While searching around for day trips from San Jose, came across one for a catamaran cruise to Tortuga Island. It’s on the west coast, and lies off the Southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.
So for $109/each, the tour company ( www.calypsotours.com ) provided
- Bus Transportation to and from San José
- Multilingual Guide
- Typical Costa Rican Breakfast
- BBQ lunch served with Chilled White Wine
- Soft Drinks and Fresh Fruit
- Live Music
- Snorkeling excursion
- Banana boat ride
Booze of course was extra.
So we got off the bus in Puntarenas (it’s also the cruise ship port on the west coast) at about 9:30 am and boarded the “Manta Ray”. It’s a power catamaran 71 feet long and 32 feet wide with 2 big hammocks between it’s two hulls. Took about 90 minutes to get to Tortuga and during that time we just hung out on the hammocks and enjoyed being out on the water and in the sun. The boat crew served us all kinds of fresh fruit and they made sure you always had something to drink. Beer at 10 am...you know it’s going to be a good day when that happens!
By the time we got to the island it got a bit overcast, that was disappointing but in hindsight, it was probably a good thing or else we would have fried. Tortuga Island is small, but it has a beautiful white sand beach which is why it’s a tourist attraction. Apparently you can go off and explore it a bit but we really didn’t have time to. As soon as we got there, they took us snorkeling just off of another nearby small island. If it had been really sunny, I’m sure the visibility would have been a lot better but we still saw some colorful fish. Not much else though.
Then, as soon as we got back from that, we had lunch. They transform a small section of the beach into this fancy looking outdoor restaurant. You’ll see how it looked in the pictures. Lunch was good, nothing incredibly special though.
Had about an hour after lunch to relax on the beach then we did a banana boat ride. We haven’t done that in about 20 years but since it was included in the price we figured why not. Got dumped 3 times but it wouldn’t have been a good ride if I didn’t get water up my nose at least once!
Went back to Puntarenas via a slight different route so got to see some different islands. Nice scenery that would have been much more stunning had it been sunny out. But it didn’t rain on us so that was good. Got back to port at about 5:30 and back to San Jose by 7:30 pm.
A long but very relaxing day on the water and at the beach. Pretty good value for the money and Dave liked the fact that he didn’t have to drive anywhere!