Still in Ecuador

Graptolite's Sailing Log
Martyn Pickup & Heike Richter
Thu 21 Feb 2008 07:47
02:13.00S 080:55.31W Thursday 21st 02:00 Puerto Lucia Yacht Club Marina, La
Libertad

This missive is only going to my mailasail blog as I'm going to be a little
critical of the arrangements here.

Berthing for many of us has been terrible. The mooring buoys have not been
up to the job of holding the yachts off the marina wall in the swell and
some have been grounded and had to escape and anchor off. Today we found we
had clattered against our neighbour, Talulah Ruby, while both of us were off
our boats. The damage was mostly to ourselves with my flagpole finally
breaking in two. It was previously weakened in St Lucia by a previous crew
member who shall remain nameless. (It was Lori). The oil and diesel in the
sea, lack of potable water, rubbish WiFi and endless rain has made life here
a bit miserable.

For the past couple of days we have been exploring this part of Ecuador.
Shin has gone off to the capital Quito to do his own thing. Yesterday, Colin
and I took a bus trip North up the coast. Saw some seasalt workings, white
things at a distance; saw some sealions, brown things at a distance; saw
some flamingoes, pink things at a distance and saw some shrimp farms and
this literary styling obviously breaks down here.

We also saw lots of white birds. Egrets, I've had a few, but then again, too
few to mention.....

Later we went to a quirky hotel/museum/restaurant full of nautical
memorabilia where the old sea captain/owner clearly had a plank short of a
full deck. There were lots of ships's figureheads on display of the big
booby kind. After that we visited a church on a promontory dedicated to a
plastic statue of a Virgin that drips rust coloured tears every decade or
so. Moving. Later we rolled into a surfing resort called Montenino which is
a little like Newquay with palm thatch roofs and muddy streets. The beach
was filled with loads of young unattached ladies which made Colin and I
conclude that we had arrived here perhaps a little bit too late. Maybe about
30 years too late.

Today we took another long bus trip to the big city of Guayaquil. Memorable
bits were a city park full of iguanas that you could play with and a zoo
boardwalk through a mangrove with other local critters (sloths, monkeys,
ocelots, parrots and the like).

Provisioning and final repairs for the Galapagos run tomorrow.

M