Our Crew Has Arrived
26 February 2010 | Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
Our crew, David and Eileen, arrived after an 8 hour bus ride from Quito! They are now settled in the starboard aft berth of Dream Caper. We had an outboard propeller, engine hoses, yogurt starter, dried eggs and a few other items sent to Eileen's sister's address in California where Eileen and David were visiting prior to flying to Quito. We were very happy and thankful to get these items. They are settling into the slow rhythm of this 10,000 population town except that they have jumped into the fray of getting our new Sony computer loaded with the programs we need.
We have a taxi trip to Manta (1.5 hour) scheduled for Monday in a pickup to get our provisions. We have not received the all important "autografo," a permit for the Galapagos which we need before we can obtain the exit "zarpe" from the Port Captain here in Bahia. We sent the required boat documentation, passport information and $300 to our agent in the Galapagos to get a permit which will allow us to anchor in 5 anchorages in the Galapagos and stay up to 45 days. Without this autografo we would only be able to stay in one anchorage for no more than 20 days. Our agent has told us that we will have the autografo by Monday. We shall see.
The exit to the Galapagos from Bahia has started. Two boats are leaving on Saturday. SV (Sailing Vessel) Ubatuba (Columbia), SV Tin Tin (Spain) and SV Dream Caper are set to leave on Wednesday at 5:30 am, at high tide so that the deeper draft boats will clear the exit path. All three of us plan to sail to Cabo Pasado, 20 miles north where we will anchor just off the coast in clear water for a few days. Since we are currently moored in the river here in Bahia which is brown and of questionable quality, we are looking forward to checking out the bottom of the boat and doing some snorkeling and spear fishing.
Our days are now focused on making sure all systems are working and provisioning. Steve with the help of David just succeeded in getting the GPS to interact with our navigation program on our new computer. Yaaaaaay! What a great crew already!