Day 38: Ecuador – 12/02/10

We wake in the middle of the night to hear the dinghy slamming into the side of the boat so Mike gets up to deal with it.  The lines are all caught up and he returns to bed not a happy bunny.

In the morning, the surging and jerking is just as bad, and I am still in bed, luxuriating in the fact that I have internet, when Mike yells at me to come out as we are moving.  Overnight, the oil slick that surrounded our boat has worsened and it is a thick layer of crude oil that is now there.  Our ropes, which when we put them out last night were a pristine white, are now covered with a thick layer of brownish black gunk, and everywhere they have touched the boat has patches of the same.  We are not happy.

We release all the lines and allow the boat to be pulled forward by me pulling the anchor up then we motor round (with two engines, thankfully) to our new spot.  Poor Mike has to yet again reverse into a space between two boats, a pontoon, and worse, instead of two rubber mooring balls, two huge metal mooring balls, but again he manages it, although the first attempt has one of such balls very gently scraping itself along the inside of one of our hulls.  If my paintwork is damaged ….. !

The surging is less in our new position, and we don’t have to use the dinghy to get to shore, but shore isn’t exactly close either.  We are quite a distance from the side pontoon (which is half pulled away from the main pontoon with nasty pointy edges, so I don’t fancy the look of it anyway) making it difficult for me to clamber over the side safely (although in my desperation to get to the bar to use the internet which has now disappeared from the boat, I manage it), and getting off the stern is quite a leap, and it is constantly on the move.  Having risked life and limb to get to land, I take my netbook to the bar with me and manage to update the blog and use Skype.  By the time I return to Jeannius, the gangplank is in place, looking as dangerous as ever.  (Johanne, if you thought St Barts was evil, you would have to sleep on the pontoon here, because your indecisive tottering would continue ad infinitum!!)

During the day we have been deciding what to do with our time here in Ecuador as it’s daft to come all this way and only see the coast line.  We had been thinking of hiring a car and going to Quito, the capital, but after discovering that it is a good 11 hours by very bad roads, we decide instead to go to Cuenca, a colonial city south east of the marina which should only take about 4 hours to drive to.  We speak to various people about their experiences here.  One crew member who arrived a week ago, tells us interesting tales of men trying to sell their daughters to him.  Hopefully that won’t happen with me in tow!

Jim takes it upon himself to rid as much of the boat of its covering of crude oil as he can, and when he has finished, Jeannius is looking a lot better, not perfect Jim, but definitely better.

We eat out again in the evening before doing some more research for our outing.  We manage to locate a hire car which is a good start and plan to head off on Sunday.