Cruise Ship Diaries Part 14

One of the enduring ironies of working on a ship is that when you go ashore as a videographer many times you step off one ship straight onto another as was the way many times in Limon, Costa Rica.

Most of Costa Ricas tourism is based around rainforest and eco tours which meant most of the activites would be a long bus ride from the ship out into the middle of the rainforest. We'd be taken on bird spotting tours and taught all about how fruit and banana plantations work, so many banana plantations. After a few weeks of hearing the same information I'm fairly certain I could have given the tour to the guests with me!

I don't feel that I ever saw the best of Costa Rica during my time ashore there, this can be tempered by the fact that Limon was always the day after the Panama Canal shoot which was the most mentally and physically day of the cruise, which meant my burnout level was always pretty high the next day. Looking back through 4 months of pictures of Limon I could not find one sunny day and it was usually overcast and hot as balls all day long, the only brief respite from unrelenting heat would be a scheduled monsoon like downpour that happened every Limon without fail.

There was lots of widlife like our friendly Coatimundi above, as they get fed by the tourists they would come right up to us and demand food, and then a few of nervy passengers would start inching away!

I only had one Limon off when I was not filming and I'd had to ask for it as I had bought some very nice Bose speakers in Florida that would in no way fit into my luggage allowance and the cost of sending them from the States was almost as much as the cost of them. Fear not as my English but Spanis speaking roomate said 'why don't you just use the post office in Limon?'

I didn't even though there was a post office and not speaking Spanish didn't even think it was an option, Liam went in, sorted it out and it cost me about $40 and the speakers were back in England within 2 weeks! Not too shabby at all!

Christmas was coming and our manager Kat had arranged a team day out of white water rafting in Limon however despite working the last Limon I was suddenly working again on the day of the crew trip, to say I was not happy would be an understatement and its fair to say that my senior and I were not getting on very well at this point.

A few of the photogs would have missed it too because they'd have to shoot and print that days gangways pictures but Kat asked people who didn't mind and managed it so that if people wanted to go they could. By that same rationale that meant one of us videogs had to work, but if the schedule had been stuck to then I should have been off.

My best memory of Costa Rica was not from Limon but Punterarenas on one of the Corals cruises were the ports were changed due to bad weather, we'd already been to this port on the reposition cruise when I was by myself and I did the standard rain and bananas tour. My friend Amanda had manged to blag her way onto the Izaru volcano tour as it was her last cruise and I was massively jealous. 'I hope the weathers shit and you don't see anything' I joked...whoops! When she got back, the weather had been shit with torrential downpours and they hadn't even been able to see the volcano because of the conditions. I felt a little bad for cursing the day.

Now I had my chance and although a sunny day in Costa Rica was a little too much to ask it wasn't monsooning either!

After another friendly visit from a Coatamundi we ascended the volcano, and for my first volcano it definately wasn't what I expected. Cinema and TV train us to think of volcanos as lava spewing fiery deathtraps, so of course we woudn't be going anywhere near one like that! What we did get was a very strong smell of sulphur in the air, so the smell of a million farts is pretty close as well.

Yes, the above picture shows what a volcano crater is really like, it wasn't what I was expecting (thanks movies!) but the combination of smells and scenery was really cool.

From the time we arrived a fog had started to roll in and we were lucky to get the good weather we did, but even better from a videogs POV is that the fog really started to hit us right as we were due to leave which made for a pefect end to the video and also gave this great picture as well.

Overall I don't think I saw the best of Costa Rica in the limited time I had there, you find that sometimes even when you go ashore to film every port of call you end up going to the same place or a really similar variation on the tour your on. And it will be too soon if i never have to go to another fucking banana plantation!

On the next cruise diaries - Christmas on the Coral