headed for the bait but they just didn't hit. When the reel started having an issue, we decided to call it quits. On the way out, the guys - most of them I know.....wanted to show off their catch - all Roosters :)
This was one of those mornings, sitting in the sun with ocean slamming into the reef below, friends all around...the frigates and pelicans swarming above.... in that moment I took it all in, breathed deep, sent out a silent thank you for just being........
Pura Vida
Yesterday morning Elizabeth got a call telling her Channel 11, the number one TV station in Costa Rica, would be in Esterillos TODAY to interview us and Abilio. As soon as I got that message - panic set it!
We were told the man who conducts the interview would be picking up Abilio in his home town Puriscal which is in the hills above San Jose. He, Abilio and the camera man would be in Esterillos by noon. I knew high tide was going to be almost exactly 12:00 noon and told Elizabeth. She told the people who contacted her but it didn't make any difference. Sure enough - all 3 men were here by 12:15. Once they got here, everyone realized there was no way there could be an interview because there was no way we could get out to La Sirena. It would be a couple more hours before the tide went out and we could make the trek over the very slippery reef.
So......they left and told us they would be back by 3:30. Both Elizabeth and I were stressed at the thought of this interview and now we had several more hours to worry about it. Now that it is done, we will surely laugh about this in the future - but those 3 hours of waiting were painful :) To provide a distraction we went to lunch at Vago's, laughed at how silly we were being so afraid, whined, complained, actually wrote out what we might say. Even baby was upset, moving all over the place.
Finally - 3:30 came, then 4. Elizabeth had told them she needed to pick her daughter up from pre-school in Jaco by 5. She was sitting there giving me that smile just hoping they would be late. 4:25 they arrived - yeaaaaah - Elizabeth had been able to escape.
And so we all made the trek - Elizabeth and I, Abilio, Don Fernando who owns the hotel La Sirena and is the man who asked Abilio to make the mermaid over 20 years ago. Other family members of the Fernando Mora family came out as well as people on the beach. Elizabeth was the first interview and then she left. After her was Abilio and then a number of other people.
We were all out there until the sun went down with just enough light to get us off the reef. One more monumental day - one more day closer to getting her fixed.
Pura Vida
