San Mateo Anchorage, Ecuador

Thursday Nov 26. We spent last night at the small open anchorage of San Mateo (S 00 57.267 W 080 48.367)

The wind was howling (~15-20 Kts, which is howling for Ecuador) and the seas were up, as we rounded the two capes and peeked at the anchorage from offshore. We could see waves breaking and only 2 fishing boats. It didn't look like much of an anchorage in the conditions. But we decided to go in and take a look anyway. We also prepared to divert to Manta, another hour further along the coast, in case we needed to.

The anchoraged turned out to be perfectly acceptable. We found a nice spot, good holding, seemed like sand, in about 25 feet, behind and slightly shoreward of the two fishing boats. What we had seen breaking from offshore was a small reef extending from the point, that gave a little extra protection to the otherwise open bay.

While the wind was blowing (afternoon and early evening), it kept our bow mostly pointed into the chop and swell. After the wind dropped, we did roll a bit whenever we were beam-on to the swell, but not too bad. By morning, both the wind and seas had dropped to nearly nothing--with just the gentle long Pacific swell left.

We left the anchorage at 4:30 am, in the dark. There were fishing boats about, but all the ones we could see were lit. We kept a good bow watch until it was sufficient daylight to see well from the cockpit (about 5:30am).