Yow.
Last time y'all heard from the likes o' me it was early June 2010 and GB and I were halfway from Costa Rica to Ecuador, just sailin' along. And now, it is late November. We are indeed in Ecuador, been traveling & whatnot for over 5 months; and now the Fox is on jackstands while GB and the boat yard crew at Puerto Lucia do a few small projects. I'm sitting in the nearby air conditioned splendor of Hotel Valdivia, valiantly attempting to tell all of cyberspace the tale of the past 5-1/2 months. So make yourselves comfortable: here we go.
Let's recap the passage from Golfito, Costa Rica, to Puerto Lucia, Ecuador. Started on 4. June, ended on 9. June 2010. 6 days & 5 mights underway. Total trip was about 710 miles. Departed Golfito on an excellent forecast but to hedge our bets we paid for a weather router - Commanders' Weather - to alert us to any potential weather-related problems. First 2 days underway were light winds & calm seas, all aft of the beam, with an easy course of almost due south. Delightful. On Day 3 weather and seas gradually increased and moved forward of the beam. Days 4 and 5, winds increased to high teens/mid- 20s, seas were about 5 feet with wave periods that shortened dramatically. Meanwhile, Commanders' advised us to change course to the east, to avoid a low pressure system that was building to the SW and moving to the NE, causing our uncomfortable seas. Within 24 hours Commanders' advised us to change course back to the SW, to avoid a system of lightning cells that had developed offshore of Panama and was moving W toward us. Thus squeezed, we could no longer sail close-hauled as we'd been doing - motorsailing was our best and fastest option to close with the mainland and calmer conditions. And so it was. Lucky for us we had 2 jerry cans and a 95-liter fuel bladder aboard, all full o' diesel. As expected the weather diminished very nicely as we closed with the Ecuadorean mainland and all was well.
Through all this, The Fox was fine, but the crew was getting pretty tired of beating to weather through choppy seas. Otherwise this early June passage was fairly uneventful: water continually over the foredeck but cockpit stayed dry. Only a couple squid and flying fish met their deaths when they washed up on deck. Very few other critters were seen. I collected many large bruises from the days continually at a 15-degree heel. Encountered one large, unattended commercial drift net about 100 miles offshore of Costa Rica, then no other fishing activity until we encountered the well-attended Ecuadorean nets in a band of about 20 to 75 miles offshore of Ecuador. Lots of freighter traffic about 75-100 miles off the Costa Rican and Ecuadorean coasts, obviously coming and going from the Panama Canal. Resolved to purchase AIS on our next visit to the US.
Amidst all this, we sailed across the Equator late in the afternoon on 8. June.
We were really excited about going through another "gate" - I took pics of the GPS to record the moment, we toasted Neptune, The Fox and each other, and we were all:
"Woo-hoo! Yaaaay!"
"Yaaaay!"
"Yay."
"...."
"So...Here we are..."
"...."
"Goin' to South America! Yaaay!"
And it was all good. Ecuador's coastal climate is MUCH more comfortable than Central America's. The days are generally overcast, but the humidity is relatively low and you have daytime highs that generally range from 75F to 82F with a light breeze that picks up in the afternoons. And that's how it stays year round - a little warmer and sunnier come November-December; a little cooler and more overcast in May-June. It's very liveable - and we committed to staying here for a full 6 months.
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