Back in Ecuador

The title says it all, back in Ecuador.  Actually, we got back almost two weeks ago.  It was really good to get back, good to get home and sleep in my own bed, with the boat rocking a bit in the estuary tidal swings.

We spent almost two months in the US, visiting our families.  The visits were overall good, because I love my family and I have been missing them.  Some people were doing really well, which was heartening and made that part of the trip truly enjoyable.  But not everyone was in a good place, and I felt really helpless with my inability to fix things for everyone.
That sounds harsh, and I feel bad about it.  I wish things had been different.  I wish I could make things different.  I am not being really articulate here, but that is because it hurts so much to see people I love having difficulties.  It hurts worse than if it were happening to me.  But it is not about me, and I can't make things change.

However, having said all that, I still had a wonderful time with people I love.  It has been a long time, and the babies are not babies any more, but are little kids.  The little kids are teenagers.  The teenagers are adults.  A lot happened while I was away.  I got to see almost everyone, and I only wish I could have made that happen.  Arkansas is a beautiful state, and the hotel we stayed at in Little Rock It was not only gorgeous in an Old South style, the service was impeccable as well.  It was true luxury in every way. Then we stayed at two different resorts, and one on a river.  Both of them had wonderful views of their respective bodies of water, and there were lots and lots of different birds and animals.  Between Arkansas and Wisconsin, we saw an amazing amount of deer and different kinds of birds.  While fishing on a lake in Wisconsin with my brother and nephew, Mike and I got to see a bald eagle with her nestlings in their nest.  It was large and made of sticks.  Really large, as a matter of fact.  And the babies looked to be about ready to fledge as they were at that awkward stage birds go through.  You can always spot them - their feathers are always sort of ruffled, and they act confused.  And although they look like adults, and are as big as adults, they fuss for their parents to bring them food just like a tiny baby bird.  There were loons, and herons, and all sorts of different kinds of ducks.  We loved it. 

Another great surprise was Minneapolis.  I have to admit I harbored a terrible prejudice against Minneapolis, based on my general dislike and distrust of Minnesota in general.  This is a legacy from my father, who used to frighten kids selling subscriptions to the Minneapolis Tribune, asserting in a loud voice that "this is a Wisconsin oriented household.  We get the Milwaukee Sentinel.  We have no interest in an out of state newspaper."  (It is important to know my hometown in Wisconsin, Eau Claire, is only 90 miles to Minneapolis while being about five hours away from Milwaukee.  Lots of people in Eau Claire augmented the local paper with one from Minneapolis.  My dad was viruently of the opinion that nothing good comes from Minnesota.  At least that is how I developed the prejudice.)  Anyway, I discovered on this trip that Minneapolis is a great city.  There are parks and historical preservations all over the city center, and they have a light rail system that takes you between the suburbs and the city center, as well as to and from the airport.  There are restaurants to die for, with all kinds of different foods. I got to see a couple of old college friends, and one of my best friends ever while visiting in Eau Claire.  And we took a river canoe trip in northern Wisconsin, where one of my sisters lives.  It was, again, a beautiful trip.  We had a bunch of my brother in law's family with us, which included little kids.  After we were done, we went to their home for spaghetti dinner.  We stayed at my other sister's cabin, which is where we got to go fishing.   My stepmother fattened us up with her good cooking, and took us to her art studio. 

We also went back to San Diego to see my son and to get boat parts and bring them back here to replace broken things here.  It was of course great to see my son, as I have really missed him.  We all went to some of our old favorite restaurants, and there were people there who remembered us - AND even remembered our regular orders.  Mike and I took a drive into the mountains and were sobered by how incredibly dry everything is.  We had never seen it that bad, even on times of other droughts.  It was scary, when we thought how easily the area could go up.  The previously burned areas looked as though they were in the process of desertification.  But the beaches and the ocean seemed cleaner.  I also got to to see three of my favorite former co-workers, another treat.  But by the time we were supposed to leave, I was ready to go.  I feel better down here.  I missed my boat, I missed my own bed, and I just wanted to come home.  I wish more people would come and visit us - for me that would be the best of both worlds - seeing my family in a place I am coming to love.

A couple of days ago we took a taxi (cheap enough that why bother with a bus is what I say) to a little beach town about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles I think)  from here.  It was a great little beach town and we plan to spend a couple days there, just kicking back on the beach.  After that, we are preparing to go to Bolivia for a month or so.  We hope to leave in a week or so.  So what else did I do that I have not mentioned?  We spent a coupe days in Guayaquil, which is the largest city in Ecuador and is from whence we flew in and out of the country.  It was an interesting, bustling town, and in one of their large plazas, there are literally hundreds of iguanas in all shapes, colors and sizes roaming the park.  I was busy looking at a particularly interesting iguana, there suddenly from above came a literal stream of water.  I jumped back but not fast enough to avoid getting my leg splattered with pee from a huge iguana in a tree above my head.  It was really funny to me and to everyone who saw and laughes as well.  Needless to say, I took a very hot shower when we got back.  Our little town here is opening itself to us more and more as time goes on.  There are a number of places to go and things to see that you only find out about is if a local tells you about it.  Like Mike said, we are starting to dial in to the secret handshake.  It is making our stay even more enjoyable, as there is more to this place than we thought. 

So anyway, Mike is in the process of fixing things with the parts we brought back with us.  Since we will be leaving again pronto, we are leaving some things undone until we get back from that trip.  I am excited about Bolivia, and also excited about being a backpacker again like we did in October 2012-January 2013.  It was a great feeling to just go here and there on buses without having to drag luggage anywhere.  And as long as you take every opportunity wash your clothes, you can get away without needing a bunch of different outfits.  I also like to make sure I leave room for all the things I will buy along the way.  I have been accused of both buying too much stuff and paying too much for what I do buy.  But I hate to haggle, and if I am happy with the first price, so be it.  There does not appear to be much haggling for things here, the prices seem to be what they are, except maybe for the tourist kiosks along the waterfront on weekends.  But I have heard it is like Mexico, and is part of the economic culture.  We'll see.

Now I am up to date here, but I know I have left a lot of things out.  As time goes on, I hope to remember them all, but with my short term memory problems, I am not holding my breath.

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Pictures, Finally

I finally got some pictures prepared for posting.  So here goes.  The internet here is dicey and kicks us off at the drop of  a hat, so we will see what happens.  There are a ton of pictures, and it takes a lot of time to sort through, then shrink them for posting, resaving, etc.  They are a mixture in no specific order, so here goes. 

First of all, I think this is a strange name for a beer.  But here it is.  This is in Panama

 

We Spent a week in January in the Darien jungle, visiting a village where the Embera people live.  It was a wonderful experience and Mike took some great pictures   This is an Embera baby.

 


                                                     And this little girl had no problem having her picture taken.

 

 

This is what can happen when you anchor where there is a currant, like in a river.  It took over an hour to clear an bigger one.  I was able to clear this with the boat hook.  We had to use the dinghy and the engine to clear the other one.                                               

                                       

 Here are the houses where people live in the village.  If a ladder was down, it meant the people were ok with company.  If the ladder is up, it means no visitors.

 

Here are some of the kids that came to visit on the boat. 

When we got to the village after walking up about a half a mile through the jungle, everyone was out to visit us.  The men usually wear shirts and tshirts, but the women wear the traditional dress all the time. 

I got myself all painted up just like the women there do.  I have it all over my front too, as well as bands on my legs and the bottom half of my face.  It took about three weeks for it all to go away.

OK, switching gears, here is me at the equator, as proved by the position shown. 

 And for anyone who wonders, this is what my kitchen (galley) looks like when the place is clean.

 
This is the jungle along the river we visited.  Except for regular paths, it was really dense and we did not try to hike in it.

This woman is making the dye used in the tattooing process.  These kids were on a boat that organized this trip, and it was fun to have kids with us.  It opened things up in a way that I don't think would have happened if it had been just adults.

Here is Mike with some of the men.  He was quite the center of interest among the women.  We suspect it was the beard.

Here is Mike taking the kids out in the dinghy.  He let the kids drive and they were tearing it up all up and down the river.  There was another man taking kids out, but the little girls refused to ride with anyone except Mike.

Here are out boats at rest in Bahia Caraquez.  MJ is off by herself, in the middle.

 

Here is Bahia Caraquez from atop a hill, looking down over the estuary as it empties into the ocean.

 

Now we are back in Panama.  We saw these guys in their Cayucos, which are the canoes made from a single piece of wood and carved out.  The dogs are along to help hunt iguanas.

Here is a California needle fish I caught.  They are really good to eat.

 

 

Here is a close up of the teeth.  We had to be careful handling it.

 

These are ibises, roosting in a tree. 

And where would we be without pelican trees?

Here is the living room (saloon) where we spend most of our time.  This is from the stern of the boat looking towards the bow.  I have the door to the vee berth closed because it was being used for storage and was messy.

 

 

So finally, here is some evidence of what I have been doing.  There are more, and I will try and get things up.  We are getting ready to head off for the US - we will be there for about six weeks, traversing the country.  I am looking forward to it, and hope I can sleep on the plane as it is an overnight flight.  The airport is about six hours north of here, and we are taking the bus.  So the next post will likely be from the good old US of A. 

 

 

"Common sense is not so common"  (Voltaire)

 

 

 



 

Bahia de Caraquez

Well, we made it.  And it is fabulous here.  I feel really comfortable.  The Spanish is easy to understand.  The weather seems similar to San Diego, except it is pretty humid.  We get a nice breeze in the afternoon that helps with the humidity, and for the first time in ages I am not hot.  We still need our fans, but it is very comfortable.  We are anchored, but should a mooring  ball become available, we may take it.  But maybe not, because this is a very quiet anchorage, without any wild wave action.  There is a current because we are actually in a river estuary, but that is not a problem.  We have not had too much time to explore the place yet, but we have met some local people and have already arranged for boat care while we are gone, as well as arrangements to have the floor (sole) of the cabin refinished.  The worker comes well recommended by other cruisers.  I feel very confident the boat will be fine while we are gone.  Mike is hesitant to leave the boat this long, but he will deal with it. 

The trip down here was hell for me and I am not really sure why.  Yes, it was poky, and yes, it was terribly frustrating to sail hard and not make any progress.  But we had no storms that caused problems, in fact we wanted some storming because the storms pushed us along nicely.  It was just not that bad.  We were out there for 11 days.  Not a long time, not long enough to be as upsetting as the trip was.  I really wanted to quit, which in turn made me feel more upset than ever.  The problem was I developed this horrible anxiety that would not go away.  My stomach was in knots, I couldn't eat (no real problem there, I need to lose weight anyway, ha ha ha), and all I wanted to do was sleep, which I did as much as possible.  Poor Mike had to do all the work.  He might as well have been a single hander for all the good I did.  I did stand my watches, and helped out when asked, but that is all.  I was on the verge of tears all the time, and I have no explanation for the anxiety.  I really don't understand why I felt like that.  Mike is scared I am going to refuse to go any further, but that isn't going to happen.  I just wish I could figure it out.  I am afraid I will get so nervous about possibly being nervous that it will turn into one of those self-fulfilling prophesies.  The anxious feeling is terrible - I feel like I want to throw up all the time but I am not nauseated or feeling sick.  I haven't felt this way in years.  Anyway, this is something I have to mull over and figure out how to overcome it.  Mike says he can single hand the boat and I can meet him in ports, but I don't want to do that.  I want to keep sailing, and I think it is important that I meet this challenge and overcome it. 

But so far I love Ecuador.  I thought I would like South America and so far I do.  We have TV on the boat and there is a local channel that is pretty much all news.  The talking heads are pretty easy to understand, so we are enjoying it.  We are learning a lot about South America in general from this channel, and also noted that while it is not exactly anti-US, they don't cut us any slack.  It is interesting to see things from this perspective.

What else is new?  To get in here, we had to cross a large sand bar at high tide, and needed to have a special pilot come out to meet us and direct us in.  The next day we saw the same area at low tide - completely free of any water.  It was hard to believe we actually came across it.  There is a big bridge over the river that is lit up at night with colored LED lights.  There are several other boats here with friends of ours on them, and several more boats that we know are on their way from Panama.  They have everything we need here within walking distance of the anchorage, and some of the beach front restaurants look like fun.  While we were walking around yesterday, we came across a guy selling empanadas.  We bought two of them, and I thought they were delicious.  They had chicken and I think sweet potatoes in them.  I expect to have more before all is said and done.  Today some of our new local friends brought us some shrimp that was so fresh one of them jumped out of the bowl.  I have had fresh live lobster, but never shrimp so fresh they were alive.  We boiled them up and what a delicious first meal of the day.  What a life.

"I have a simple philosophy:  Fill what's empty.  Empty what's full.  Scratch where it itches."  (Alice Roosevelt Longworth)

Southern Hemisphere!

I am actually in the southern hemisphere. We should be arriving at our port tomorrow, and if all goes well, we will be happily resting on a mooring ball when we go to sleep tomorrow night. But it is not for certain because the anchorage is up a river estuary and you can't go in except at high tide. Which is not a problem except high tide is at either 4:45 am (when it is still dark) and 4:45 pm, which is still light and should not be a problem. Because the deep channel is narrow and winding, they send a pilot boat out to lead you in. It was a thrill to note our position as south instead of north. But it is a bit confusing, as the numbers are now getting larger when they were getting smaller. I will have to remember and not panic for a bit.

I sure was miserable for a big part of this trip, but it did get better. Right after the last post, Mike decided he was going to turn on the engine because we were still being pushed backwards, and even he couldn't stand any more. Plus there was this: the track on the chartplotter that we left as we sailed looked like a smiley face, as we began heading southwest (or southeast), then slowly were forced due west (or east) and finally WNW (or ENE). It seemed like a taunt. Once we started the motor, we bulled our way through the contrary currents and were finally able to make the desired southerly track. But motoring comes with a price, and the price is that neither of us can get much of any sleep as the engine is really loud downstairs. We have earplugs, but they only help a little bit (and they make my ears itch). So after a day and a night of motoring, I was almost delirious from lack of sleep, especially since I had been such a stress monger for days I was frankly a mess. When we were finally able to turn the engine off and resume sailing, I slept for almost two days straight, getting up only to stand my watch, fix food, and help out when needed. Otherwise I slept. I didn't know it was possible to sleep that much. Mike, for some reason, can withstand the sleep thing better than I do, but he crashes too. He was able to get sleep while I stood my watch, but he has not had nearly what I have had. I will really have to analyze why this trip was so hard on me.

So anyway, I am now a Shellback and no longer a slimy pollywog. That is because I crossed the equator and made a gift offering to King Neptune. Being a Shellback means that I can petition King Neptune. This is something they do in the Navy, and of course they have some horrid initiation that involves crawling through garbage. Mike did not make me crawl through garbage, but we did share a bottle of champagne with King Neptune and some was poured on my head as a kind of baptism. Then I had to take a shower and wash any remaining pollywog slime off. Any Navy guy can tell you about this important ritual.

I have to get going - we are going to send this off, along with an email to Marina Puerto Amistad in Bahia Caraquez, Ecuador. South America.

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A Tough Slog

This has to be the most difficult sail I have ever had. We sail and sail and the wind and currents allow us to go either nowhere (if we are lucky) or the wrong way. I am keeping my chin up, but it is not easy. While we are in no danger or anything like that, this is not fun and I want it to be done and over with. Unfortunately, that will not happen for days more.

Except for not getting anywhere, things are fine. When it got light this morning, there were flying fish (dead ones) all over the deck. They were about 3 inches long. The same flock of night hunting birds has visited us each night, staying all night, fishing in the light of the mast. They only fish on the starboard side, where the green light is, because green light penetrates the water and they can see the fish. it is nice to have company on my night watch,

This is going to be it - the boat is bouncing all over the place and it is hard to type. But we are fine and will eventually reach our port!

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Sea Life, Or Life on the Sea

(April 24, 2014)

We are sailing away towards Ecuador, somewhere out about 250 miles off the coast of Colombia. Because we actually have to sail this and can't just turn on the engine and point in the direction we want to go and just bull our way down through contrary winds and currents. But that is the real challenge of doing this. I will not lie to you, I have at times gotten discouraged about what seems at the time to be a lack of progress. We hear other boats on the radio (well, okay, one other boat) that left after us and is leaving us in the dust. But I know he is motoring. I know I need to be tougher about it, and not get down in the dumps so easily, but it is hard on me. It is just frustrating, and I think even after this much time out here, I am still stuck in the need-it-right-now attitude that I had while living my old life. A traffic jam would make me furious then. So I simply have to zen out and get used to the fact I am going to be out here for a while more yet. I do have one piece of advice for anyone who wants to try this - you better know how to fix things. If it were not for Mike and his skills, we could not do this.

We have had a lot of squally weather and rain, but no bad storms or anything we couldn't handle. After two full days of being almost becalmed, I welcomed an actual storm because it meant wind and therefore movement. Besides, we were not in danger other than from lightning, and luckily the storm did not have a lot of it, and what we have seen so far has been at a safe distance. This will decrease the closer we get to our destination in Ecuador. The other night I got to see an amazing bolt - it cut vertically across the sky like a huge blazing snake. At this point, we are making decent speed, and our wind direction are not bad for us. Mike discovered that we can make our autopilot sail to the wind, which means we set it and it steers itself along the directions of the wind. This is great for us, because now we do not have to be constantly messing with the autopilot each time the wind changes a bit. If the actual course changes too much, an alarm lets us know so we can decide if that is where we want to go. It is like having someone steer who never gets tired or loses focus.

We have had some nice things happen on this trip. The other day, we were hailed by another sailboat motoring past us on their way to the Galapagos. The boat name was Legacy, and they were flying a US flag. We talked on the radio, and they came up close and took some pictures of us flying all our sails. We exchanged emails, and they promised to send the pictures. They spotted us before we were visible to them because of our AIS system, so we now know for sure that we are transmitting as well as receiving. It was fun to see another boat out here.

The next day we had to alter course because there was a HUGE tuna boat fishing right where we were going to sail. It was interesting to see the way it used its nets and a bunch of little boats. The little boats sped around and around apparently corralling these big tuna into the gargantuan nets. Then the nets were hauled in filled with tuna. (On a not so good note, this kind of fishing is not good, the sea cannot sustain this.) This tuna boat had a helicopter that flew around it looking for tuna, and when we altered our course, the helo flew over us, blinked his lights, and dipped at us. I thought that was pretty cool, I think they appreciated our change of course so we did not interfere with the fishing operation.

We have done one new thing underway, which was to make water. We are also using the generator to charge the batteries, because we can't use the engine for that. Our solar is less effective when underway, because at any given time half of them are shaded by the sails. Plus it has been overcast and rainy, which also has an impact on the amount they can generate. The wind vane is getting used a lot, but it does not generate the amount the solar panels do. Therefore if we want to keep using all of our electronics, we need to do some extra charging, hence the need for the generator.

One thing did happen that was not so good, but I had better get used to it because Mike says it happens to ships at sea all the time. The other afternoon a tiny little swallow landed on the boat. He had obviously gotten blown off course, because they do not generally range this far out to sea. When these birds land on boats like this (and I am not talking about sea birds looking for a rest) they are generally about to die. Mike has seen people on Navy boats try desperately to save them, but he has never seen it work. We tried to give this little guy some water, but he wouldn't drink it. So we left it close to him and made him a comfortable place where he could sit and not get hurt by anything. He spend the night, sleeping with his head under his wing. He was awake for awhile in the morning, but then he tucked his head and went back to sleep. But later on that day he died, and we buried him at sea.

My night watches have been interesting and I have missed them, since it has been a long time since we did an overnight sail. There are these night sea birds that come to our boat every night and fish by the glow of our green mast light. They appear at dark and stay all night. They swoop and glide in the dark sky like ghost birds, sometimes giving off a flash of their white underbellies. It is this sort of thing that I never get tired of. That and looking at the sky - I see several shooting stars on each trip.

Anyway, that will be all for now. We are doing fine, and I will continue to check in, but maybe not every day. No one needs to be worried about us, even if a few days go by without a post. We will simply continue to sail along, awaiting our final landfall.

"It's not polite to get into strange beds naked." (My Mother)

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Slogging over the no so bounding main

(April 21, 2014) I guess I jinxed it by being such a braggart. In a couple of ways. First, after all my boasting about the great weather and what not, the last two days have been everything the first two days were not. We have had absolutely no wind at all, we are just about becalmed. The only good thing is that there is a favorable current that has pushed us s-l-o-w-l-y in the right direction all today. Yesterday we had more wind, but we had a nasty foul current that had us actually going WNW when I was steering SSW. I could only tell a problem when I noticed my course over ground bore no resemblance to my programmed heading. Then I saw that my position reading had me going north and west. And there was nothing to do except steer hard south, which gave us a westerly heading with a tiny bit of north. Then there was a squall this morning - the winds registered 20 knots sustained, with gusts of 25, but luckily for us it was to our back, and the seas weren't too rough and it was shoving us the right way. So we reveled in that and were delighted to get soaked and lose sleep. I then spent the rest of today anxiously searching the horizon for any sign of another squall - anything to get moving again! When you have these tropical squalls, they are strong but short lived (a couple hours at best)and they suck all the energy out of the area they pass through, causing these calms after. The only problem is that these periods of no winds can often be accompanied by confused seas, which rock the hell out of a stationary boat. That was this morning, but this pm was calm as a bathtub, almost. So what have I not told? Right now it is still calm, but we are actually moving under sail at a rolicking 2.7 knots, a great improvement over the 1 to .9 of earlier. I took down all the sails because they were doing nothing more than slatting about, causing the boat to bat around even more.

Of course I forgot to tell the best part . . . our engine is having difficulty and we can't use it. So now we are a true sailing vessel, and if we drift, we drift. No motoring to speed things along. Mike is pretty sure he knows what it is - he says the bearings are going out in the engine's water pump. It makes a terrible noise, so no using it. It is not a disaster at all, rather an inconvenience. But I think we were starting to motor too often, just for convenience, and that is not a habit we wish to develop, as we (at least Mike is, the jury is out on me) are sailing purists, the most annoying people at any yacht club get-together. So sail on we shall!

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