Sailing again......

18 March 2013

We have now sailed constantly for over 24 hours - and the wind is still holding. Maybe, fingers crossed!! But the rain has returned again, which is a bit of a downer. Averaging about 6 kts.

7 deg 55 S and 101 deg 04 W

BUMPY!

17 March 2013

Well, after a pretty awkward start it would appear that after much examination of weather gribs and doing what we could, we are finally getting to the trade wind belt. We have just had the longest, and I regret to say, bumpiest, sail of this leg. May it last! Somehow we ended up in the very place we did not want to be, but we had been constrained by having to make use of what wind there was at first, whatever the direction it came from, in order to conserve our diesel resources. The area we have had to put up with is renowned for flukey winds, as well as sudden, strong rain squalls. We can verify that this is all true, having been becalmed, then blown to bits, then drowned in copious rain showers. The resemblance to sailing round Scotland is remarkable - except the weather is warmer.

So now we look forward to what we hope will be sailing days at last. 
It was too bumpy to knit - how sad is that! But we did manage to have the bread baking. Joint effort to weigh the flour though, no way the box was going to stay on the scales without Dave's strong hold on it. As well as his careful transfer of the bowl of flour, yeast etc. from the weighing station to the work bench.

7 deg 34 S and 98 deg 24 W

Doldrums

14 March 2013

We are in the doldrums good and proper. The motor is going on and on as we make our way south west towards the trade winds. We manage a little sailing in the evenings for a couple of hours and then the wind drops away to nothing. And last night it rained - talk about hot and sticky! The days require much book reading and knitting. Have started on some lace as this is nice and light. I apologise to the recipients of my knitting as it will have a combination of smells, including the odd whiff of diesel (just hold this dripping pipe,Jen) and baby powder (keeps hands dry).

Now 03deg 25min S and 94deg 02mins W

YIPPEEEE!!!

8 Mar 2013  We watched our cargo boat being unloaded all day Wednesday and then all day yesterday until about 4 pm - still no word about batteries. Carla had been out twice to to the freighter with no joy. So Dave went off to find her again and see what could be done. Phone calls were no good, so it was the 2 of them into a water taxi and out again. It took some doing - a harangue from Carla, and another from the boatman and a disappearing $20 from Dave's pocket, but just as the sun was going down the taxi turned up with 6 lovely new batteries. They have been unpacked, fondly adored, and are now ready to be installed. 

Diesel has been promised for this morning.

Water should be arriving soon - more jerrycans needed despite the 9 buckets of rain water I have put in over the last 2 days. An indirect comment on the weather, hot steamy and rainy!

I might even get ashore for the internet as I have been confined to the boat in case the batteries arrived while Dave was off on a mission or two ashore.

[Editor's note: Jen and Dave did get ashore, and were able to Skype with the Editor, albeit briefly!] 

SEALS AND SEA LIONS

Both seals and sea lions, together with the walrus, are pinnipeds, which means "fin footed" in Latin. 

But seals' furry, generally stubby front feet - thinly webbed flippers, actually, with a claw on each small toe - seem petite in comparison to the mostly skin-covered, elongated fore flippers that sea lions possess.

Secondly, sea lions have small flaps for outer ears. The "earless" or "true" seals lack external ears altogether. You have to get very close to see the tiny holes on the sides of a seal's sleek head.

Third, sea lions are noisy. Seals are quieter, vocalizing via soft grunts.

Fourth, while both species spend time both in and out of the water, seals are better adapted to live in the water than on land. Though their bodies can appear chubby, seals are generally smaller and more aquadynamic than sea lions. At the same time, their hind flippers angle backward and don't rotate. This makes them fast in the water but basic belly crawlers on terra firma.

http://www.darwinadventure.com/pictures/sea-lion.htm

Sea lions, on the other hand, are able to "walk" on land by rotating their hind flippers forward and underneath their big bodies. This is why they are more likely to be employed in aquaria and marine shows.

http://www.theanimalfiles.com/mammals/seals_sea_lions/galapagos_fur_seal.html

Finally, seals are less social than their sea-lion cousins. They spend more time in the water than sea lions do and often lead solitary lives in the wild, coming ashore together only once a year to meet and mate.

Sea lions congregate in gregarious groups called herds or rafts that can reach upwards of 1,500 individuals. It's common for scores of them to haul out together and loll about in the sand, comprising an amorphous pile in the noonday sun.

PARCELS

Parcels are turning out to be the bane of our lives. Not only the receiving of, as you have been made aware of in the blog, but now in the sending. There is a small boy having a birthday at the end of the month, and I have been sitting in 30 plus degree heat knitting!!! Yes, and now the item is finished and needs to be posted. So we trotted along to the post office yesterday to find out 2 things. The parcel has to be open for inspection, so the fancy paper I had uncrumpled and recycled will have to go, and we need a black and white copy of our passport. Friday pm, and the agent has our passports to get the exit stamps. Office not open on Saturdays, so departure will now be after an 0800 trip to the post office, which in the nature of post offices is as far from the boat as you can get witout leaving town. Not a problem according to the nice post lady as parcels don't leave till Wednesdays anyway as they go on the weekly boat. ..
That might give Alex time to grow a bit...

http://www.galapagosislands.com/visitor-sites/floreana-pob.html

That is if the agent turns up with the diesel ( he took the jerrycans yesterday) and the documents we need to go.

Next stop about 43000 miles at Hiva Oa.

View Larger Map 

FINGERS CROSSED!!!

Today (06/06/13) may be a very good day or a very bad day, depending on what happens next. Intrigued?

Well, it's like this.

After a lot of bullying of our agent, and a lot of help from a lovely young lady who speaks wonderful English we met accidentally, we received our big yellow box from DHL that Rachel sent. It had been held up in customs and needed some more information sent to Ecuador, including an emailed set of documents from Rachel. That was step one, and I was delighted to track it leaving customs, but despondent to see it flag up that it had been refused by the agent! So it was another job for Carla and her English; she knows the agent and he would not want to lose face with her. So $186 more in customs taxes, and it arrived on Saturday evening. I was almost in tears of joy. A big surprise was in it too - more in a minute.

So with that accomplished, what else is there?

6 very heavy batteries for the boat. We have just looked out and the freighter is here as expected and somewhere in the hold there are our batteries. That has been a saga as well, as we spent 2 weeks trying on our own to source them (they are not common) and we were told eventually a chap would get them in for us but it would take 3 weeks to get them. We mentioned this to Carla and she picked up a phone. This was Thursday morning and the boat for here loads once a week on a Friday. After an hour she told us she had found the batteries in Quito, her brother would get them to the boat in Guaquil and we could have them when the boat got in on Tuesday, or Wednesday depending on where they were in the unloading. And the boat has just arrived!!

All we have fingers crossed now for is that they really are the right ones and will work. We are down to a very dodgy battery for overnight fans, and it is about to go to heaven with the other ones.

And then there is more! The lovely Carla has arranged 2 trusty air divers to clean our hull as it has become a marine forest in the couple of weeks we have been here.

EVEN MORE!!
In the big yellow box there was a card for Grandpa Dave - his birthday was the next day, how good was that! And Alex had written his own name and drawn som artwork as well. I cannot thank Rachel enough for the foresight to include it, it made Dave's day.

Then there will be the hunt the agent chase for our clearance papers and we can move on........

MAYBE TODAY!!!
07/03/13) Having stared at the lovely green freighter in the harbour entrance disgorging goodies for the town Carla came by and said that it was not our boat, which was turning up in the late afternoon and would be blue. So the battery saga continues. I really do hope today is battery day, as the ones we are using really are not well at all.

HOWEVER
Yesterday turned out to be a good day after all. We were looking our for the taxi driver who gets the water for us when Carla turned up again, this time in an open boat with 2 young men to introduce us to our dive team who were going to clean the bottom of the boat. And they were the business, compressor and bottle gas, what more could you ask for. And a bonus - English! So while they returned Carla to shore the water arrived, all 14 jerrycans of it to be emptied and cans returned. Just as well the divers came back as we managed to lose 2 overboard in the swell. Not daunted, one of the trusty duo dived in and retrieved them and put them in the dive boat to give back to us. So while Dave started the emptying of water bottles into the tank at 20 litres a go, I collected brushes and scrapers and other useful things and got the team underway.

Then it rained - and boy, did it rain! 2 buckets full collected so washing of undies and non-laundry items was accomplished with no depletion of the tanks. My halo is well polished!

So we now have a very clean hull and had better get going soon before it all comes back again. I was delighted to see a couple of sea lions swimming around near our divers and showing them how swimming was REALLY done - wonderful, but they had no way of holding a scraper so it was all show and no substance!

FINALLY
The great scrabble fest is underway in the afternoon with the usual ups and downs. Have to tell -"squeeze" down on a triple word score for 90!