Carnival, Bahia Style

This past weekend has been Carnival in Bahia. (aka Mardi Gras, the beginning of Lent). Being a mostly Catholic country, they celebrate Carnival as a 4-day weekend. We didn't participate much, but we enjoyed watching the Ecuadorians enjoy their weekend.

Bahia is a beach town. They say it's a favorite vacation destination for the upper class Quitenos (people from Quito). People in Bahia were afraid that attendance would be down this year, because the road between Quito and Bahia is impassable right now due to a huge mudslide a week ago.

But from what we could see, after a slow start, the beach was jam packed right up until Tuesday evening.

The Beach at High Tide as seen from Soggy Paws
We were out exploring the town and people-watching this weekend and got to see the start of 'the big parade' in Bahia. While we'd been walking around, we'd noticed people starting to sit down in the shade on the sidewalk of the main drag. We finally figured out there must be a parade somewhere. Though we decided not to wait for it, it ended up 'queuing up' right in front of Puerto Amistad.




They didn't have much music (except that which was emanating from various bars along the beach), but they did have an awesome drum section to accompany the parade.


At one point in the weekend, we were laying in our bunk with our portholes facing the beach... at 4am... and the music was still going strong from 2 different locations. Sigh... We closed our portholes and turned our fans on, and could still hear it booming over the water.

The other thing that has amazed us is the number of people they've been jamming on the car ferry. There are faster outboard motor-powered people ferries, with seats and all. But the car ferry lets people ride free. So it has been completely packed, in both directions, all weekend long.

A Day in the Big City of Manta

Or... the 'great chain caper'.

Dave found out that there was a place in Manta, the big city nearby, that would do chain galvanizing. So he hustled around the anchorage and rounded up 2 other people interested in going together on a truck to take the chain in.

Then we started the big task of getting 3 boats worth of chain and anchors ashore.

Carlos and Evan Unload Our Chain from the Puerto Amistad Launch

Dave Pulls the Chain up the Seawall
At 0700, taxi driver Giovanni met us at the side lot of Puerto Amistad to load up the chain in his pickup truck. Then Peter, from Amigo, and his Ecuadorian girlfriend Joanna, and Dave and I loaded up for the trip into Manta.

The galvanizing place didn't look like much from the outside, but Dave went on an inspection tour and pronounced it a pretty impressive operation. They quoted us $1.30 per kilo (about $.60/pound) to sandblast, acid wash, galvanize, and clean up our chains and anchors.

Dave Negotiates the Price
The galvanizing place was only the first stop... both Peter and Dave had a list of things they were looking for in 'the big city'. Peter brought along the motor from his anchor windlass, which he'd burned out trying to winch himself up on the beach to paint the bottom of his boat. Peter was ecstatic that we found a guy that would rebuild his burnt out motor for only $30. He had envisioned having to replace his whole windlass for close to $1000.

The Motor Rebuild Guy
We also made stops at the Fish and Dive store (nice marine store/dive shop), the Setmabas liferaft repacking place, and several fishing stores, hardware stores and paint stores (looking for specific things). We went to the big mall for lunch at the food court. And the last stop was at the Supermaxi grocery store. Dave and I didn't buy much, but surveyed what was there, so we knew what we'd have available when it came time for our big provisioning. It was a big beautiful US-style grocery store.

The Manta Mall
The one thing on MY list was to try to find my blood pressure medicine. We'd struck out in Panama and Costa Rica and I was down to a few days supply. The drug store in the mall said they didn't have anything similar. But the drug store across from the grocery store had the exact Central American equivalent that I'd last found in Guatemala. I got a 60-day supply--enough to get me back to the States, where I have more waiting. No prescription required. Just write down what you need and purchase it. Only narcotics are regulated.

On our way out of Manta, we went by the port. Wow, what a HUGE number of fishing boats of all sizes. We also went past a 'carpenter's row' where they are building fishing boats by hand, the old fashioned way.

The Tuna Fleet
Boats Under Construction on the Beach

Arrival at Bahia de Caraquez

We made it to the 'Waiting Room' waypoint with plenty of time to spare. Notice the swell passing Soggy Paws just off our bow.

Conditions had moderated as the night wore on, so it was a very pleasant morning. We did quite a bit of motoring around while waiting for the pilot to show up, and saw pretty much steady depths of about 25' all around the waypoint.

We watched the fishermen setting nets while we waited for our pilot to show up.


We used these waypoints, from Puerto Amistad's website:

WP0 00º35.780S 080º28.300W Virtual Sea Buoy
WP1 00º35.805S 080º26.832W "Waiting Room" Anchorage

We also took the chartlet they had on their website and imported it into Sea Clear and geo-referenced it, as a backup in case we had to take ourselves in.

Fortunately, promptly at 8:40, Carlos from Puerto Amistad showed up in a lancha. He safely piloted us over the bar and around some pretty awesome rollers. It would have been pretty scary taking ourselves in. The $30 we paid to Carlos to guide us in was money well spent, we think.

Carlos, Our Pilot, Comes Aboard

Dave and Carlos taking Soggy Paws In

Breaking Waves!
We were never actually in breakers, but they were close abeam as we went in (much closer than this picture shows). We saw a minimum depth of about 8' (at high tide a few days after the full moon).

Vacation Condos on the Point

Inside the Bay

Approaching the Anchorage off Puerto Amistad

Carlos hustled off as soon as we were on the mooring, to round up the officials. The current procedure is for Puerto Amistad to call them and arrange for a taxi to bring them to the boat. And then Carlos ferries them out to the boat. It took a couple of hours for them to show up, but by about 4pm, we were done. Here's what we paid for the entry and check-in:

$30 Pilot Fee
$5 Health Inspection
$20 Immigration
$39 Port Captain
$30 Taxi fare (we split the $60 fare with another boat that was leaving)

Our Immigration is good for 90 days. The boat is supposedly good 'indefinitely'. Unlike the problems reported in Salinas/Puerto Lucia, where the Port Captain has been hassling boats about staying too long. The 90 day immigration won't be a problem for us because we plan several trips out of Ecuador in the next 9 months.

Racing for the Rendezvous Point

The wind came up so unexpectedly and so rapidly, and was unforecast, so we weren't sure it was going to hold. At 4pm it was flat dead calm, at 4:15 we had 7-8 knots, and at 4:30 we had 10-15 (and later, almost 20 knots). The forecast said we should expect almost nothing.

We sweated keeping our speed up all night, as we had to arrive at the 'Waiting Room' waypoint by 1 hour before high tide. We figured if we could average 5.5 knots, we could make it. So we kept more sail up than we would normally under the conditions. At one point we were doing 6-7 knots (and cheering) in about 20 knots of wind. I had to switch plans for dinner as I hadn't planned on such a boisterous sail--we ended up with 'augmented leftovers'.

Later in the wee hours of the morning, the wind eased some, and we eventually had to turn on the engine to keep our speed up.

Just when we thought we were going to make the required arrival time with no problem, we got a call on the radio. "Vessel 6 miles off my beam, this is the survey vessel... Scan (something)". We had seen the ship on AIS all night long (we picked it up from 25 miles away and it was only moving at 4 knots). The AIS said we'd pass clear astern by several miles, so we hadn't worried about it.

What we didn't know was that he was towing a 6 mile cable that we had to clear also. So we had to turn away from our waypoint and head south for about a half an hour, to get around his towed subseafloor survey device. Then, it was clear he was approaching shore and would have to turn... so then we (I, mainly) worried whether he'd cut us off again. When we told him we were headed for Bahia de Caraquez, he said "Where?" (it is not labeled on the chart). But he was moving so slowly, we managed to get inshore of him before he passed by again.

The one good thing about the survey vessel was that we were pretty sure we wouldn't run into any fishing nets during the night. The survey vessel had two 'outrider' boats that were running interference for him, to move boats that didn't have radios. And we could see them heading off fishing boats.

Nets in the night was another thing I was worrying about! One boat had said they got tangled up in nets 3 times in one night. It would have been a bad night to have to go over the side with a knife in your teeth to clear a net off your prop!

After all my worrying, we arrived at the 'Waiting Room' about an hour before the required time. So we ended up just motorsailing in a racetrack pattern to kill time. Dave didn't want to bother anchoring.

We were amazed at the number of fishermen in open boats in the bay ahead of us. There were nets and fishing boats all over. So we hung out just beyond the nets.

Crossed the Equator, Arriving Ecuador

A great wind on the beam came up (unforecast) yesterday afternoon. We made about 6 knots all night under sail, and are now approaching the Sea Bouy off Bahia de Caraquez.

We crossed the equator at 22:44 last night, and Dave initiated Sherry, following the proper rites, as a Shellback. She is a Pollywog no more.

Sherry Toasting Neptune
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At 2/16/2009 10:22 PM our position was 00°00.00'S 081°04.22'W

Enroute to Ecuador - Day 8

8am Position: 00 46.90N 81 48.60W
Progress in the last 24 hours: 52.1 nautical miles
Miles to Go: 115
Fuel left: Approx 20 gallons

We continue to make slow but steady progress towards Bahia de Caraquez. We have been in email contact with Tripp Martin at Puerto Amistad, and he is expecting us, and ready to arrange the 'bar pilot' we need to come in the Rio Chone.

It looks like now we won't arrive until late Tuesday (at our current speed of 3.5 knots motoring, that's what the GPS is saying). Since we've been averaging only 2.5 knots with our sail/motorsail arrangement, we'll target the Weds am high tide at about 10am.

Yesterday was an eventful day, for a zero-wind day. First, at just before dawn, still 180 miles offshore, we saw our first shipping contact in days. It was a single white light, and not really moving. When we finally got close enough, and the sun came up, we could see a large 'lancha' with a few guys and a pole with lights on it, sitting at the end of a net or longline (we could see the end of net marker, a black flag on it). We also saw a larger vessel rendezvous with this lancha for a few minutes.
Not sure what went back and forth, but both boats waved at us as we went by.

A couple of hours later, we approached another similar lancha (or maybe the same one..?), they were coming at us slowly and a guy was standing up pointing south. It was obvious they were trying to tell us something. (Dave got out the 'Bear Spray' and the Tazer, just in case). When we got close enough, they shouted 'Sur' (South) and made a 'follow us' motion. So we turned on the motor, rolled in the sail, and turned about 45 degrees right and slowly followed them. They must have wondered why
the heck this big fancy gringo sailboat was only going 3 knots!!!

They eventually led us about a half a mile, around the end of their net, marked by another black flag. This was 175 miles out at sea, in very very deep water. And they are 4 guys in an open lancha with no cover, and an outboard motor for power. I wonder if they have a GPS? VHF radio?? Brave men! Undoubtedly desperate to support their families.

Soon after that, I was napping below and heard Dave yell "Sherry, I need you now." The brand new 1/2" halyard on our Code Zero had chafed thru, and the sail was dragging in the water. Fortunately, "shrimping" (recovering a dragging sail) is not very hard when you're only going 2 knots and the sea is flat calm. We got it back aboard easily, and by late morning, had hauled Dave up the mast to re-run the halyard. We will have to watch for chafe very closely and try to figure out exactly where the
chafe point is. Dave had run the halyard over the spinnaker block and into the mast, and I suspect that's our chafe point. This time, the halyard is run outside the mast.

About the time we got the Code Zero back up, the wind died to nothing. Absolutely no wind, dead flat glassy calm. Zip, zilch, nada. Not a ripple on the water as far as the eye can see. So of course, the motor went back on (still only around 1100 RPM). We continued motoring with no wind until around 4:15pm when a slight breeze came up. Still fighting about a half a knot of current, so only making about 2.5 knots motoring at that speed.

During the calm, we were visited by a lively pod of porpoises. Several times a couple of them jumped 6' out of the water and did flips. Very cool. I stood on the bow with the camera and got several good (I hope) shots of one particular fellow who liked hanging out just ahead of the bow. But I missed the aerial acrobatics with the camera.

We continued to work on 'projects'... Dave working on the Workshop section of the website and Sherry hauled out the sewing machine to do a long-awaited repair on the mainsail cover.

Once the wind came up (to about 5-6 knots), it was one of the most beautiful evenings we have had at sea... a slight but steady wind, the motor's off and we're sailing along at about 2-3 knots. The sunset was gorgeous--we saw a 'green flash'. Sherry made 'Seared Tuna' from the last of the tuna Dave caught on our way to Cocos. This was our 4th try to imitate the 'seared tuna' you get in a good Japanese restaurant, and we finally got it perfect. great marinade from our Keys Cooking cookbook and
finally not cooked too much.

And we had enough wind to continue under sail all night.

The crew got lots of rest last night. We've been doing 3 hour watches during the night. That gives each of 2 3-our watches, providing about 5 hrs (total) good solid sleep, plus catnaps during our watches, and a nap if needed in the middle of the day. On easy nights (stable conditions, little ship traffic), we can manage to sleep in the cockpit 15 minutes at a time while we are on watch. Dave sleeps with a kitchen timer sitting on his chest. Sherry uses her Timex watch with a countdown timer.

At one point during my watch, we were visited by porpoises again. I could hear them surface alongside with a 'phoosh', and saw a couple of them streak away, leaving a trail of phosphorescence in their wake. Really cool (or 'awesome' for you younger folks).

So, though it is frustrating to be going so slow, and a little worrisome not having enough fuel to just motor in if the wind dies completely, and we're still not sure what the current will do to us... We ARE enjoying ourselves out here. It could be A LOT worse.
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At 2/16/2009 3:06 PM (utc) our position was 00°42.81'N 081°42.78'W

Enroute to Ecuador - Day 7

8am Position: 01 15.23N 83 33.48W
Progress in the last 24 hours: 60.0 nautical miles
Miles to Go: 167
Fuel left: Approx 21 gallons

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. The wind was still light--nonexistent for a few hours, but we did make quite a few miles under sail, in mostly the right direction. We are making slow but sure progress toward our destination, at very minimal fuel usage. The current seems to be slacking off... has been mostly on our beam, rather than our nose.

Our Valentines Dinner was beef stew. We've been trailing a fishing line, but other than the tuna we caught on our way to Cocos, we ave not caught any fish. We're moving a little slow for good trolling. Unfortunately, the only beef available in Golfito is suitable only for pressure cooking, so no medium rare steaks for us.

We cranked up the watermaker on one of our bouts of motoring, and made about 60 gallons of fresh water in an our and a half, topping our tanks off.

Looks like we won't make our Monday target arrival date... we are now hoping to make the 9:41 high tide on Tuesday.

Enroute to Ecuador - Day 6

8am Position: 01 38.05N 83 32.07W
Progress in the last 24 hours: 53.5 nautical miles
Miles to Go: 223
Fuel left: Approx 26 gallons

Still very little wind. What wind there is looks like it is trying to fill in right on our nose.

We had a short burst of wind in the middle of the night that drove us crazy. I pulled out the Code Zero and we were smoking along at 5 knots. Then the wind seemed to be increasing, so I woke Dave to help pull in our light air sail and put out the Genoa. By the time we got all that done, the wind had died again. Couldnt even hold the Code Zero up.

The GRIB file I just pulled in shows wind under 8 knots from varying directions for the next 3 days. Sigh.
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At 2/14/2009 1:33 PM (utc) our position was 01°37.37'N 083°31.22'W

The Sea is Like a Washing Machine

We've been looking forward to having wind on Friday for days. But alas, the wind went somewhere else. It was light this morning and petered out to nothing by evening. We can't even keep the 3oz Code Zero up.

glassy seas and we are motoring again. What's worse, we have a nasty washing machine sea that makes it very uncomfortable, and slows us down. We can't figure out where its coming from, with no wind for days.

Could be lots worse, but we're ready for this learning experience to be over!!
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At 2/14/2009 6:07 AM (utc) our position was 01°44.14'N 083°43.11'W

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Henry is Steering

Most of Dave's spare time in the last couple of days has been focused on getting our Monitor Wind Vane set up to steer Soggy Paws.

Though "Janet", our CPT autopilot, has been doing a rock solid job at the cost of only a couple of amps, the long term plan has always been to have the Monitor steer on long passages with steady winds.

We finally got the Monitor all rigged up (rudder on, windvane on, steering lines and blocks rigged to the steering wheel), engaged it, and it is steering so effortlessly that we looked at each other and said "Is it working?" But Janet is definitely disengaged, and we are still on course after 10 minutes. When you have your sails properly balanced, the Monitor makes such tiny corrections that it's hard to see it working.

Everyone's autopilot MUST be named, as it is such an essential part of the crew. We have named our Monitor "Henry", in honor of Dave's ex-Father-in-Law, Henry Mikelait, who has been avidly following our progress on the internet. Henry Mikelait's own travels around the world have been inspiring Dave for years. Now it's our turn to travel, and we'll have the spirit of Henry Mikelait helping us around the world.

Dave has a little bit of info on our Monitor wind vane and CPT autopilot setups posted on the web at http://www.svsoggypaws.com/steering.htm I am sure more will be forthcoming... including new pictures of Henry in action.
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At 2/13/2009 8:37 PM (utc) our position was 01°53.44'N 084°00.43'W