He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
- George Orwell -
Equator - Ecuador
I had to ask Annina to look into her diary and tell me what actually happened in our 8-day passage from Costa Rica to Ecuador. Not because I was out of it. Because nothing seemed to have happened, exept at the end when the breakwater of Puerto Lucia appeared infront of us. I've become lazy with the log book and I don't bother recording things like sail changes or putting on the engine etc., like some captains will religiously do. I feel that there are more important things to record than the moment in the Space-Time Continuum that I turned the ignition key of a Japanese internal combustion engine or spotted a seagull in the sky.
The compulsory picture. Because there's absolutely nothing outside to take a picture of. Yet, the moment is memorable. How did they record it before GPS? Aliisa's fourth and last crossing took her back to home waters - South Pacific!
Aliisa's log book these days is merely recording the time of departure and the time of arrival. In fact the constant recording of everything is often annoying me. They're my moments, in my life. Private emotions and experiences. Too often broken by the feeling of duty: "Ah, where's the camera, I should take a picture of this", or "where's the dictaphone so I can record my thoughts for later writings?" (Yeah, I think I have a problem with my short-term memory...)
The seas were pretty flat and winds light. One bird would easily sleep on the rail and have a late check out from hotel Aliisa.
A few tiny squids kept leaping ou on the deck but the flyign fish were missing.
We managed to sail a number of days. A decently rigged yacht with more waterline lenght and more performance could have slowly tacked most of the way but the tradewind cruiser that Aliisa is, skippered by an impatient man, we ended up motor-sailing most of the way. The engine was on for 6 days out of the 8 that it took us to reach Ecuador. The main was up the whole time, sometimes assisting, sometimes not.
There was a large long-period swell packing up infront of the entrance to Puerto Lucia Harbour. We anchored up well off the area were waves looked like almost braking. The chart showed a depth of 4 meters. Numerous calls to the harbour provided no reply but an outgoing yacht picked us up on the VHF and told us to move in and anchor inside the brakewater. For some unknown reason the marina only monitored VHF Ch 19A - a US channel which does not exist in my VHF.) The boys from the marina were quick to come out in their tender, showing us the best place to anchor and later bringing the 5-man contingency of agent plus offials onboard.
The authorities settled quickly into the cockpit and started giving me papers to stamp and sign.
Clearing in was fast, thanks to the
form that I had emailed them before leaving Costa Rica. The bureaucrats came armed with stacks of print outs from the form and all that was left for me to do was signing and stamping each of them. We had only vague info about the cost of clearing and thought it to be about $200. (US) Our agent asked for $250 and I tried to be clever, saying "I only have 200". He took my cash, paid out a 10 or 20-dollar note to each of the authorities in the cockpit and put the rest of the money in his pocket. The authorities were friendly and jovial, happy to pose for pictures. We were then assisted by the marina crew to pick up a mooring and bring our stern against the pontoon, Med-style.
Not only the authorities, but all Ecuadorians were friendly and helpful. Our agent is showing the victory sign for a reason. He's just made 200 bucks for 1/2 hour's work. That's big anywhere. That's huge in Ecuador. What is he thinking? "God bless the cruising yachtie"? or "What a great gullible idiot he was"?
Our main task here was the haul-out. I have become increasingly concerned about our budget - the fact that we're not retired and that we are in fact spending money that we might need for our unborn child's education! On one hand, it's good to travel while you're "young" but a part of me is always aware of the fact that I have not accumulated any wealth to secure my lated days. None at all. Not a dollar. Yeah, we all make choices in our lives, I have no regrets and I think every penny I've spent all around the world has been more than worth it. Still, I found myself starting to resist inland travel, tours and stuff that would cost another 500, another 50 or another 1000. The concern was exasperated by the fact that we had promised to go visit an old chilhood friend of mine in Buenos Aires. We made the decision in Costa Rica, without really looking at the world atlas or thinking about the possible costs of flights during the Xmas/New Year holiday season. I don't like making promises. I hate not keeping them.
Even though this image is nothing spectacular and all the wiring was sound and protected, the yard - in stark contrast to the rest of the Puerto Lucia Resort area - was in a dire need of maintenance. The crew in the yard were helpful and cheerful, but the infrastructure was not in the best shape, as we will soon see...
Aliisa coming out for the fouth and last time in her 6-year circumnavigation?
Back to the marina. We had seen complaints in Noonsite about the marina, but didn't really pay too much attention to them. There are always opinions and there are always different ways of looking at an issue. I'm always keen to have a look for myself rather than accepting someone else's "truth". The situation wasn't quite as bad as some had said, but the marina certainly wasn't a sailor's dream come true. There was natural oil seeping out from the ocean floor, inside the marina. The surge was not necessarily a problem for those local boats that were empty but for a cruiser living, eating and sleeping on board the constant yanking of lines made an interesting experience. We ended up bending our wind vane, touching the jetty. I can't blame anyone but myself, of course, as there is the temptation to park the boat close enough to be able to get in and out of it without falling in the water.
The jetties were high, sitting on large plastic barrels, too narrow and too top heavy to be stable. The structures holding the jetty off the rock wall were partly damaged and broken. Many of the cleats were gone or hanging on by one last bolt. Most local yachts had run lines over the jetty to larger kleats bolted on steel beams ashore. In all honesty, it was a failed attempt to build a fine marina alongside a beautiful resort area. Nothing that a bit of hard work can't fix, together with another 10 million dollars. We endured two nights before we were able to schedule a haul-out and get Aliisa on to the more comfortable setting of the work yard.
The owner of Puerto Lucia is not the only one on this planet who is willing to sacrifice quality and pride for more money in the pocket. A 4-year-old dismasted Bavaria sits in the yard, showing the signs of the new world order in manufacturing. Cheap Chinese stainless steel fittings are crying rust. "I'd be crying too, but it's not my party", I'd say if it was Lesley Gore's boat. (Besides I've got my own rusty tears to deal with.)
About the location
La Libertad is a small town. Salinas is a neigbouring town with a semi-attractive beach, it's own yacht club (not accepting visitors) and a string of hotels and holiday apartments for the many Ecuadorians who come to the coast for watersports and pleasure. Puerto Lucia is the name of a massive resort / holiday unit development located at the shores of La Libertad. Puerto Lucia's resort includes a small canal with its lifting bridge, a work yard and a marina. The main resort area next to the marina includes several swimming pools, tennis courts, restaurant, gym etc. All three names (Puerto Lucia, La Libertad, Salinas) are used by cruisers and visitors, making the location a little confusing for those not familiar with the coast. Ecuador's largest city Guayaquil is a 2-hour drive away. Back to the story:
One of the endless amounts of taxis (every private car ultimately is a taxi here) keeping itself cool to attract the less demanding customers in the midday heat which for most inspires dreams of air conditioning. We were warned about illegal hand guns and high crime rates. We heard stories of buses being hi-jacked on highways, taxi drivers robbing their foreign customers etc. It would have been easy to live in fear. Instead we lived in luck? We never saw one sign of anything unpleasant except poverty. People, again, were helpful and friendly, everywhere.
Andres - the travel lift operator and yard manager (I don't know his title, but if he's not a yard manager, he should be) put two guys on Aliisa's deck and we started moving the boat towards the travel lift pen. The surge and swell was sweeping underneath the high concrete fingers. Andres had lowered the slings deep enough for us to drive in but no-one even dreamed of throwing lines and trying to hold Aliisa still in the pen. As soon as I had the boat over the slings - before I even managed to stop - Andres started the lifting, the slings grabbing the fat belly of Aliisa in their firm hug, pulling us out of the forces that tried to smash us against the concrete. We swayed up, narrowly missing the concrete walls and finally settling still. It was nice to be still, though the distance to the toilets and showers had just increased by 500 meters. (I don't count the portapotty plastic festival toilet erected at the corner of the work yard. I once approaced it, but the smell stopped me from even opening the door...)
The numerous yard cats each had their own territories. The black and white family of three were patrolling our area and were quick to tell me their names: Meow, Sneeze and Squeek. They were all clean and affectionate and I could not help but to bring out food and water for them. Had Annina not been allergic to cats, they would have been living on board.
La Libertad had all the essensials available for both humans and animals. Cat food and coffins were lined up with news stands and hardware shops. One shiny mall provided the more western-style shopping with a decent food court and shops to satisfy most. I even picked up a hand held GPS from a stationary store to replace a broken one.
Back in the yard the schedule was dictated by the Ecuadorian electricity board. Hydro stations around the country were struggling from both out-dated technology, corruption and lack of rain. There was a 4-hour power cut each day, giving the perfect excuse to put the tools down and go shopping or surf the net with the wifi inside the boat.
The boys hard-wired our extension chord into 220V (Ecuador has 110V power) and we started working, with the permission of the government power distribution. The privilige of using electricity was taken away for 4 hours each day - in the whole country. While the power to the work yard was cut, thankfully Puerto Lucia's own generators were big enough to keep basic systems going: wi-fi and hot showers.
The hull was a bit of a mess. Some mild electrolysis has been happening probably for years, causing paper-thin spotting on the hull. The more annoying result is the bubbling of the paint. With the remaining P16 and P24 disks spinning at 10 000 rpm with my angle grinder I tickled everything off the hull that was willing to depart. A lot of it was willing. The result was a mosaic of two different remains of antifoul, lots of small areas of bare steel and various shades of past epoxy coatings still clinging onto the hull. Suprisingly the majority of the hull was still holding the original zinc epoxy from 1984. (To my knowledge, the hull has never been sand blasted.)
Fishing boats kept coming for fuel and under the close supervision of the marina security guards were sometimes allowed to approach the yachts. (The security in Puerto Lucia was bordering ridiculous, though I'm not complaining about being able to leave tools on the ground overnight, confident that they will still be there in the morning.)
Various layers of old epoxy primer and the most hard-sticking remains of two different antifoul paints made Aliisa's hull quite a mosaic.
We aimed for 5 coats of epoxy primer, using everything we could find, successfully adding International epoxy to the existing Jotun, topping it up with more layers of Hempel top-of-the-shelf marine epoxy and finishing it off with International Antifoul. The worse was over just after Christmas. It was time to take a holiday from traveling. We wanted to do something special for New Years. Nothing to break the travelling life than a quick trip to some never-seen-before-country.
We got a recomendation for a good travel agent from another cruiser and started looking at flights for a New Year's party in Buenos Aires. The result was not good. Maybe in February from Lima would have been cheap, holiday season from Guayaquil was not. I couldn't back away, my friend had brought us a new toilet pump and two water filters to Buenos Aires and we had made the promise to be there. It was time to put down the tools and have a city holiday. Time to welcome another New Year, the year of twenty-ten and eventually the year of the Tiger!
BONUS PICS
Indian curry for dinner. Lovely stuff! Eating home is better than any restaurant, as long as Annina is cooking.
Squeek became so attached, she would sit and watch me grind all day, ignoring the dust and the noise. How could I not love her back?
Annina did all the painting. We decided on two coats of epoxy and two coats of antifoul on the prop. I know, it will all spin off soon... Any tips or ideas on protecting your prop will be happily accepted.
The suburban La Libertad was all dirt roads. Fine looking houses were standing next to very poor looking derelict buildings. Securing your home against a possible attact seemed to be a normal part of life. I don't mean just locking your door. Almost all of the "better" houses had barbed wired or electric fences.
Prayer. Yeah. Some pray to the Lord. Some pray to other spirits. I gather my humility and kneel down, praying for Aliisa to take us home safely. I hope the power-tool-tickling helps.
Squeek
I finally put the rod against metal and started welding. Just for practice. I later fixed a crack on the toerail but my welding is far from functional and I need to learn more.
