SV Sine Timore: Back in Bahia

Bahia de Caraquez, Equador

On a rainy Wednesday in Quito, we got out of town.

Before, when we took the bus to Bahia, we were able to leave from the Riena del Camino bus terminal, located just a short distance from our hotel. This time however, although we could still buy our tickets there, all of their buses now leave from the main terminal, way off in the south end of the city. So, on Wednesday, we had to take an hour long taxi ride from the hotel to the terminal before we could actually start our journey to the coast. Fortunately, while it was raining at the hotel, it was clear at the bus terminal, so waiting outside with all of our bags was no problem.

Our bus left Quito at 1 PM. We were treated to the usual spectacular scenery as we wound our way down through the mountainous terrain, arriving in Bahia at 8:30PM. We grabbed a taxi for the short ride to the Puerto Amistad marina, where we met our good friends, David and Gitte, at the restaurant. We had some supper at the restaurant, and then they gave us a ride to our boat. It was too dark to see what state the boat was in, so we just crashed for the night.

In the morning, we started to discover just how well Sine Timore had weathered our 5-month absence. There was some good news and some bad news.

On the exterior, everything seems to be intact. However, the pelicans have wreaked havoc with the pulpit and the decks. It is hard to believe a few birds can cause this much of a mess. I spent half the day just getting some of the thicker encrustations off - it is going to take a lot more work to make it look presentable again.

Our batteries have taken a bit of a beating. My great plan of just leaving a single solar panel alive to keep a trickle charge on the house bank was apparently not enough. The house bank, made up of our brand new batteries, acquired in Panama, were down to 11.2 volts, with the battery monitor tellling us they were at 4% charge - basically dead. Upon investigation, it appears that the windlass battery, with which we had some charging issues back in Panama, is completely dead (3 volts). This was causing a huge drain, via the duo-charge unit that should have kept the batteries isolated, on the main bank, which accounts for why they were also so low. The only bright spot was the starter battery which had a full charge and was quite happy to start the engine for us. I ran the engine for an hour, then ran the Honda generator off and on for the next two days, to try and get the house bank out of the red. Those new batteries seem to be recovering fine, but the windlass battery is probably toast. It is a good thing we are on a mooring and not relying on the anchor windlass to retrieve the anchor right now.

One of my first jobs was to get our outboard motor working, with some of the parts we brought back from Canada. It was a quick job to replace the intake manifold with the new one, then re-connect the carburetor, etc.. It took longer to just get all the bird crap off of it. I re-inflated the dinghy and we launched it and put the motor on. The motor works, although it still won't idle for me. At least we are mobile again.

The inside of the boat fared pretty well. We have a little mildew in some new places as a result of having everything shut up for so long, but Susanne is making short work of that. Overall, not too bad at all.

Yesterday, we took time off from our cleaning to pay a visit to the nearby town of Canoa, about 20km north of here. Some good friends, Jeff and Judy, who we met back in El Salvador, were in town on a road-trip. We met them for breakfast, then they drove us to Canoa for the day. This place boasts the best beach in Ecuador and is a popular vacation spot for people from the big cities. It is a little rustic but has some newer houses and condos spread out along the beach as well. This place would probably be an extremely popular international destination if it was not for the limited number of sunny days. Like Bahia, Canoa is overcast much of the time - that is what gives it such nice temperatures, but it also seems a little dreary to us. Note: Since we have been back, we have had only a few hours of sunshine, usually in late afternoon - the rest of the time it is overcast and looks like threatening rain, although as yet we have not seen a drop. The temperature during the day is in the high 20s, falling to around 20 at night. With the light breezes we are getting, it has been pretty comfortable for sleepting.

Today, we spent the whole day on the boat, doing some further cleaning and trying to figure out just where to put everything - both are seeming like impossible tasks right now. The batteries are almost up to a full charge now, so maybe we can watch a movie tonight.