EXPLORATIONS AT SEA
ON a vivid day in early March, I am paddling a kayak through a rising tide on the Golfo Dulce, the body of water that runs along the remote Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica. Before me is the mouth of the Río Platanares . The air is 34° Celsius, but the heat is cut by a light breeze. Cicadas whir in surround sound over a gentle chorus of wind-rustled palm fronds and small waves. An osprey sails overhead, then a blue heron, then a pair of white herons.
I’m with a group of fellow passengers from the Wind Star, a four-masted sailing yacht owned and operated by Windstar Cruises. We enter the Platanares, which soon narrows until it is hardly wider than my paddle, forcing us into a single-file line. Everyone falls silent as we glide beneath the delicious shade of the mangrove canopy. Here and there, I’m forced to duck under a low-hanging tendril.
Like a lot of people who go on cruises, I had come on this one because I needed a break. Work had been harrowing, and I hadn’t been on a vacation in more than two years. I yearned for the sort of spiritual replenishment only genuine adventure can provide—and that’s what Windstar’s 10-day itinerary promised. The route runs through th e Panama Canal and up the Pacific coast of Panama and Costa Rica, with stops in ports of call I’d never heard
