When Things Fall Apart – Again

April 28, 2010.

Marina Papagayo, Costa Rica. About noon. A small thunderstorm began grumbling to the NE and made its way over the E side of Bahia Culebra. Marina Papagayo is located on the W side of Bahia Culebra so nothing much was happening over our way but in an abundance of caution we unplugged the laptop from the 12V supply. All other instruments were off anyway. Nothing else to do but to let it rain.

There may have been a few raindrops. I forget exactly. Soon it was 2pm. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash of white light and

POW!

GB & I jumped. Looked at each other. Said, "WOW that was close!" (We've been very close to lots of lightning before – I've even sat on the companionway steps to watch the light show of a typical Mazatlan August night – but never before have either of us ever seen or heard the likes of that Costa Rican thunderbolt. The color and intensity of the light, the sound, and the suddenness was…unique.)

After our hearts resumed a normal rate we didn't smell anything burning, the cable TV was still on (ah, marina life!), and our drinks hadn't spilled. So, we thought all was well. Until we saw a lot of marina staff activity on a ketch berthed a couple slips over from us. We learned our lightning bolt had hit them directly. Made a big ball of black smoke, blew out practically all of their instruments. Ouch.

It eventually occurred to us to check our own instruments.

Hmmm. Lookie here: no GPS. No autopilot, no wind instruments of any kind. No anchor light. No display on the nav station, only partial displays & backlighting in cockpit panel. No battery charger. Anything that included a wee computer in it, no longer functioned.

Oh, darn.

On the upside, the radar, VHF, SSB & depth sounder (cockpit display only) seemed intact. Ditto the helm's compass, incandescent tricolor, steaming & nav lights. The very-recently-repaired alternator still functioned. Which is nice. Fun fact: it seems lightning strikes – at least, the electromagnetic pulse from a nearby strike that we'd experienced – destroys LED circuitry but not incandescent bulbs.

It was just one lightning strike. We've experienced nothing since in Costa Rica. But there we were: without a battery charger and most of our navigation instruments. Plus no fridge. And since we were tied up to a slip in a very fancy marina with more amenities than we knew what to do with, we thought it would be a good idea to order replacement boat parts from the US, and pronto.

Marina Papagayo was very helpful. They converted our moorage from a daily to a monthly rate, cutting our dockage expenses in half. The buyer for their marina and the resort's restaurant kindly took our grocery list on her usual shopping trip and delivered food to our boat when we needed it. The marina allowed us to store frozen items in one of their freezers. All this, while we continued to take advantage of the well equipped onshore gym, marble-lined showers, and pool. If you have to sustain boat damage, you might as well be in a place like this.

Marina Papagayo came to the rescue yet again with the contact info for American Export, a shipper of cargo from Miami to pretty much any marina there is in Costa Rica, and a few in Panama besides. We learned from American Export that if we ordered our replacement parts and had them shipped to American Export's Miami warehouse, they'd handle it from there. And handle it, they did. American Export could have delivered our shipment to the boat in 24 hours, except Costa Rica Customs took half of Friday off in honor of the new president's inauguration, and they're closed for business anyway on weekends. Bottom line: even with the delays, American Export got the cargo shipped in 3-1/2 business days from Miami, through Costa Rica Customs in San Jose, to our boat out on the Pacific coast. That, my friends, is fast service – a total of $7000 and about 75lb. in boat parts, for which we paid only $541.75 for shipping and Costa Rica taxes and Customs duties (we're told Customs duty can go as high as 29% for replacement boat parts). Considering the circumstances, the results are pretty optimal.

Now all GB has to do is install everything and see if it works…

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