Your skipper beaches the boat on sand so pale it could be mistaken for crushed oyster shells. Behind you, the Gulf of Nicoya stretches flat and silver; ahead, the bay tucks itself between headlands thick with buttonwood and howler monkeys that grumble in the canopy. No signs, no umbrellas, no WiFi.
“This sheltered crescent on a sparsely inhabited island remains known only to fishermen and the occasional yacht captain.”
Credit: Unsplashaerial view of green trees near body of water during daytime
You wade ashore and the water is bathwater-warm, stained amber from tannins leaching out of the mangroves upstream. The shore curves sharply, hiding the rest of the beach until you round the first outcrop. Frigate birds wheel overhead, their scissor tails black against the white sky. A wooden fishing dory lies inverted beneath a sea-grape tree, its paint blistered and peeling.
By midday the heat presses down and you move into the shade, where the sand is cooler and smells faintly of salt and rotting leaves. The only sounds are wavelets lapping, the distant put-put of an outboard, and your own breathing. When the boat returns at four, you're reluctant to leave.
