Boot from different startup disk AND in safe or recovery mode
The rEFInd Boot Manager will allow you to select to boot from a recovery volume. 

Use the following steps to install rEFInd.


Boot back to OS X 10.8.5.
Download  rEFInd.
Assuming you have downloaded rEFInd to your Downloads folder,  you can install rEFInd by entering the following commands in a Terminal application window.

cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.4
sudo ./refind-install

Restart your Mac.
From options shown on the rEFInd menu, select to boot from a recover volume.


If you change the default so the Mac no longer boots to rEFInd, then following commands can be entered from OS X 10.8.5 to change the default back to rEFInd.

cd ~
mkdir efi
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 efi
sudo bless --mount efi --setBoot --file efi/EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi --shortform
sudo umount efi
rmdir efi


rEFInd can be removed by using the following commands.

cd ~
mkdir efi
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 efi
cd efi/EFI
rm -r refind tools
cd ~
sudo umount efi
rmdir efi