Puerto Limon (Costa Rica)

Puerto Limon is the primary/main seaport of Costa Rica's Limon Province. By population (around 60,000) the city is ranked the country's 7th-largest. The town was founded in 1870, and part of its population traces its roots to Jamaican, Chinese, and Italian laborers who worked on a late 19th-century railroad (connecting Puerto Limon with San Jose). Until 1948, Costa Rica didn't recognize Afro-Caribbeans as citizens, so their movement outside the province was restricted.

Just offshore are located two small-sized islands - Isla de Pajaros, and Isla Uvita.

According to the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ITC-Instituto Costarricense de Turismo), during the season 2018-2019, Puerto Limon's terminal (Hernan Garron Salazar) handled a total of 193,733 cruise ship tourists (passengers and crew).

Until 2018, as a cruise shore excursion option from Puerto Limon were offered guided bus tours to the capital city of San Jose (road distance is ~160 km / 100 mi). However, due to the bad roads, traffic and mountains, it takes minimum 4 hours to drive (each way) between Puerto Limon and San Jose. This requires the ships to stay in Puerto Limon much longer than usual (~12 hours), so San Jose is usually visited from Puntarenas.

Puerto Limon port

Puerto Limon-Moin port (locode CRLIO) has two cargo terminals (named "Moín" and "Limon"), which handle Costa Rica's shipping exports and imports (bulk and containership cargoes), as well as docking of cruise vessels.

In October 2015, the Holland-based container terminal operator company "APM Terminals" announced its plans to turn its Port Limon-Moin facility into a regional hub for cargo shipped in reefers (refrigerated containers).

• Through this project, APM Terminals Moin allocated around 70% of the container terminal for refrigerated cargo storage (mainly for fresh fruits/pineapples and bananas) exported from Costa Rica to Europe and North America.
• Also in 2015, APM Terminals Moin signed a contract for 6x STS cranes (electric) plus 29x Rubber Tire Gantry Cranes (electric), all delivered in 2018.
• Costa Rica is the largest exporter of pineapples in the world, as well as the world's 3rd-largest exporter of bananas. Pineapples and bananas are approx 13% of Costa Rica's all exports. Other major exports include sugar, coffee, and beef. Much of the agricultural and meat products are exported in reefers (temperature-controlled containers).
• Port Limon-Moin is ranked Latin America's 13th and Central America's 4th largest container port, with an annual shipping volume of around 1,3 million TEUs (containers, statistics 2015). The port's annual reefer container volumes are expected to double by 2030 - up to 600,000 TEUs.

A dredging project (for the port's access channel and turning basin) resulted in deepening the harbor, now allowing the access of larger vessels with drafts up to 16 m (53 ft). The port's development also included construction of a new breakwater (length 1,5 km / 0,9 mi), a new container yard (sized 40 hectares) and a new cargo quay (length 600 m / 1970 ft) with 2 berths (equipped with 6x large-capacity gantry cranes / serving post‐Panamax vessels).

After these development projects were completed, the upgraded container terminal now covers an area of 80 hectares (0,8 km2), 1,5 km (0,9 mi) quay length (5 berths total), 2,2 km (1,4 mi) long breakwater and access channel draft 18 m (59 ft).

Puerto Limon cruise terminal