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Costa Rica Day Cruise Turns Into Nightmare As Catamaran Capsizes Early Thursday morning, 99 vacationers boarded the Pura Vida Princess, a 100-foot catamaran, at Playa Herradura on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast for an all inclusive day trip to Tortuga Island. Roughly 30 minutes later, at about 8:40 a.m., the ship issued a distress call and quickly sank in high winds and rough sea off the coast of the beach town of Punta Leona. Three passengers died. A total of 106 people, including the catamaran’s 10 crew members, were rescued. The victims were identified as Edna Oliver, a 68 year-old-U.S. woman, Ivor Stanley Hopkins, an 80-year-old British man, and Sharon Johnson, a 70-year-old Canadian woman, according to Vice President Ana Helena Chacón, show spoke during a late-afternoon press conference. The cause of the accident is under investigation by the Judicial Investigation Police and the Prosecutor’s Office, but unusually strong winds across Costa Rica this week are pointed to as a likely cause. Wernen Stolz, chief meteorologist with the National Meteorological Institute, said that gusts reached more than 60 kph. source: http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/01/08/a-costa-rica-day-cruise-turns-into-a-nightmare-as-catamaran-capsizes-leaving-3-dead