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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