Puerto Amistad, Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

0 36.511 S, 80 25.371 W, Puerto Amistad, Bahia de Caraquez

Monday morning we went into the office and Veronica helped us check in. It was easy, almost one stop shopping. The costs for check in were as follows:

Pilot                  - $30,
Health inspection and certificate - $5 - he came to the boat
Immigration      - $20, plus $40 for taxi to/from
Port Captain     - $40,
Agent               - $50
Boat extension - $100, to allow Windarra to remain in Ecuador for up to 1 year.

Boat that delivered the pilot in front of Bahia de Caraquez

Rich in front of Puerto Amistad

We provided the documentation to Veronica, she scanned it and sent it to the applicable agencies, and then she took our passports to immigration to have them stamped and to get our tourist visa. The only 'travelling' we had to do was to take the health inspector out to the boat and back. This was so much easier compared to Panama in large part due to the efforts of Tripp, one of the owners of Puerto Amistad Yacht Club. Tripp is an ex-cruiser who met a lovely lady from Columbia and the two of them came to Ecuador and with another couple started Puerto Amistad almost 9 years ago. Tripp definitely understands what cruisers need and want and he does a lot to provide it. Our mooring fee includes access to the very nice dingy dock (puts Las Brises to shame), wi-fi, showers and nightly security that patrols the boats. There is also laundry services, plus diesel, propane, bottom cleaning, deck cleaning. The yacht club also has a restaurant and bar open for lunch and dinner. So far, this is a great place to leave our boat while we do some travelling.

Windarra on mooring at Puerto Amistad

Tuesday we walked into town. We stopped at Claro, one of the cell providers in Ecuador, and we purchased a Sim chip for my Iphone, 5$ for the chip, $14 for 300Mb of internet download. You can recharge this at grocery stores, banks and Claro shops. So we will try it out. We also checked out one of the local grocery stores and took a walk around the point to have a landside view of the entrance to the bay. It was close to low tide and we saw a lot of exposed sand.

Today, Wednesday, we took in some laundry to be done and made airline reservations for the first part of our trip back to the US. Rich had some diesel delivered to the boat and he filled the aft tank and most of the forward tank. We will also have the water tanks topped off as well before we leave.

Even though we are very near the equator, the days are cooler and the nights are even cooler. The Humboldt current coming up the western South American coast, moderates the temperatures in Ecuador. Last night I even used a blanket which I have not used on the boat since we left the US in 2011.

I am trying to put in some of the photos from Panama so you may want to look at our previous posts.

Standby for more adventures.

Passage to Ecuador, Arrival

0 36.511 S, 80 25.371 W, Puerto Amistad, Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador

We are thankful that another passage is behind us and that we arrived safely. It took a little longer than we expected but we are here now. All total it was 613 miles in 120 hours or about 5.1 nautical miles per hour. Our best 24 hour distance was 134 nautical miles.

Yesterday we tried to make as much progress as we could. The previous night we had to motor as the wind had died, there was an adverse current and sloppy seas which made the going slow. As we rounded Punta Galera we decided to stay close to shore with the hope we would be less affected by the current. This worked for quite a while. At one point three large humpback whales surfaced within a boat length of us. We did have the engine on so they could hear us but we watched them carefully. They dove and that was the last we saw them.

At 10:36 pm last night we crossed the equator for our second time. We did not perform any ceremony and I am not sure if there is one for crossing the second time. If you find one, please let us know what the tradition is.

Since we would not be arriving on Saturday in time for the high tide, we slowed our pace and arrived at the Virtual buoy and the waiting room waypoints around 8:30 am this morning. Puerto Amistad is a mooring field up a river. The river entry is not marked by buoys as the shifting slit changes the depths frequently, so we waited for the pilot to come out to the boat at one hour before the high tide to direct us in. Rich steered following the pilot's directions. At one point we were a short distance from the beach where people are swimming but the depth increased shortly thereafter. We are now on a mooring and the current depth is 3.5 meters. There is a bridge behind us so there is no going any farther up the Rio Chone. But the water is calm, the boat barely moves and we are looking forward to a nice, long, restful night of sleep. The air is cooler even though we are just south of the equator so maybe we will not have to run the fans either.

Tomorrow we will check into Ecuador and find out the 'lay of the land', and some of the many things that cruiser want to know when they arrive such as where is the ATM, is there wifi, where is the grocery store, is there a laundry and for how much, can we get fuel, can we get potable water to the boat, etc, etc. We will let you know how it goes.

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Passage to Ecuador, Day 3

4 11.674 N, 79 41.619 W
Winds 10-13, Seas 2-3 ft swell, 1-2ft chop, Bsp 5.8, SOG 6.8

The weather has cleared up some and we are enjoying a pleasant sail south. We hope it will last. This morning we found a flying fish having gasped its last on the deck. We also had more dolphins join us for a while.

Not much else to report. We are of course anxious to arrive in Ecuador.

Elaine and Rich

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Passage to Ecuador, Day 3

4 11.674 N, 79 41.619 W
Winds 10-13, Seas 2-3 ft swell, 1-2ft chop, Bsp 5.8, SOG 6.8

The weather has cleared up some and we are enjoying a pleasant sail south. We hope it will last. This morning we found a flying fish having gasped its last on the deck. We also had more dolphins join us for a while.

Not much else to report. We are of course anxious to arrive in Ecuador.

Elaine and Rich

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Passage to Ecuador day 2

5 51.352 N, 79 42.892 W

Last night we had tremendous thunder and lightening. I counted 600 flashes during my 2 3-hour watches. Some were large forks hitting the horizon.

It's raining, it's pouring

Today we had winds from 3 knots to 28 knots with large sloppy seas and lots of rain. We were positively drenched so we put on our foulies. It has been a long time since we have done that. Now the winds are at 5 knots but we don't have an adverse current so we are making some headway. We covered 125 miles in our first 24 hour period.

Rich saw a killer whale pass us this afternoon. Interesting. Not much else out here but container ships and boobies.

Are we there yet?

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Passage to Ecuador day 1

7 29.400 N, 79 18.194 W

Three Sheets gave us a Bon Voyage dinner last night. We had a great time and we will miss them.

We waved goodbye to Reg and Phoebe

 

This morning we were anchor up at 8:40 am and on our way. We started by motoring but soon added our sails which is nice for a change. With a positive current we made good time. There have been squalls occasionally but they don't last for long. For a while some dolphins joined us which is great unless they are saying "So long and thanks for all the fish".

There has been very little traffic which is nice and we hope that will continue through the night. We have been trying to balance southern and western vectors to use the wind and position ourselves for the rest of the passage.

Cheers,
Elaine and Rich

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Isla Pedro Gonzales

8 24.024 N, 79 04.934 W

On Saturday the crews of Windarra and Three Sheets took a dingy ride to a small islet about a mile and a half from the anchorage. It was a great place to look for shells but you had to minds the sand flies which would swarm and be very annoying. We collected a bag full of shells and then rode over to another small island for more 'shelling'. The rock formations were interesting, more layered like sedimentary rock with colored patterns on the horizontal surfaces, Very unusual. We returned to the anchorage, just in time for happy hour, how convenient.

Rock and Sand formations

 

On Sunday we had planned to stop at Isla Bayoneta for more shells. We left a high tide andRich and I decided that the anchorage was a little too shallow for us as we are getting close to leaving for Ecuador. Reg and Phoebe decided to stay and we motored on to Isla Pedro Gonzales. It is a much large island with a village of over 500 persons on the north side. We are anchored on the east side, protected from the southern swell. On the shoreline we can see where there is construction to build a new resort and another area where 'guests' may enjoy the beach. The beach is long with off white sand. Rich and I walked the beach and added to our shell collections.

In the afternoon we returned to Windarra to relax and read. Unfortunately there are some small, black, annoying flies that have joined us. They don't appear to be biting, just annoying. We are burning a citronella stick hoping that will discourage them but they are still with us so far.

Thunderhead forming in the distance

Our plan tomorrow is to prepare for passage. We will lift the dingy onto the foredeck, deflate and secure it upside down on the deck. We kept two of our old jerry jugs and filled them before we left Panama City so we will put the fuel into the aft tank as well. Our passage may be as long a 580 nautical miles from here to Bahia Caraquez in Ecuador. We hope to find more favorable wind angle by heading first towards Punta Mala before heading south.

We are glad we came out to Las Perlas islands. It is giving us a more favorable impression of Panama than we had before.

Happy Fathers' Day to all you dads out there!

Cheers from Elaine and Rich

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Las Perlas islands

8 31.050 N, 79 02.329 W, Isla Gibraleon

Thursday we hired Roosevelt, the taxi driver who speaks excellent English to help us run errands and check out of Panama. We stopped at the port captain at Marina Flamenco first. Peter, our agent for the life raft, rigging and getting fuel filters into Panama, was also at the port captain's. He helped fill out our paperwork and we left paying only $12.25 plus $1.50 for our exit zarpe. Our next stop was the immigration at Marina Flamenco, yet another immigration office, got our exit stamps on our passports, had our crew list stamped as well and we were formally checked out of the country at minimal cost. Thank goodness.

Roosevelt is an interesting character for a 70 year old. He has 19 children, 10 girls, 9 boys, the oldest is 53 and the youngest is 6. I am not sure how he keeps up with this brood but he seems like a very happy person. We would recommend him to others as he knows Panama City, how to get around, avoiding traffic and how some of the bureaucracy works or does not work.

Friday morning we put the dingy on the davit and left Panama City and we were glad to go. The anchorage is dirty and the dingy dock is treacherous. a few days ago 4 dingy's were stolen. Three were recovered, all four engines are missing. One of the dingy's, belonging to an Australian family, was slashes as well so it is a total loss. Since your dingy is your 'family car' when you are at an anchorage, not having one is a severe limitation.

The trip to the Las Perlas islands was a 44 mile motor, no wind and an adverse current for most of the trip. On the bright side, it did not rain too much. We had to keep a sharp eye as there is lots of debris in the water, including branches and logs up to 6 inches in diameter and 20 feet long. Hitting one of these could ruin more than just your day. We also saw many sandals, singles, no pairs, plastic bottles, oil containers, Styrofoam, a soccer ball, etc. The most unfortunately part was watching two speed boats harass three humpback whales. In the states we would have called the coast guard to report it. It was sad but eventually they tired of their sport and left the whales. On one of the islands we saw some tents and structures. We learned later from Reg and Phoebe of SV Three Sheets, that a Turkish crew is filming a Turkish version of the Survivor show on the island and what we saw was the set. Of course, everyone stays at the hotel on the other side of the island.

We anchored last night near SV Three Sheets next is Isla Gibraleon. They came over for drinks and we had dinner together on Windarra. If the weather clears up today we will do some exploring.

Cheers.

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Deluxe!

This is the deluxe dingy dock at Las Brisas. You tie your dingy to the very rusty dock then use the unstable orange dingy to get to the slimy, slippery stairs. With any luck you get up the stairs unscathed.

It is even more fun when it is raining!

Rigging Inspection and Life Raft Recertification

Part of the reason we are stopping in Panama is to fulfill some requirements by our boat insurance. We are coordinating with an agent here. On Tuesday we had a fellow, James, come by and inspect our rigging. We used our powered primary winch to take him up the mast, in the anchorage. We thanked our lucky stars that it was not raining or windy and that the seas were calm. He said that everything looks good so when we receive the report we will sent it off to the insurance company and cross that off the list.

When taking him back to his vehicle the tide was out and the less than well maintained concrete stairs at the dingy dock were very slick and a panga was blocking part of the access. I slipped and got a bit of a dunking but no injury other than the feeling of ‘Eww’, as the water here is filthy. I could hardly wait to take a shower back at the boat.

Our next chore is to get our Givens life raft recertified. We had thought about going to the marina to take it off the foredeck at a dock but rumor has it that other government entities are at the marina and will want to do inspections, fumigations, etc, which could cost as much as another $400. So we decided to do it at the anchorage. This involved moving the life raft from the foredeck to the aft deck slowly as it weighs about 65 pounds. Rich used one of our spare lines to form a harness around the raft. With the help of the outboard motor crane on the stern we hoisted it from the deck onto the slightly pitching dingy with no problem. The slippery stairs at the dingy dock was not an option but there is a ramp where boat work is done. With the help of Reg and Phoebe and the timing of high tide, we brought the dingy up the ramp and muscled the life raft up to the parking lots where the agent met us. The life raft will be taken to the duty free zone in Colon for recertification. We are waiting to hear when that will be done and Rich hopes to be able to witness the process.  So this task is still a work in progress.

Friday we left the anchorage to do some testing on the autopilot as well as filling our fuels tanks and new jerry jugs and topping off the water tanks. The autopilot test was going well at the beginning. I had moved our large crimper out of the Pullman hanging locker near the rate compass of the autopilot, thinking that it might be interfering with the compass and causing our s-turns instead of straight line from waypoint to waypoint. It looked promising under auto move but when we switched to nav move and after two waypoints it was back to the s-turns. Darn! I have been exchanging emails with SimRad customer support but not getting very satisfactory responses. More work is needed in this area.

Today, Saturday, we are running the engine to charge up the batteries. There has not been enough sun or wind to charge them. We are over visiting with SV Three Sheets this morning and left the hatches open. This guaranteed that it would start to rain. And it did, so I went back and closed the hatches and portlights. Shortly thereafter the lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain began. We said our quick goodbyes and went back to Windarra. It is still raining a bit now but the lightning and thunder have stopped.

Bridge of the Americas and the new Frank Gehry Biodiversity Museum

 

The Panama Canal

We took a taxi to the Casco Viejo. This is one of the older sections of Panama City and was where the city moved after being destroyed by the privateer, Captain Morgan. The area is a Unesco World Heritage site. The original headquarters for the French Canal Company has been restored and is now the Museo del Canal Interoceanico. The museum has lots of material but the displays are all in Spanish and we are still not very conversant. We rented audio commentary in English but it only covers about half of what we see. Something appears lost in translation. It still is worthwhile to see. After the museum we had lunch across the plaza at a small restaurant, La Forchetta, which had great food.

 Museo del Canal Interoceanico

 The Plaza

After lunch we got a taxi ride to the visitor center at the Miraflores Locks. The visitor center has a theater where we watched a 3D film about the canal. Afterwards we went up to the fourth floor observation deck where you may watch the ships moving through the locks. It is like the Ballard Locks on steroids. The large ships are built to maximize the space available in the lock, with maybe a few feet of clearance on any side. There are engines, similar to train engines, which run on rails on either side of the lock to move the ship in and out. It is quite an operation. The visitor center also has some exhibits about the canal as well, in both English and Spanish. One floor has a restaurant overlooking the lock for your dining pleasure.

We do not plan at this point to make a transit of the canal on Windarra. Reg and Phoebe of SV Three Sheets will be making their transit on July 5 so we will experience it vicariously through them.

Targets

This is a screen shot from the iPad showing about 250 AIS targets in and around the Panama Canal on Wednesday, May 29. I was surprised that we received data from vessels on the Caribbean side as well. There are lots of tankers in the mix and a few sailboats going through. It was very helpful when we crossed the entrance to the canal to reach our current anchorage to be able to 'see' which way these big ships were going so we could avoid them.

Two Cans

Saturday we walked to Abernathy’s, the local chandlery. We have been trying to buy new jerry cans to replace the ones we have on Windarra, as they are old, have ultraviolet damage and they will start to leak at some point. I have been trying to find replacements from Mexico onward and exchanging emails with the distributor to find the ones we want. We were successful and we purchased seven and we will return on Monday for the last one.

A flock of 'two cans'

On our way to two can carry