Sing along with me: “No, you can’t always get what you want…..”
Right now it’s Tuesday morning, June 7th, about 02.30 in the morning. Lara is asleep on the starboard cockpit bench, after yet another perfect watch, this one from 21.00 to Midnight. Alex is alseep in the aft cabin, the guest’s cabin, and I’m seated at the salon table, trying to be vigilant and write at the same time. You have to go outside every few minutes or so and look around of course – and there’s that pause when your eyes adjust from the light of the laptop screen to the blackness outside. It’s another partly cloudy night, a few very bright stars peeking through here and there. The breeze is light at the moment, about 8 knots from the SW, and we’re motorsailing very close hauled in a SSW direction. The swell is neglible. We’re only a half a dozen miles off the north Ecuador coast and 55 miles from our destination: Esmeraldas, Ecuador. What? What happened to the Galapagos? Well, nothing, they’re still there of course, but our arrival there has been slightly delayed…
As we normally do, we consulted just about everything we could find on board about the passage to the Galapagos. That means books that we already have and cruising guides in .pdf format on the laptop, generous gifts from other cruisers in the constant ‘pen drive exchange’ of electronic data (movies, music, guides, whatever). Simplifying it all a bit: June is not a bad time to go to the Galapagos, but it can be a trying time. Here’s a little of what we’ve been taking in, both before leaving and now during the days on passage:
Jimmy Cornell’s “World Cruising Handbook”: ‘Due to the prevailing winds and currents…. yachts…. usually sail from the north after having transited the Panama Canal and have to battle against wind and current’ (that is to say that prevailing wind and current are against you, from the SW. In yet other words, you’ve got wind and current right on the nose, right in the way that you want to go, to the southwest!)
“Landfalls of Paradise” by Earl R. Hinz and Jim Howard: ‘Crossings with long portions in the ITCZ, such as legs from Panama to the Galapagos, take a relatively long time’ (in a table of recorded passage times for thousands of boats, the book says the typical time for this passage is 9-15 days, even though it’s only about 850 miles. The ITCZ, the modern term for the long-dreaded Doldrums, means Intertropical Convergence Zone. It’s a band really of low pressure that sits around the equator, sandwhiched between the trade winds of both north and south hemispheres. Typically, the ITCZ can mean light variable winds, calms, and squalls – the true anthithesis of optimal sailing conditions like the trades).
“Ecuador Cruiser’s Guide (formerly Bahia de Caráquez Cruiser’s Guide) – Rev E – February 2010”: ‘Passage Making to/From Ecuador. The weather in Ecuador is strongly influenced by 3 things – the Columbian low, the Chilean high and the cold, north-setting Humboldt current. Winds are almost always S to SW below 3º N and get stronger during the dry season, May through December. Coming south, count on S to SW winds, 15-25 kts. and adverse current during dry season. Motor sailing is usually required to make headway. You can get a better wind angle by leaving from Costa Rica or Western Panama. (I checked the weather – mostly wind and swell – for days before we left, and I have absolutely no idea what the Colombian Low or Chilean High is. I mean, I do have an idea as I understand the terms but for all I know a Colombian Low might be a day without Colombian Coffee or other natural substance from Colombia and a Chilean High might be, well, sitting on a mountaintop in the Andes…).
You get the picture? I didn’t, at least not fully. After nearly 6 days at sea now, I think it’s starting to sink in. Our experience has kind of confirmed and denied the above….
The weather I got in Panama showed two things that stood out for me: first, the ITCZ was apparently quite a ways north and more over Panama and the beginning of our passage than it was to the south. Good. One less thing to worry about. The second was that the 7 day wind forecast showed me a possible strategy: head due south, where light winds in the Gulf of Panama, down the coast of Colombia and nearing Ecuador were supposed to have been slightly W of SW – this would allow us to point or even reach on the way down, maximising sailing and minimizing the work for Yan. Once off the Ecuador coast, get into the SE trades when they show up – near the Equator – and head nearly due W for the remaining 600-odd miles to the Galapagos. This is a longer route of course, a bit of a backwards “L” rather than a rhumb line dash, but it’s supposed to be easier on everyone, the boat, the crew and the diesel reserves.
The passage started well enough. Breezes were very light and from the SSW, so we had the main up, reefed (I always start that way on a passage – it’s easier to shake it out if necessary than to have to reef in hurry), and the genoa fully unfurled. Alex and I were in the cockpit in the wee hours when we had our first visit of dolphins in the Pacific! Alaways a good sign. We couldn’t see them very well in the dark of course and I’ve no idea what kind they were, but they were there – evidenced by glimpses of the shiny backs in the low light and the familiar breathing ‘blow’ as they broach the surface. Dolphins certainly do like to play in the bow wave, but I’m ever more convinced that they’re somehow interested in human contact – at least on some level. I mean, I am convinced that they see us and want to be seen by us. It’s not a matter of just playing around a big moving object in the sea. I say that because on this visit, they didn’t go to the bow (there was noone there), but stayed alongside the boat, aft, where Alex and I were leaning over the lifelines, looking and me whistling.
Early Thursday morning (June 3rd) we were treated to an early morning bath, natural style, when a good rainshower came through. Few simple pleasures of cruiser life are greater than this is for me: a thorough shower of clean rainwater, and no water being consumed from the tanks! Aside from getting clean, it makes you feel like a kid again. I’m not sure I ever stopped. 🙂
The rest of the day was a bit trying, as we had to tack a number of times to dodge fishing nets and other fishing gear. It really did feel like being on the coast of Brazil again. I even managed to run over a net in a moment of distraction. I managed to get the engine in neutral quite quickly but line got stuck on the keel – of course! – and we dragged the two buoys at either end for a while. No prop problems, thank goodness. But the darned thing wouldn’t let go. Lara and I tried to get the line with our very long boat hook, but to no avail. I was having visions of me in the water with mask and knife… A last ditch effort of sailing backwards (I know, sounds funny) actually worked the line came free without fouling prop or rudder. Whew.
In the afternoon we tried a port tack to make some westing and started to get a taste of what the trip would be like: the SW “in your face” winds started to build above 15 and 18 knots, the seas were already nearing 2m, and going west was also hindered by the current coming south. Ai ai ai.
FISHY FISHY FISHY
Then the Penn fishing reel went crazy. The fight lasted about 30 minutes I guess but I had no idea what I had – it never came close to the surface, jumped, or even rolled like some fish do. It bullied me and stayed deep resentful of the blue and white balsa plug stuck in it’s mouth. When we got it aboard, we checked the fish chart and realized we’d just pulled in a very nice size Big-Eye Tuna. This was the first one we’d ever caught, and it was beautiful! I started to clean it, making a bloody mess in the aft of the cockpit. Cleaning fish underway is tricky on a rocking and rolling sailboat. Distracted by blood and entrails and trying not to loose my balance, I hadn’t put the rod and reel away. Alex let it back out under my instructions and we went on cleaning big tuna stakes. A few minutes later we had a seabird caught in the line! A terrible sight. Alex brought it in slowly and up to the helmsman’s seat. The line had wrapped around the wing as the bird tried to get too close to my fish cleaning activities. Poor little guy. Without further injury, Alex was able to free him and he flew away – albeit with a bit of a list to starboard. The line was still out and I was nearly half way through with the clean job when the reel went crazy again! So now I’m cleaning the first fish and Alex is fighting the second – which we hadn’t intended to catch. Another 30 minutes, and another very nice Big Eye. This one was big brother to the first. Each one was easily 15 pounds, maybe pushing 20. The freezer is full of tuna steaks and fillets….
fighting the first fish: what could it be? no jumping or frolicking on the surface… hmmmmm
it’s a tuna – and from what we can tell, a “big eye”. locals in Manta would later say it was an Albacore, but I really don’t know.
Alex untangles one very startled and pissed off bird from the fishing line…
then our second tuna in minutes…. this one even bigger. it happened so fast I hadn’t even finished cleaning the first one!
Alex trying to guess the best Sashimi cuts from his memories of the best Sushi restaurants… 🙂
The night was blustery and winds were stronger. Friday more of the same. The odd thing was that the winds were stronger at night than by day. Usually? The opposite. In Panama, I’d been discussing the passage with Hugh, from “Jabiru” and he’d said ‘yeah Mike, you should try to make your westing at night’. Hmmmm that just wasn’t happening.
Saturday was a bit lighter – at least for a while – but we were still sailing “uphill”. When we tried to make southing, we were pushed further east by wind angle and current. When we tried to make westing, we were even slower and banging more sharply into the oncoming swell. And it wasn’t WEST at all, but NORTHWEST! Ugh!
A day in the life, on passage:
a nice shower from the solar shower bag: sitting on the cockpit floor.
Alex doing the shower gig – yes, he had a sunga on!
Oh yeah – with the fish locker full of tuna, we decided it would be nice to have some DOURADO! Call it Mahi Mahi, call it what you will, but we love to eat this fish – very very yummy! On a SAD note, while I was cleaning this guy in rough seas, my Gerber Coho fish knife, which I’ve had since Alaska and 1989, BROKE! I nearly jumped in the sea, I couldn’t believe it. I am still deeply saddened by that.
A detour?
Sunday was much of the same, perhaps a tad worse. Some time in the afternoon we headed again to the south – but with the wind clocking also a bit further south we contined with more easting than we’d hoped for. By Sunday night, we were all a bit fed up with the situation. The days were passing and our progress towards the Galapagos was just too slow. We discussed the situation and decided to make land, somewhere. This would give Alex a chance to catch a plane to the Galapagos and still see it before his vacation time ran out and he had to head back to Rio.
I was pretty damn tired at this point and needed to rest. Lara was tired too. I decided to run with the weather for a few hours and get some sleep. So Sunday night we actually headed NE, towards the coast of Columbia. I wasn’t sure yet, but one possible port we could make was Buenaventura, Colombia. Another was Esmeraldas, Ecuador – and at this point we were pretty much right between them. Colombia would have been easier in the short term – running down wind until we got there. But in the long term it would be much worse – as we’d have to make up all that westing and southing again. Ufa!
Early Monday I took over watch at something like 0400 and Lara got a chance to crash too. I was feeling refreshed (relatively speaking) and thinking more clearly. That’s when I realized that the best option would really be Esmeraldas. It would take some more beating to windward to get there, but in the end it would be easier also for Alex to find his way to Quito, or some other city in Ecuador. It also meant that we’d be chipping away precious windard miles towards the Galapagos – whenever that was going to happen!
In order to head back to windward, we need to motorsail. I started Yan and noticed that the exhaust had a funny sound – a bit like a motorcycle I suppose and far too ‘dry’. In fact, there was no water coming out of the exhaust. A bad sign. I knew almost immediately what it was – the impeller wasn’t pulling water in from the ocean nor pushing it into the heat exchanger. If you leave the engine on in this situation, it will overheat fairly quickly and you risk doing pretty serious damage. I’d written about this impeller change several times and I’d actually prepared myself to do the job several more times. It’s not a tough job, per se, just a tricky one because the impeller is located in the single worst place – at least on our boat – because of the very narrow, very tricky access.
Each time I’d started the job, taking off the faceplate and inspecting the damn thing from a very difficult angle, I’d decided that it was still in good shape. More importantly, each time I came close to pulling the little bugger out, I remembered the words of more experienced cruisers: “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. I think that the mantra is true for most things on the boat, but for engine maintenance, maybe not. Yanmar suggests you change the impeller every 1,000 hours of use and I had gone over that threshold… We’ve got somethign like 1,200 hours on our engine.
So, we were anxious to make progress to windward but as I’d never changed the impeller before, I now had no engine to count on. In these rolly conditions I now had no choice: change the impeller on the high seas. I got out my tools and the new impeller and went to work. It was just as tricky as I’d imagined but not as hard as I’d feared. In about 10 minutes the job was done, the yanmar running nicely and pumping loads of seawater through the system… Thank goodness! Another maintenance item I’ve learned to do the hard way, but now have the confidence to do again when necessary.
So Monday we beat south all day, though sometime around noon the conditions got a bit lighter. Progress was easier, and less taxing on our nerves and the boat as a whole. Following the barometer, I realized that what had punnished us since the previous Friday might have been a slight low pressure system barrelling through, right over us. The barometric pressure only dropped 3 or 4 millibars in the end, but that seemed to be just enough to push the winds and seas from ‘acceptable’ windward conditions to the ‘this is kinda miserable’ conditions we’d had for days.
Looking up – and on the horizon: whales!
Tuesday? Same deal, southing, with a bit of westing when the wind dropped a tad. The morale on board improved by the hour as the remaining miles to a safe port clicked away. The highlight on Tuesday was the show put on by a whale! What a treat. I couldn’t tell what kind of whale he/she was, but the acrobatics were great. We saw probably 6 or 7 jumps and a lot of fin flapping. Then we sailed right past a big turtle on the surface and everyone was feeling decidedly better about the whole adventure. 🙂
Port Adventures in Ecuador:
Land ho! Making Esmeraldas…
with land in sight, everyone was smiling
making the breakwater at sunset – look Mom, no more swell and waves on the nose!
coming into the anchorage at Esmeraldas.
these two sailboats were already ancored inside when we got there – near the fishing fleet and coast guard boats
Esmeraldas…
We made Esmeraldas, Ecuador just around sunset. Esmeraldas is a commercial port and a fishing port as well – though when we arrived there were two sailboats in the anchorage. While anchoring, I noticed that the windlass was working fine the ‘down’ direction, but wasn’t responding at all un the ‘up’ direction. Shit. One more issue to work out, and if that couldn’t be worked out, we’d have to lift the anchor by hand… We were tired to say the least and quite relieved to be anchored in flat waters again. Within an hour of anchoring, we had our first visit – and we would soon realize the extent and efficiency of Ecuadorian authorities….
First it was the Coast Guard, who came aboard just after dark. The young sergeant was nice enough, though he had a bit of suspicion in his aspect. He looked around the boat, had a hard time understanding my limited Spanish (I think I mix in too much Portuguese), and then spoke to the Port Captain by radio as I’d suggested. Then he took our passports and ‘zarpe’ from Panama (exit document), wished us a pleasant evening and left. Alex wasn’t real happy that we’d surrended our passports (including his), but there wasn’t a whole lot to do about it. I tried to allay his fears a bit and after a while, we ate and slept like babies. I think Alex was anxious for Wednesday to come, so he could sort out the remaining days of his holidays.
Wednesday started early enough! The Coasties showed up again, this time before I was awake – I mean, it was like 0730. They said they had to do a narcotics test and proceeded to use a wiping wand with the little paper squares in it – rubbing the roof, the galley surfaces, and other places. It was kinda weird, but we had nothing to hide so I let them get about their work. It took about 2 minutes and they were done. Alex, who’d been up for some time packing his bags and dreaming about cheap flights to the Galapagos, told me the Coasties had already visited the other two sailboats – presumably doing drug tests as well.
I starting drowning copious amounts of coffee – after a passage like that I still needed precious sleep – and preparing to go ashore. We needed our passports back and still had no idea what sort of bureacracy we’d have to go through once we got there. To save time, we decided to put the dinghy in the water and just row over to the Port Captain dock – as getting the outboard of the aft locker would take some time. I called the authorities to make sure we could come ashore and take care of business – they said ok. So Alex and I loaded his large-ish backpack and surfboard into the dinghy and started to row ashore. As we neared the dock, we became aware of the slight commotion that was taking place. There were boats of several different authorities in the water and lots of activity… The most dramatic was the sight of two guys in full camoflague, one in all black like a special services commando or something, and a dog. The Port Captain authorities on the dock informed me that no, in fact, we couldn’t come ashore yet. As we turned around to row back to the boat, where Lara was waiting and had no idea what was going on, we chatted with two Coasties. They told us that the drug test from another boat had turned up positive and so now there would be a full search of all three sailboats in the anchorage. Alex grew a bit more nervous with the idea of lost hours of precious holiday time – when he still hadn’t made it ‘off the boat’ and didn’t know when or where he’d be going next.
We finally did have our visit and a few agents came aboard with “Yankee”, the labrador Narc Dog! He was great and seemed to have a good time sniffing our boat up and down. 🙂 Oh, and NO, he didn’t find anything as there was nothing to be found!
Yankee 1
Yankee 2 – we thought he deserved two photos. 🙂
Finally we did make it to shore and visited the Port Captain. He told me something that I had already kind of figured out: Esmeraldas is principally a commercial port for ships, and for fishing. They’re not used to, nor are they much ready for, cruising sailboats. In fact, he didn’t seem really to want to deal with us at all. He was sensitive to our situation though and told me I could remain at anchor for another 24 hours and then I’d have to leave. He gave us our passports back, as well as our ‘Zarpe’ (exit document) from Panama and said that Immigration was on their way over to meet us.
Immigration is run by the Police. Three guys showed up in camo uniformes and asked to see our passports. They were quite friendly and our point contact became Sgt. Hurado. This guy was a real character. They would have to take us to their offices to do the necessary entry rigamaror into Ecuador. But their offices are nowhere near the port…
So we hopped into their truck – actually into the back of it, at their suggestion – and started our trip. It turned out to be a city tour and these guys took us all over the place. First they stopped at the Narc office, so one of them could pick up a pair of new boots – apparently military issue and still in the plastic wrapping. Then, downtown, where they dropped Alex off right in front of the airline office – TAMA – so he could buy a ticket out of Esmeraldas for later that day! Then we stopped a wholesale chicken place and waited while Sgt. Hurado talked business apparently. In fact, he seems to have a decent extra-carricular business going on with all sorts of things… The next stop was a sort of hot dog stand where he picked up several cartons of cigarettes that he’d be selling to colleagues – I guessed it was a black market kind of thing. After nearly 2 hours of driving around, making stops, and Hurado saying hello to just about everyone, we made it to the Police compound and started our paperwork. It was a funny sight all in all – Lara and Alex and I in the back of this pickup, with Alex’s backpack and surfboard, and Hurado waving like he were the president (when he wasn’t talking on his cell phone!), and taking pictures along the way. So very South American, but without the suspicion and fear of the police that you might have if in the same situation in Rio, for example. Everyone was exceedingly nice – even though the officers who did our immigration were quite slow and, I think, a bit confused by the whole scene.
Checked in, Alex got in a cab right in front of the Police compound and rushed off to the airport. Luckily, he was able to make it Quito that day and to the Galapagos the very next morning! He wrote afterwards from Rio and reported that he loved the Galapagos – and caught some very nice waves. I was relieved and pleased for him – at it turned out ok afterall.
We would spend one more night at the anchorage, as planned, and head further south the next day. The next days is when another bit of a headache started… The windlass wasn’t working in the UP direction and so we had to pull up the anchor by hand. More on the whole windlass saga in another post… That’s it for now gang! Ciaooooooooooooooooooo
S/Y Walk On 