SV Sine Timore: Got to be moving on...

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

We have been in Bahia for almost two weeks now, hard as that is to believe. Every day is much the same as the last. We wake up, I make coffee, we catch up on the latest Internet gossip, we take the dinghy into town to get enough groceries to last us a day or two. We may stop for breakfast or lunch somewhere but more often it is tuna sandwiches on the boat. I scrub the decks until I get discouraged, then spend the rest of the day reading or just walking around town. In the evening we watch a movie or TV show from our vast collection, then get lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat as the tide sweeps into the estuary. It is definitely time for us get going.

Most of our days have been less than productive but there have been some positives too. We have had a chance to catch up with some new and old cruising friends and hear about their exciting plans - our plans seem very lame in comparison. The weather has been perfect, with some sun and generally benign temperatures considering we are sitting right on the equator. There are quite a few ex-pat "snow birds" staying in town - a lot more than we saw back in May and June.

November 27th was American thanksgiving and Tripp (the owner of the marina) put on a big spread to celebrate. It was basically a pot luck affair except for the turkeys which were provided by the marina. I guess this is an annual event here and everybody in town seems to show up. They are not shy about rushing for the food either; fortunately there was plenty to go around.

Outside of the ongoing task of cleaning the boat, the only things I have managed to accomplish in the last couple.of days is to, hopefually, solve my engine temperature monitoring situation. I have installed a new temperature overheating alarm switch and a new matched temperature sender and gauge (all acquired at the Isuzu dealer in Edmonton). The new gauge looks quite different from the old one although it is the same brand. I ran the engine for a half an hour to get it good and hot and, as you can see from the accompanying photo, it shows the expected 180 degrees dead on. I really cannot test the overheating alarm but cannot see any reason why it shouldn't work fine too.

My other major effort has been on the anti-pelican front. After getting the majority of the bird crap off the boat (not all but a lot better than when we arrived), Susanne came up with a battle plan. The idea is to make our pulpit a less inviting perch. I call it the plastic tie defence. So far it appears to be working.

Today two of our friend's boats left on the morning high tide, one heading for Panama and the other for the Galápagos Islands. A couple of the other boats are getting ready to leave as well. Soon it could get very lonely here. Thus, we have finally made some plans for getting out of here ourselves. Next Tuesday we will take a bus to the city of Guayaquil where we will catch a late afternoon flight to Santiago in Chile. We booked a cheap hotel for a week and will decide later where we go from there. We are getting a little excited at the thought of being on the move again - let the adventure continue...