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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