Ecuador - Moored in our very own oil slick
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 23 Feb 2008 22:18
It didn't take long after we arrived here in La Libertad, Ecuador last
Friday (2/15) to figure out that we were moored in our very own oil slick.
Oil slick with a hefty dose of sewage that is.
The yacht club here in La Libertad is extremely nice with a pool,
bar/restaurant and marble floored common rooms for meetings, etc, but it
is set in a seedy part of town and therefore is surrounded by high walls
with lots of razor wire on top and guarded gates that are closed at all
times and after nightfall do not even allow taxis to enter. We are
encouraged not to walk around outside the marina walls, and have had to
take a taxi everywhere including the mall, which is only a short half-mile
away. None of this is surprising given that we are in Ecuador and were
expecting to have to deal with security issues. What is surprising is the
water quality (or lack thereof) in the bay and the many issues we have had
with the marina.
The marina itself is too small to handle the 40 or so relatively large
rally boats in our entourage. Knowing so many boats were coming, the
marina added a bunch of mooring buoys along a rock wall, just outside of
the inner marina. The idea was to put all the medium-sized boats (like
ours) on this outside wall. The boats were to be lined up with two bow
lines (one on each side) tied to the wall and two stern lines tied to
mooring buoys located behind the boats to keep the boats from moving too
far forward and onto the rocks. This idea probably would have worked well
had it not been for the fact that the mooring buoys are severely
undersized for boats like ours that weigh somewhere between 25,000 and
50,000 pounds, and get dragged toward shore in a big way at high tide when
the ocean swell surge gets the boats moving to and fro (sometimes rather
violently). When this happens, there is nothing holding the boats back
from hitting the rocks. Picture 1 shows a few of the boats on the wall
(ours included). Note the funky positions of all the orange mooring buoys
- all have dragged at one time or another.
Not to mention the oil from.... a spill? seepage from some underground
source? a nearby oil terminal? the fleet of decrepit fishing boats
nearby? We received any number of explanations about the source of the
oil slick, many of them conflicting. We've been here over a week and
still haven't received the straight story. In the end, the straight story
doesn't matter. The fact remains that the hull of our boat is covered
with sludge, as are all of our lines (two attached to the rock wall on
shore and three attached to the underperforming mooring buoys) and worst
of all, our dinghy is also covered (which, as you might remember is brand
new and is unfortunately the only way for us to get to shore). Picture 2
shows our dinghy tied next to another equally filthy dinghy at the dock.
The brown sludge is next to impossible to remove from the dinghy surface
and its lines. All of this topped off by a generous amount of sewage and
general trash in the water. Heaven, it isn't. I tried all week to think
of a way to put a positive spin on this situation, but have been woefully
unsuccessful.
So, you may ask, why did the rally bring us to this stinking port and to a
marina that can't handle us? Hmmmm....good question and one that is being
asked by every rally boater. As you can imagine, relations between
boaters and rally management are a bit strained at the moment. It doesn't
help that at least five boats have sustained some type of damage as a
result of hitting the rocks on the outside wall because the mooring buoys
did not stay in place, or because the water surge within the marina caused
the boats to crash into the flimsy docks. The damage is mostly cosmetic
and not structural, but no one likes to have their boat banged up. Aha!
Here is one positive thing: aside from the oil coating, our boat has not
been damaged. At one point we had to run the engine in reverse for about
three or four hours to keep from hitting the rocks until the marina moved
the mooring buoys back (which they've done about four times throughout the
week - definitely a losing battle). Don also skipped out of one of the
day tours we had signed up for in order to baby-sit the boat. Not the
most joyful way to spend time in a port...
And it is hot. We reached an all time record high temperature in our
cabin yesterday - 93 hot and humid degrees. It was a two-shower day.
Which is unfortunate because we can't replenish our water from the marina
supply due to questionable quality. So we've had to make do with the
amount of water we had in our tank as a result of watermaking on our way
down here from Panama. (We have a desalination device on board that makes
excellent water fit for drinking from clean, repeat clean, ocean water.
Obviously we can't use it to make water here.)
All in all, not the most inviting place as far as the marina situation is
concerned. Ecuador as whole, however, is an interesting and sometimes
beautiful place filled with what we've found to be extremely friendly,
deeply religious and proud people. More on this in future entries.
Anne