Day 37: Panama to Ecuador – 11/02/10

It’s my last watch for this leg of the trip and what a difference in the weather.  It is chilly (well around 26 degrees), grey and there is lots of drizzle.  In fact, apart from the temperature, it is like being back in England.  I actually have to wear a fleece to do my watch and by the time it is finished, I feel damp to the core.

When I go to bed, even the sheets feel damp and cold and for the first time on the boat, I sleep without the air conditioning or the fan.  When I wake up the sheets are snuggled around me right up to my neck and I really welcome my cup of tea to warm me up.

Late in the morning the port engine suddenly cuts out.  Jesus.  What now?  Mike gets changed and goes down into his black hole.  He has a good look around, then starts the engine again.  It starts immediately.  No alarms go off.  There’s no oil slick behind the boat and no ominous black smoke.  It goes for a little while then we hear the engine start to die away again, it splutters again and stops.  Mike at this point concludes that it is fuel starvation due to the need for a filter change, a filthy job which he puts off for as long as possible, but will now have to do when we get into port.  We continue to motor sail with the starboard engine only but as we normally only use one engine to do this, this is no problem.  At least with a catamaran, you always have a spare engine!!!

I make a quick bake loaf of bread (58 minutes from start to finish) then at the last moment, I fling in four cloves of chopped raw garlic.  The result is wonderful and it goes well with the hearty French onion soup that is just the ticket to warm us all up, washed down with a bottle of wine.

We arrive in La Libertad at 4.30 pm but have to anchor out in the bay for a while as all the staff are still getting the other fleet boats settled in.  There has been a lot of talk about how bad La Libertad is for sea surges, and we are about to discover just how bad they are for ourselves.

We are eventually called in to anchor up by the huge Catana.  We see her heaving to and fro which doesn’t bode well.  The area we have been allotted looks very oily.  Mmmm.  Luckily both engines work for us as Mike reverses into our space between two mooring balls, in front of the harbour wall and next to a pontoon.  We attach two stern lines and a guy in a dinghy attaches our bow lines to the two mooring balls.  On the pontoon, the customs, immigration and port authority await.  Immediately it looks like we are settled they all get into a dinghy and come to the boat to complete the paperwork.  It is at this point that I realise the only way on and off the boat is a 20 foot dinghy ride.  To me, the whole point of being in a marina and paying a premium is the ease of getting to the facilities it offers, so to say that I am a little pissed off about the dinghy situation is an understatement, especially as the stern lines attempt to garrotte you as you motor underneath them.

The official paperwork takes quite a while but all the staff are friendly and smiley and shake hands with us all when they leave.  However, we are now too late to join in with the evening’s rally meal as the bus has is ready to leave and we are not ready.  Mike wants to put some more lines on too as he is not happy with the way the boat is surging and jerking backwards and forwards.  By the time this is done it is dark.  I go below and shower, managing to fall over in the process when the boat suddenly does one of its jerks.  Luckily, with the bathrooms being so small, I come to no harm but just end up sitting down on the toilet with a thump.  We go to the marina restaurant to eat.  We are the only ones there, and very rudely we sit at the table and use their free wifi to do our e-mails.  The food is very good; expensive for Ecuador (but hey, it’s a marina/hotel complex and it goes with the territory) but good and the wine slips down easily.

We get back to the boat and run the gauntlet of the mooring lines, which have now been dipping into the water for a while as the boat heaves itself around and are covered in a greasy mix of seawater and oil which drips over us as we go underneath them.  Lovely.  Getting out of the dinghy in the surge is a challenge too but we all make it in one piece.

The boat feels a bit drier by the time we go to bed as we have had the air conditioning on for a while – much more comfortable – although the constant jerking of the boat as she reaches the end of each surge worries Mike before he falls asleep.

 

Our position is:  1 deg 52 min S, 81 deg 10 min W

Distance so far:  2005 nautical miles