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19. day - 19/04/2007 - Our muscles were sore in the morning because of the yesterday sailing. We cannot keep the Rotor on the track because the wind blows exactly from south where we are heading. Beating the wind we can sail well though. The waves were still huge in the morning and we had a counter-current around 1.5 knots that made us a bit slower.
The waves became flat in the afternoon and it was the first night when we could see the moon.
Daily position:
11:30 3-30.60N 80-44.88W log= 17683.0
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20. day - 20/04/2007 - The weather is cloudy. It was raining nearly all day. If it is raining there is not any wind. The visibility is very bad (approximately 5 boats long) in the squalls. We have to be careful with the boats around us, although there are not too many. Our longitude has changed to 80 degrees due to the wind, but we changed our original plan and modified the route. We are closer to the land at least. In the night the ocean was so calm. No waves or currents and zero wind.
Daily position:
07:30 2-27.00N 80-22.25W log= 17750.5
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21. day - 21/04/2007 - Rain, rain and rain... We are very close to the equator. Our lattitude at 7 pm was around 1 degree. Days are colder since the ITCZ and we changed our swimming dress to rain coat.
In the morning a Colombian fisher boat came towards us with a fast engine. They showed that they placed fishing nets what we have to avoide. We did a little turn to avoid them and continued our way. After a few hours we found a long green rope on the propeller of the boat which was dragging after us in the water. We had luck because there were not waves so we could dive to remove it. It was probably another fishing net without any sign on it. We sail more than 40 miles far from the shore where you
would not expect such things.
In the afternoon the first sunshines arrived and also a 12 knots of wind. We were so pleased. We could see also many dolphins around.
Daily position:
10:30 1-30.60N 80-27.29W log= 17807.1
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22. day - 22/04/2007 - In the morning we had a radio call with Aron Meder (Hungarian traveller) who just did the transit through the Panama Canal. He will bound for Galapagos in a couple of days.
On our way the cost guard of Ecuador came to our boat and called us on the VHF radio. They asked about our nationality, where we go etc. They started to make pictures of us which was really strange and funny and then they left. We made some pictures too.
At 1.45 pm we crossed the equator. We stopped the boat and jumped into the ocean at the opean sea. This is the duty of the sailors here. We also recorded the lattitude of 0 degree and said cheers to our success until this point.
We sail now on the southern side of the Earth under a happy, sunny sky. It is not strange to be upside down.
Daily position:
13:50 0-00.00N 80-46.44W log= 17899.7
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23. day - 23/04/2007 - English translation is missing, sorry...
Daily position:
09:20 0-35.51S 80-28.79W log= 17939.4
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24. day - 24/04/2007 - At day rise Geza turned the sails from parking to sailing position. We sailed back to the mouth of the river. At around 8 the pilot arrived with a big motorboat and they nearly hit our wind vane. We started to motor up on the river. In the shallow water the huge breakers were rumbling. Sometimes we slipped on these waves and our speed reached even the 9 knots. The lowest depth that we measured was 1.9 meters. The river brought yellow water and other alluviums. We paid USD 30 to the pilot and anchored before the town. The customs arrived soon. They checked the boat and the documents. We also needed the certificate of our yellow fever vaccination. They asked a copy of our documents so we promised to drop it to them during the day.
We paddled with Rotorka to the dinghy dock. A Canadian guy runs the club. Everything seems very organised but they have not got to many boats here.
We copied the docs in the town, dropped to the captaincy and paid USD 24 after the weight of the boat. We have to go to Manta tomorrow to organise our immigration too. This is the only place where we can do it.
We returned to the boat and cut down the plants of the river from our anchor chain. We went to sleep early, as we felt very exhausted after the 8 days cruising.
Summary about the cruising: it took us 7 days (plus one day before the bay) cruising from Coiba to Ecuador’s bay. It was all together 490 nautical miles. We motored from it 22 hours. It is not so bad because of the general poor wind conditions down the way.
Daily position:
10:00 0-37.79S 80-25.13W log= 17943.7
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25. day - 25/04/2007 - , MantaWe popped on a bus in the morning towards Manta. It took around 3.5 hours to get there so by the time the immigration was closed having their daily siesta. We started to look around in the town as we needed some parts to our anchor winch. It had a really bad noise last time we used it and we noticed that the ball bearings were corroded and broken in it.
At 3 pm the immigration reopened and we organised all of our paper works.
Manta is a major and busy port along the Ecuadorian cost. The city has strong seafaring tradition and we visited Tarqui beach where giant wooden fishing boats are still built. We also found that fishing crews were dragging their catches onto the sand next to the fish market in the evening. It was amazing to see how much power had that small team over the fishing net. They caught lots of small fish and also a manta ray. We left Manta in the evening and returned back to our anchoring bay.. |
26. day - 26/04/2007 - We mounted the anchor winch whole day. It was a big project but now it works at least.. |
27. day - 27/04/2007 - , Preparing for the trip to the capitalThe capital of Ecuador is Quito. Everybody wants to see the town because it is part of the World Heritage. In the afternoon we bought our bus tickets to Quito. The buses leave in the night from the bay and get there in the morning. They travel through the high mountains of Ecuador.
In the evening our Canadian host invited us for a Mexican evening with margarita cocktails in the marina. It was our pleasure before the long travel (estimated 8 hours). |
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