B2G - Day 2

9AM Position Report

Nothing very exciting.

At 10AM yesterday morning, the wind dropped to less than 5 knots and we elected to start up the engine to try and make some headway. We motored, with the main up, until 7AM this morning, keeping the RPM low to try and conserve fuel, averaging a little more than 4 knots. The seas remained very quiet, with swells less than 3 feet, and no winds over 5 knots. In the early morning hours we encountered about a knot of west-setting current that slowed us down considerably, however the wind came up to 8 to 9 knots and we were able to turn off the engine and start sailing on a broad reach at around 2 knots. We are not getting anywhere fast.

Last evening, a red-footed booby (bird) landed on our starboard spreader and spent the night crapping on our solar panels - it was a real mess this morning! This morning, when he relocated to our pulpit, I was able to go up and push him off and he reluctantly flew off somewhere else for now.

Distance made good so far is 168 nautical miles. A long way yet to go.

{GMST}01|53.8|N|081|29|W|B2G - Day 2|B2G - Day 2{GEND}

Passage from Bahia to Golfito - Day 1

9AM Position Report

Well, we did get away from Bahia de Caraquez yesterday morning. The Health Inspector, the Port Captain and our Pilot all arrived at the boat at the same time, in the pouring rain. After answering a few skill-testing questions (eg: Do you have any Bread? Any eggs? A GPS? Fire Extinguishers? Milk? Fruit? Life Jackets?, Expired Medicine?, etc. etc. etc.) we were allowed to leave. The pilot lead us through the maze of sandbars, still in a heavy rain shower, sometimes seeing water depths of only 7 feet, and were out of harms way by 10AM.

For the first 4 hours, we motored into very light winds, light rain and about a knot of contrary current. Then the rain stopped and we put up our favorite combination of sails, a double-reefed main and full Genoa, and sailed in very light winds at very slow speeds right up until this morning. A nice sized pod of jumping dolphins joined us for a short while but were frustrated with our slow pace. All in all, we made good only 75 miles of our 590 mile passage - at this rate it will take us 8 or 9 days to get to Golfito. At least we have not used a lot of diesel so far.

We crossed back into the northern hemisphere at 2:25AM last night.

Right now the skies are completely overcast, with no rain, the seas are relatively calm and the crew has not been sick. Overall, not too shabby a beginning.

{GMST}00|20.07|N|080|56.82|W|B2G - Day 1|B2G - Day 1{GEND}

You want to leave when?

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

 

Tuesday has come and gone and we are still here. Pretty much par for the course for cruising in Latin America.

 

Apparently it takes at least 4 business days to process the paperwork necessary to check us out of the country. Since we only started this process last Friday, this means we should be able to leave tomorrow, which is Thursday, only a couple of days later than we planned. It is a good thing that we are in no particular rush and that we still have a couple of weeks left on our Ecuadorian visas.

 

BTW: We have decided to head for Costa Rica instead of Panama.  It just makes more sense since we are ultimately headed towards El Salvador this year.  Our intended course is basically a sraight shot from Bahia in Ecuador to Golfito in Coata Rica, a distance of about 575 nautical miles.  It seems as if we are going the wrong way - almost all of the boats that we hear on the local radio nets are headed for either the Galápagos Islands or the South Seas.  We are just not sure we are ready to tackle such a crossing right now; or possibly ever.

We have made use of the extra time to finish off our provisioning, making a trip yesterday to the local market for some fresh, unrefrigerated produce - keeps better on a long passage.

 

A bird spotted at the market

Right now, the weather forecasts for the next week look a little bleak. The crossing from here to Costa Rica is experiencing a period of almost zero winds, and the currents are either non-existent or somewhat contrary to our purposes. On the plus side, the ocean swells should be very light, with very little wind-wave action as well. Looks like we will be doing a lot of motoring, not that that is anything new for us; we must be the lamest sailors ever!

Having said all that, what the forecasts say and what is really out there could be totally different.

Some last looks at Bahia de Caraquez

 

Today, we are sitting on the boat, playing a waiting game for our checkout paperwork, agriculture inspection, port captain inspection, etc. If everything falls into place, we will be leaving the estuary around 9AM tomorrow, in order to catch the high slack tide. We have our fingers crossed.

 

{GMST}00|36.367|S|080|25.383|W|Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador|Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador{GEND}

 

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Ecuadorean Carnaval

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

 

This is rainy season in Bahia. Some days, the clouds move in and we get some rain, then the next day could be bright and sunny. Generally it is a lot warmer and drier than the west coast of Canada during the winter.

 

Overall nothing to complain about.

 

Suddenly it was "Carnaval" time in Bahia. For 5 days, starting last Friday and ending on Tuesday, our sleepy little town was transformed into party central. All of the otherwise abandoned-looking condos were completely booked, the normally vacant beaches were packed with people and there was loud music and merriment until the early hours of every morning. We had no idea the town could be transformed this way.

There were also a few fireworks thrown in for good luck.

 

This only works at high tide

Now the excitement is over and everything is back to normal, which means we have to get back to our tough job of deciding where we are going from here. Right now we have narrowed down our choices to either sailing to the Perlas islands in Panama, then on to Panama City, or heading directly to Costa Rica. The distance is about the same either way. The deciding factor will be the winds and currents. At the time of writing this, it appears we are entering a period of very light winds for the forseable future, except possibly in the gulf of Panama, where it promises to be coming from exactly the wrong direction.

Regardless of which way we end up going, we are planning on leaving next Tuesday. Also regardless of which way we go, we hope to make our way back to El Salvador in a couple of months, where we feel more confident of leaving the boat for a while.

 

Sine Timore, as seen from the bar at Puerto Amistad Marina

 

{GMST}00|36.367|S|080|25.383|W|Puerto Amistad Marina|Puerto Amistad Marina{GEND}

 

 

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Sweating in Bahia

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

We have been back in Bahia for a week now. Major decisions have to be made.

The first thing we discovered is that we are no longer able to handle heat and humidity. We remember back when we arrived in Bahia last May, coming from Panama, how much cooler we found it here, and it probably still is. But this time we arrived from Chile and Argentina, where it was sometimes hot but rarely so humid. Also disconcerting are the shorter days, back to the 6 AM sunrise and 6 PM sunset of the equator.

It is rainy season here but so far we have only had a couple of decent downpours. Most of the time we have seen at least some sunshine each day. Our solar has been able to keep up with all of our demands.

The boat seems to have fared OK during our absence, except that my attempt at pelican-proofing the bowsprit was a complete failure. The accompanying picture was taken after several hours of cleaning - I don't think it will ever be the same again.

The batteries fared much better this time, with the solar keeping the house bank at a full charge the entire time. We already knew that the windlass battery was toast before we left in December, so job one was to find a replacement - there was no way we were leaving here without a good working anchor windlass. We anticipated a challenging journey to the nearby town of Manta or possibly all the way back to Quito to source a suitable battery. However, by some sort of miracle, a new "Hiper Market" opened here in Bahia during our absence (think Superstore). It is only about 2 blocks from the marina and when we paid a visit, I spotted this amazing display of batteries. Admittedly they are not high-tech deep-cycle AGMs or anything, but really all I need for a windlass battery is a maintenance-free battery with enough capacity and the right dimensions to fit in the space I have for it. A brand new Bosch 34HP-980 fit the bill exactly.

Outside of just general organization and cleanup, the other main jobs on my list were; getting the bottom of the boat cleaned, topping up the water and diesel, and some routine maintenance of the usual trouble spots on the boat. The bottom cleaning was done by a couple of young guys from the marina, we got purified water delivered for a cost of $2 per 5 US gallons. As a foreigner, we have to pay a premium for fuel, which set us back $1.50 per US gallon (50 cents Cdn per litre).
One item that Susanne noticed was that one our main turning blocks for our jib-sheet line on the port side of the boat had stopped turning. Indeed it had totally ceased up and the line was wearing a groove in the pulley. I have no idea why this thing seems to be disintegrating while the identical block on the starboard side seems fine, but I was able to get it working for now - a replacement could be hard to find around here so hopefully it will hang on for a while yet.

What little is left of the nut

Water delivery

Diesel Delivery

At this point we are just about ready to leave Bahia, but we are having some serious second thoughts about our plan for the season. Originally we had thought we would just reverse our course from last spring and return to Panama City, via the Perlas islands this time, then return here again in May. We thought we had found an almost perfect spot here for leaving the boat but recent events have got us a little concerned.

Over the last few months, the marina has had some issues with moorings breaking loose and causing some damage to the boats - if that were to happen to our mooring during a flood tide, our boat would be quickly swept into the bridge next door and I am sure that would be the end of it. More concerning recently however is a series of thefts that are happening to boats around us, with equipment and money being stolen from locked boats, appearing to be an inside job, but no one seems to know who is doing it. On top of that, the marina has decided on a big increase to the rates here; hard to justify when the security seems to be getting worse. We are not sure we want to come back.

Rainy season

Meanwhile, Susanne is busy cooking up a storm, preparing some passage meals that we can keep in the freezer. The new supermarket has sure made the task of re-provisioning a lot easier. Rather that a big shopping trip, we have been making almost daily walks to the store, buying only what we can carry each time. If we do need to buy anything heavier or bulkier, a taxi ride to the marina is only $2.00.

We should be ready to leave sometime next week, weather permitting, and depending on where we are going, of course.

The bridge is pretty but now looks threatening

{GMST}00|36.367|S|080|25.383|W|Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador|Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador{GEND}

Stopover

Guayaquil, Ecuador

Today's adventure consisted of flying from Santiago to Guayaquil, this time via Lima in Peru. Much quicker than our route through Bogota when we went the other way.

Over the last few days we said goodbye to the city of Santiago, which we have actually grown quite fond of. Maybe we just got used to it. We tried to visit the Museo Moda but found it was closed until May, spending the bulk of the day at a nearby very upscale mall - took in an afternoon movie while we were there. We explored some more of the city via the subway, visiting an artisans market at the end of the line.

 

 

 

 

 

Our view of the huge Guayaquil bus terminal
as seen from the Airport Holiday Inn

Today we arrived In Guayaquil in the early afternoon and decided we would stay overnight and take a bus to Bahia de Caraquez tomorrow morning. That way we will arrive during the daylight hours - no need to try and wake up the night watchman to beg a ride to our boat.

{GMST}2|8.9985|S|079|53.022|W|Guayaquil, Ecuador|Guayaquil, Ecuador{GEND}

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