All Ashore That's Going Ashore

Reporting from Manzanillo, Mexico, May 12, 2025

Woke up in Costa Rica with this ship parked right next to us. Supposedly unarmed, but did we really want to take that chance?

It was the morning of April 28 and were about to be boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard, which is almost never a good thing.

All of us, the 250 Resident passengers of the Villa Vie Odyssey, had been warned that we’d have to get off the ship by 9 a.m. and might have to spend the day on shore in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, which the local kids, smart-ass punks that they are, pronounce as “Point Your Anus.”

(I can’t prove that last part. But I want it to be true.)

What is true is that the Odyssey was about to be crawling with U.S. Coast Guard inspectors, who supposedly had nothing to do with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Eagle, a tall-masted training ship, which happened to be docked RIGHT NEXT TO US!!! Coincidence?

This would be the first phase of U.S. inspections that would determine whether or not the Odyssey will be allowed into U.S. ports — starting with Honolulu on June 1. Odyssey management and crew members had been preparing for weeks. Doing drills. Doing repairs. Swabbing decks (with extra-strength swab). Reminding residents that if inspectors found any contraband in our cabins, we would immediately be sent to El Salvador (which, conveniently enough, was our next scheduled stop.)

The El Salvador Tourist Board really outdid themselves with this one. Free haircuts included.

The impending inspections were being characterized as make-or-break by Villa Vie executives, who were noticeably freaked out by the prospect of having Actual Government Agents sniffing around in their business, looking for reasons to prohibit their entry into waters of the U.S. of A. What if the plumbing had one of its intermittent disruptions? The wifi. The air conditioning. Oh, My God, what if the toilets and the pools and the bilge water system simultaneously ran amuck? What if the Captain forgot to wear pants? What if there was no decent beer in the Morning Light Lounge? (Ok, I made some of that up.)

Still, there was plenty to worry about. The lifeboat/tenders had only recently been fixed. At least one engine and one stabilizer was out of service. The rust-tinged pools and hot tubs had never worked properly. (And still don’t.) The AC in many cabins was puny to non-existent. (And still is.) And no one had to be reminded of how badly things had gone in Belfast last May — almost a year ago!! — when inspectors found fault after fault and the launch of the Odyssey had to be delayed by days, then weeks, then months. The massively expensive repairs and delays had blown a hole in Villa Vie’s budget that the company was still struggling to recoup. So, yeah, the stakes were significant.

In an abundance of caution/paranoia, Villa Vie not only required all of us to be off the ship by 9, they requested that we take any and all decorations off our doors, unplug any electrical appliances and “tidy up” our cabins before the inspectors arrived. I made sure my underpants were all in one pile.

I wasn’t happy about any of this, because generally speaking I’m never happy about anything but also because it would require me to a) wake up before noon and b) go outside before sunset. Villa Vie had assured us that comfortable arrangements would be made for our day in exile, that they’d find some place in Puntarenas where we could relax, with shade and possibly air-conditioning, with chairs and snacks and maybe even beer. There was talk of chartering a bus to take us to San Jose, a two-hour drive, for the afternoon.

None of that happened, of course. In the end, we were left to fend for ourselves, comforted only by what has become the unofficial Villa Vie motto: “We apologize for the inconvenience.” They should put it on t-shirts.

Determined not to get out of bed a single second earlier than required, I set my alarm for 8:50, slept in my cargo shorts and stumbled onto the gangway just before 9, blinded by the tropical sun, sweaty before I even made it off the pier. Other people seemed fine; bright, alert, making ambitious plans for the day. They were going to hike up volcanos and walk through cloud forests and, I don’t know, hug some monkeys.

I had plans of my own. They involved surviving a brutal 10-minute walk to the $30 hotel room I’d reserved the night before and going back to bed. Enjoy your monkey-hugging, morning people, I’ve got better things to do!

I needed the rest (Shut up!) because I’d had a rough couple of weeks. The Caribbean, which had pretty much scalded my brains in December, was even hotter the second time around. Not that there hadn’t been bright spots — a lovely microbrewery in Bonaire, a nighttime pub crawl in Cartagena, our second trip through the Panama Canal, where we once again eluded Chinese snipers and left cocaine vials on Manuel Noriega’s grave.

But I got cocky in Curacao. Because it was breezy, I decided I could handle a 20-minute late-afternoon walk from the ship to the Queen Emma Bridge, Willemstad’s most noteworthy tourist attraction/thrill ride, also known as The Swinging Old Lady.

It’s a propeller-driven pontoon bridge, built in 1888 across the entrance to St. Anna Bay. Instead of hinging upward, it moves sideways — like a gate — to allow vessels passage between the Bay and the Caribbean. Many drunk people and their children enjoy the ride. It is genuinely impressive, especially at night.

Here’s a live cam. It’ll move eventually. What, you have something better to do?

Just past the bridge — and let’s be honest, my actual destination — was the Swinging Old Lady Brewery, right there on the waterfront, with a lovely little terrace where you could partake of a Lap Dance Lager, a Waka Waka White Beer or, my selection, a West Coast Swing IPA. Famished from my exhausting 20-minute trek to get there, I also had a Pulled Piggy Burger (a pulled pork sandwich) with barbecue sauce and potato wedges. Why am I detailing my order? You’ll see.

It was a wonderful evening, the sun setting, the bridge swinging, the beer deliciously cold. I only had a couple of pints (ok, maybe three) but felt in no way impaired, other than by my general attitude. We — a couple of other Odysseans had joined me — enjoyed a leisurely nighttime stroll back to the ship.

But on the way, as we passed Sopranos Sport Bar & Pizzeria , I spotted a tv showing the NBA playoffs (which, in spite of many Villa Vie promises, are not yet viewable on the Odyssey). I sat down, ordered a horrible Amstel Bright beer, (because it would have been rude to not order anything at all) jammed a lime into the bottle and settled in to enjoy the game.

I was having a great time in Curacao. Until I wasn’t.

Events (and my stomach) took a sudden nasty turn. Was it the pulled pork? The spicy potato wedges? The lime in the horrible Amstel Bright? There was no time to ponder. I was on the express train to upchuck city, with a terminal nowhere in sight.

Actual photo of my night in Curacao.

The toilet wasn’t where it should have been, it wasn’t even in the bar. It was in an alleyway between Sopranos and the Rif Fort Renaissance Mall. I made it there just in time. There was purging. I drank water. I was fine. I went back to the game.

I was not fine. I was not fine approximately a half-dozen more times, 5 to 10 minutes apart, sometimes getting all the way to the alleyway bathroom, sometimes not. There is shrubbery nearby. Don’t go in there.

I ended up on a bench in front of the Harley-Davidson store, dehydrated to the point of delirium, a dry-heaving husk of my former self. That’s where Odyssey passengers Jack & Cindy LeConey found me, forced some ginger ale down my throat and rapidly concluded there was no way I’d make it to the ship — less than 10-minutes away — on my own. Jack went to the Odyssey medical center, procured a wheelchair and wheeled me back to the ship past horrified onlookers who surely assumed I was just another sweat-soaked, shitfaced tourist who’d had too many rum punches and lost the use of his legs. It happens.

There were IV’s involved after that, a long medicated night’s sleep and, the next day, a renewed vow that I would never leave the ship in daylight again, at least not until we get to Alaska.

But I survived the day in Puntarenas and didn’t even need a wheelchair. We were back on the ship by mid-afternoon, just ahead of a thunderstorm. I passed the Coast Guard inspectors on the pier. They didn’t seem unhappy.

And, according to Villa Vie CEO Kathy Villalba, they weren’t. A couple of days later she informed us that the Odyssey had passed the preliminaries with flying colors, with a few minor infractions that would have to be addressed before Honolulu, but nothing major. She wrote, and I quote:

“I’m thrilled to share a major milestone in our journey—Villa Vie Odyssey has successfully completed the Initial Certificate of Compliance inspection and is officially cleared to enter U.S. waters!”

She’s prone to overstatement, so it’s possible there are more issues than she’s willing to admit, but this was undoubtedly good news, the best we’d had in quite some time. Do I expect other things to go wrong before then? Of course, I do!!

But for now, let’s celebrate. Hey, I wonder what’s on the menu tonight. Oh, look! Pulled pork!!!!