Sequitur

Once Sequitur had settled in on her anchors and we had shut-down the engine, we relaxed. For the first time in two weeks we no longer needed to navigate, we could relax our weather eye a bit and our only concern with watchkeeping was our usual anchor watch for the first while as we gradually gained confidence in our anchor placement.

We were anchored a bit close to a reef between us and the shore, but with the very crowded anchorage and our lack of control of the propeller, moving would be awkward. I decided re-anchoring could wait until after we had a diver clear the tangle on the propeller and the shaft and we had his report on the condition and freedom of movement of the feathering propeller blades.

We needed to organize our clearance into the Galapagos, to find a diver, to arrange re-fuelling, to have our empty propane tanks refilled, to find an electrician, to find a marine hardware store and to find fresh produce. At 1120 we hailed a passing water taxi and for 60 cents each we went ashore to downtown Puerto Ayora. A short walk along the malecon took us to the offices of the Armada and the Capitan de Puerto. Inside the Capitania we found no one available at that time who spoke English, and we were asked to come back in an hour.

We walked through the town past many cafes and restaurants until we saw one that attracted us. We sat in its gravelled patio at a table overlooking the passing scene as we enjoyed a late breakfast. Back at the Capitania we met in a small office with an official who told us we needed to have a permit to come to the Galapagos. We told him we had come directly from Acapulco, Mexico, and we could find no permit office there, nor could we locate any on the ocean on our way across. He then asked us who our agent was, to which we replied we had none, and asked if he could find us one. He confirmed that one had been called and was on the way over, and then he added that we must also book a tour to one of the other islands, and asked us which tour we wanted him to book for us. Fortunately, before this bribe attempt had a chance to further unfold, the agent he had called arrived and took over.


Javier is young fellow, still in his early twenties, who has spent most of his life in the Galapagos. We chatted briefly, and then left the Capitania with him to be driven across town to his office. He works for Johnny Romero from a small modern office of three, possibly four people. We gave Javier our passports, ship registry certificate and our zarpe from Mexico, and he told us we would be visited by a fumigation officer to examine the boat for infestations, and that in two or three days, if all is well with his inspection and our papers, we should be cleared in.

I explained our mechanical and electrical problems and asked him to organize a diver to come out and untangle our propeller, and for mechanic with electrical experience to assist me with the installation of the new alternators and to troubleshoot the generator. I also had him arrange propane tank refilling and a fuel barge to top-up our diesel tanks. We also asked Javier for restaurant recommendations, for the location of a good marine hardware store and the best supermarket.

We walked back through the town checking-out the hardware stores, and found them better stocked with marine supplies than those we had found in Mexico. We stopped in at the supermarket, which was directly opposite the water taxi landing. We perused its offerings and after picking-up a few items, we caught the water taxi back out to Sequitur.


The Ecuadorian currency is tied to the US dollar, and in fact, the country uses US paper money instead of printing its own, and US coins circulate freely here, alongside the Ecuadorian coins. It is interesting to see how heavily used the Sacagawea dollar is here, while in its ten years of existence it has failed miserably to circulate in the US, imitating the fate of the Susan B Anthony dollar three decades ago.


We spent all day Sunday aboard Sequitur, relaxing and baking bread. Saturday evening Edi had started six loaves of New York Times no-knead bread; we had finally ran out of bagels. She prepared two raisin loaves and one each of diced dried apricots, sun-dried tomato with basil, flor de calabaza with pumpkin seed, and cranberry with pecans. The baking takes 50 minutes per loaf and our oven holds only one of the big round loves at a time, so it was a five-hour process to bake them off. When they were all done, and Edi was slicing them to cool before freezing, we sampled at least one slice of each with cream cheese. Then because we had been so bad, we sent ourselves to bed without dinner.


Late morning on Monday Javier arrived with a diver, who dressed and went down for a look. He shortly came back up and asked for his knife, and less than a minute later reported the tangle was now all cut away and the propeller was free. I had asked him to try to feather and un-feather the propeller into both forward and reverse, and he reported that it moved freely in both directions. I then had him swim clear but with a view of the propeller as I ran the engine and shifted from forward to neutral to reverse and back. He reported the propeller started in forward and continued to turn forward only, never stopping.

After the diver had gone, I emptied-out the contents of the port side cockpit locker and tinkered with the engine transmission shift mechanisms, which appear to have been stressed and pulled out of position. I eventually managed to shift the transmission into neutral. I then flashed-up and ran the engine to start topping-up the battery, which had drained down to 62% over the past couple of mostly overcast and windless days. The alternator was putting-out about 35 amps at 4000 rpm (the engine's 2000 rpm), which is less than half its rated output, but at least it was producing something. After an hour-and-a-half, the engine overheated; it had lost its raw water feed. I shut down and started troubleshooting.


Then, at 1420 the Fumigation Officer arrived with his black satchel and came below into the galley and pantry. He poked around for a while, then took out of his bag a large syringe and poked it into back upper corners above the stove, in the backs of the cupboards, the insides of drawers and other places he thought likely. After looking and probing and injecting for a few minutes, he broke out in a broad smile and said OK. We had passed!


At 1640 Carlos and his crew arrived in the small canopied boat, which served as his fuel barge. In it were eight black 18-US-gallon plastic drums, a small Yamaha generator and an electrical pump being fed by a short hose ending in a wand with suction fitting. On the outlet end of the pump was a longer hose that ended in a gate valve and nozzle. I organized fenders and secured the barge alongside, and then we began pumping the contents of the eight drums. Shortly after beginning the eighth drum, Sequitur's main tank reached its full mark, and we started on the auxiliary tank, taking it to about a quarter full.

Carlos told me he had delivered 140 gallons, so it appears he allowed for a half gallon not being picked-up by the system from each drum. I told him we needed three more drums, and he replied that he is organized and paid by the agent, and that I needed to go through the agent.

While the fuelling was in progress, Wilmer, the mechanic arrived. He spoke absolutely no English, so it took me a while to communicate with him what the situation was and what I wanted done. I got him started on removing the old Balmar 100 alternator, whose windings looked rather scorched, and while it was off, changing the raw water impeller, the access to which is much simplified by the removal of the alternator. I then got Wilmer started on installing the new Balmar 120 alternator and the mounting brackets for the Balmar 210.

At 1730 Javier arrived with an electrician, who went over the alternator installation with Wilmer and me, assisted by Javier's translation. Leaving the mechanic and the electrician below, Javier and the water taxi driver weighed Sequitur's stern anchor, attached a tow line to our bow and then as I weighed the Rocna, towed us out to an empty space near the centre of the anchorage, and there we came to 21 metres on the Rocna in 7 metres of water. Javier and the water taxi then set our Fortress 37 about 35 metres off the stern. I paid the water taxi $10.


Javier, Wilmer and the electrician went ashore at 1925. It had been a long and tiring day, and I didn't feel like cooking, so we radioed for a water taxi and went ashore for dinner. We looked at a good number of places as we walked along the main street to its business end and then turned back to one with a sidewalk patio that had caught our eye. Edi ordered a fish burger and I ordered a grilled chicken breast. Edi's dinner arrived with some very nice hand-cut French fries, while mine came with a somewhat overdone sliced baked potato. My grilled breast was so thin that the chicken would have had trouble filling a triple-A cup.

On Tuesday morning the battery was down 53% and the day was lightly overcast. At 1110 a water taxi carrying three Armada officers in their white uniforms stopped by Sequitur as they conducted an inventory of boats in the anchorage. They asked the time of our arrival and I added information that Naugala was our agent, that the Fumigation Officer had come by and that we were awaiting our clearance. They left satisfied.


At 1500 Wilmer arrived and continued working on the alternator installation. The fuel barge came alongside at 1555 and we took on all but 2 gallons in the three 18-gallon drums, filling our auxiliary tank. We now have 840 litres of diesel onboard again. At 1620 the electrician came aboard, conferred with Wilmer and went over the Balmar wiring diagrams. At 1635 Javier stopped-by to tell us we were now officially cleared into the Galapagos and Ecuador. I hauled down the quarantine flag and hoisted the Ecuadorian courtesy flag. At 1745 the electrician and the mechanic left.

At 1930 on Tuesday evening we took a water taxi over to Angermeyer Point for dinner in a restaurant housed in what was painter Karl Angermeyer's home. In 1937 he had left Hamburg, Germany, fleeing from the Nazi regime along with his brothers. After a long and adventurous journey he finally settled in the Galapagos, where he and his wife Marga lived in intimate contact with the wild, natural world. They built their house on one of the most beautiful settings in the Galapagos, and recently the house has been converted into a sixty-seat restaurant spread over a central dining room, a seaside terrace and an open-air garden.


The restaurant is accessible only from the sea, and the water taxi landed us on a float, which was simply a decked-over dory which is connected by a narrow wooden walkway articulated from the edge of the restaurant's garden. As the twilight was descending we were shown to a table on the rail overlooking the water. Beside us and just offshore was a 50 or 60 metre three-mast barkentine, and beyond her was Sequitur, somewhere out among the many dozens of anchored vessels, both commercial and pleasure, sail and power, small and large, and very modern to near-derelict. Weaving through the anchored fleet were water taxis, ship's tenders, freight lighters and dinghies. The scene was pulsing with life, yet it was placid and serene; the place was magical. Edi was moved to tears.


We shared a delicious tuna ceviche-carpaccio crossover. Then we each had an amazing pesto mahi-mahi, which was two thick slabs of fish sandwiching a layer of fresh basil leaves and napped with pesto. It was served with steamed baby potatoes and an assortment of fresh vegetables. With it we enjoyed a simple bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. We then each had the house sampler plate of three desserts with home-made ice cream.

Back onboard Sequitur, we went to bed with the battery at 46%, and since it was a windless night, we had no way to charge it until the sun came up in the morning. We hoped the freezers and fridges held until then.

We arose on Wednesday to a windless and totally overcast day. The battery was at 37% and the tops of the freezers were sweating. I made coffee by boiling water on the gas range and pouring it through the filter of our automatic electric coffeemaker, in the old-fashioned Melita filter manner. Not wanting to open the fridges or freezers, we delayed breakfast.

Javier and Wilmer arrived onboard at 0915, and by 1040 we the alternator installation was complete, and we were ready to start the engine. The cooling water was circulating properly, so I ran the engine up to 1850 rpm and watched in relief as the new Balmar 120 supplied us with 100 to 105 amps. We monitored the engine temperature closely, not wanting a repeat of Monday's overheating episode. At 1050 the water stopped coming out the exhaust and the within a couple of minutes the engine temperature gauge had risen from 70 to 74 degrees. I shut-down.


I had thoroughly cleaned the raw water strainer on Monday afternoon, so we didn't suspect it. Wilmer suggested a clog in the raw water intake line, and Javier said he could get a diver with a roto-rooter type of device to try and clear it. Javier and Wilmer left shortly after 1100, and I set to work looking for the clog. The first thing I found was a fish in the raw water strainer bowl.

As I was removing it, I thought of how it would have gotten there, and began suspecting that the flailing line caught around the propeller may have destroyed or knocked off the bronze grill cover on the raw water intake. I closed the ball valve on the raw water intake through-hull, loosened the two hose clamps and removed the hose. Then I slowly opened the ball valve on the through-hull, which is nearly a metre below waterline. There should have been a metre-high fountain of water, but no water came in. I closed the valve and quickly looked for something I could use as a probe. The first appropriate thing I saw was a spare hacksaw blade. With one exploratory thrust through the opened valve the probe immediately started a gusher. I quickly withdrew it and closed the valve.

With everything reconnected and the fish removed from the strainer, I re-flashed the engine and monitored the cooling system very closely as I ran the engine at 1850 rpm. Then at 1240 the raw water stopped circulating and the temperature again began to rise. I shut-down and again removed the hose from the raw water through-hull. This time there was an unrestricted flow of water as soon as I cracked the valve. I suspected the raw water intake suction had pulled a fish to the intake and held it there until the engine stopped, when the suction would have ceased and the fish freed to swim away. I re-flashed the engine and watched as the cooling water circulated properly. Now with the ongoing risk of sucking-in another fish, we need to keep a constant eye on the temperature gauge and an ear closely tuned to the sound of the exhaust. Any interruption in the flow of cooling water gives a distinctive hollow sound to the exhaust, and of course causes the temperature needle and digital readout to climb.


At a couple of minutes before 1300 the house bank finally reached 50%, the official level of a totally dead battery. Then half an hour later the engine's temperature again rose, so I shut down. There was another fish in the raw water strainer. I removed it and re-flashed only to find no cooling water flow, so I shut-down again and went through the process of probing the thru-hull. This time there was a fish stuck there. Within a few minutes we were up and charging again. I ran the engine until 1700, catching two more fish and bringing the battery back up to 74%. We ran the inverter in the evening for the computers, to make tea and to recharge some portable batteries.

On Thursday morning after running the inverter for coffee and toast and the computers, the battery was down to 57%. We let the solar panels maintain and slowly trickle a charge into the house bank until the clouds began weakening the sun's efforts. At 1530, with the battery at 58%, I flashed-up the engine and ran it at 1850 rpm for just short of three hours, catching only two fish in the process of bringing the house bank up to 74%.

Friday morning was heavily overcast and by 0830 the battery was back down to 60% after maintaining the fridges and freezers overnight, as well as powering the evening's interior lighting and running the inverter for such things as our computers and the tea kettle. At 0940, after the inverter had consumed another 3% powering our computers, the coffeemaker and the toaster, I flashed-up the engine and watched with satisfaction as the alternator put 95 to 100 amps into the system.

At the same time I also started the watermaker and ran it for two-and-a-half hours, making 161 litres of water. The water in the anchorage is a little murky, and the same set of pre-filters we had used so well on our passage from Acapulco began to clog a bit more quickly. I shut-down the machine shortly after the filters had kicked the system into its slow-speed mode.

There were heavy rain showers on Friday afternoon and into the evening, with drizzle in between, and on Saturday morning it was still heavily overcast. With the battery at 57%, I flashed-up the engine and the watermaker while we had breakfast in the cockpit with an eye on the temperature gauge and an ear on the tune of the exhaust. We made another 64 litres of water as the filters gave us another 68 minutes of life before shutting-down the machine. By the time we shut-down the engine at 1040, it had brought the battery back up to 68%, and had caught only one fish in the process. The sun was now burning through the clouds sufficiently strongly, so we left the batteries to care of the solar panels.

At 1300 we called a water taxi on the VHF and went ashore. I had brought with me the burned-out bulb from the port running light. I know we have spares aboard, but I have not yet been able to locate them, and besides, it makes sense to replace rather than to deplete spares. We went into the marine hardware shop across from the landing, and the clerk told us we needed to go to Bodega Blanco for such a thing. She said it was "very far away, at the other end of town and required a taxi ride". We walked to Bodega Blanco to find they had a close match for the bulb, but with opposed rather than staggered pins. We left empty-handed.


We continued along from there to the gates of the Galapagos National Park. Since the Park covers 97% of the archipelago, effectively the gates might be considered to be those of the city of Puerto Ayora, rather than of the National Park. With a population approaching 15,000, Puerto Ayora is the largest community in the Galapagos, and it is surrounded by the Park.


We walked among some giant sea tortoises, pausing here and there to chat with them.


At one point, we also watched the start of the tortoise production line. It seemed a very slow process, with a thrust and a great grunt from him every fifteen or twenty seconds, while she lay passively.


On our way back into town we paused to look at the Japanese restaurant and sushi bar at the Red Mangrove Inn. This upscale inn sits on the water in the fringes of a mangrove swamp and exudes a gentle, peaceful atmosphere.


The seaside patio was alive with iguanas, and a pair of seals formed the guard at the entrance to a tasteful little gazebo, which stood on pilings out of the water at the edge of the restaurant's patio. The place was so inviting we decided to have some sushi and beer. We were told that, unfortunately, that the sushi chef did not start until 1830, so we decided to come back another day.

We walked back through town, taking a couple of back alleys to see the place from a different perspective, and stopping at the supermarket for a few things before arriving back onboard in the late afternoon. In our absence, the house battery had fed the fridges and freezers and had in turn been fed by the solar panels, and had come up 2% to 70%.

As we arrived onboard I had noted that Sequitur's stern was skewed to starboard and the stern line was a bit slack. It appears that while we were ashore a passing vessel may have caught our stern line and moved the anchor. I shortened-in the line and our skew grew to over 30 degrees off the lone of the swell, and we rolled and slopped around. We needed to reset the anchor, but it was getting dark, so I let it be for the night.

Sunday morning we again ran the engine through breakfast, and coaxed another 45 litres from the watermaker's pre-filters before they shut it down. We also ran a load of laundry through the washer and Edi hung it out to dry on a clothesline that I had rigged between a shroud and the solar array arch. Four hours of engine running netted only one fish, but powered the computers, the coffeemaker, the toaster, the watermaker and the washer-dryer, and brought the battery up to 75%.


At 1245 we hailed a passing water taxi and I asked what he would charge to help reset our stern anchor, and we agreed on $5. I secured the stern anchor's rode at 25 metres to a stern cleat and then hopped aboard the little craft to direct the driver as I handed-in the line, then the chain and finally the anchor. The Fortress anchor is great in sand and mud, as long as there is no appreciable change in the direction of pull on it, so it serves well as a stern anchor, as long as there is a steady one-direction pull. If the rode is slack, and the boat swings, changing the angle of pull, it could pop-out the anchor.

I directed the taxi driver to manoeuvre his boat so as to pull Sequitur directly back from her bow anchor and perpendicular to the swell, paying-out little by little the line and then the chain, until I was holding the Fortress 37 over the bows of the taxi as we continued to move slowly back. Just as Sequitur paused before beginning to spring forward on the weight of her bow anchor chain, I dropped the stern anchor and had the driver deliver me back onboard Sequitur, where I tightened-in the stern line about 3 metres. We were then riding pointed into the swell with a nice catenary to the stern line.


Mid afternoon on Sunday we hailed a taxi and had it take us over to Angermeyer Point, from where we walked along the broad trails to Finch Bay and its luxury hotel. From there we followed the beach and then a narrow track over a ridge and down the other side past some old salt ponds and beyond over a porous lava flow, which was naturally shattered into convenient building-block-sized pieces. After a little over half a kilometre we came to a site called Las Grietas, a narrow canyon cleft through the lava formations and filled at its bottom with deep clear water. This was the local swimming hole and it also served as the bravado place for the local boys starting to feel and exercise their testosterone.


After we watched the boys dare each other from higher and higher perches, we made our way back across the lava to the beach and from there back along the paths to the taxi landing. We ferried into town and slowly wandered through the streets. It being Sunday, most of the businesses were closed, except for the bars, restaurants, tour booking offices, barber shops, internet offices, stationery stores, farmacias, souvenir shops, art galleries, convenience stores, produce shops, and other essential services. In fact, the only shops closed were the ones we wanted: the shoemakers to mend a broken strap on my sandal and the hardware stores to find a stitching awl to repair the mainsail clew.

We walked the back streets toward the northern end of the town and at 1745, shortly before sunset we arrived at the Red Mangrove Inn. We walked in and sat at a restaurant table on the patio over the water. The sushi chef wasn't due to begin for another three-quarters of an hour, and we remained relaxing there undisturbed watching the scene to seaward, the birds, the clouds and the setting sun. When we saw the appropriate level of activity behind the sushi bar, I signalled a waiter to bring us menus.

We ordered a couple of beers, and to test the sushi chef, we had decided to try a couple of rolls. The California roll and the tortuga roll arrived beautifully presented and were delicious enough to order a repeat, which we did. The four delicious rolls, three refreshingly cold beers and two wonderfully relaxing hours in this delightfully peaceful setting had cost us only $51 including taxes and tip.

On Monday morning we ran the engine to charge the house battery, and after breakfasting in the cockpit, I continued to monitor it while Edi took a taxi ashore to an internet office and to run some errands. She took my sandals to a cobbler who for $2.50 stitched-up the broken strap, and then without being asked, reinforced the stitching on all the other straps. Edi arrived back onboard in the early afternoon after having checked-out the morning activity and produce selection at the community market, and having located and bought some thick, sturdy darning needles and a couple of muffin tins.


While Edi was gone I continued to generate electricity and ran the watermaker again. I also called Javier on the VHF and he confirmed that the electrical switch for which we had been waiting had arrived from the mainland on Sunday, and that he was organizing the mechanic and electrician to come out and complete the second alternator installation. Mid-afternoon, a water taxi carrying two Armada officers came by doing an inventory of the vessels in the anchorage, and stopping to question the unfamiliar ones.


Shortly after the Armada had left, Anne-Margaretha, a steel ketch of twenty-two metres from Haarlem arrived and anchored next to us. In the process she passed sufficiently close to us that her skipper and I easily discussed the lay and scope of Sequitur's anchors. Onboard we counted ten people, and she had the appearance to us of being a charter vessel. Curious, I looked her up online to find she was on leg ten of a voyage that had taken her from the Netherlands early last September, southward to Antarctica and then northwest, passing Cape Horn at the beginning of March and arriving here in the Galapagos earlier this month. She is scheduled to head through Panama and be back in the Netherlands in August.

We are at a crossroads in the Pacific. In the week or so we have been here, we have watched as sloops, ketches and catamarans from Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States have arrived and left. Most of them had arrived from the Polynesia and were heading to Panama or had come from Panama and were on their way to Polynesia. Far fewer sailboats arrive here from the north or south and even fewer leave heading in those directions. Today we saw a rare arrival from Antarctica and Cape Horn.

On Tuesday morning Javier came by in a water taxi to tell us the switch that had arrived was the wrong one, and they would have to re-order. I told him to not bother, and to cancel the installation of the second alternator. With the 120 Balmar working well, we can make do until we reach the mainland.


Our focus then went to preparing to leave the Galapagos on Wednesday. I tested the transmission in forward and reverse a few times to ensure my last week's temporary fix was holding, and for added confirmation, I again dived into the port cockpit locker to watch the levers working as Edi moved them. We then reloaded the locker. Next we stitched-up a cringle strop on the clew of the mainsail using a heavy darning needle, some waxed whipping twine and a pair of vice-grips to push and pull the needle.

At 1400 we hailed a water taxi and went ashore and walked through town to the Naugala office to get our invoice. We then stopped in at Bodega Blanca, the marine hardware store to buy some spare shackles to augment our diminishing supply. From there we walked the back streets across town to the market to pick-up some fresh fruit and vegetables and to the supermarket for a two-litre container of yogurt. Then after dropping-off the purchases aboard Sequitur, we picked-up more bank cards so we could raid the bank machines on our way back over to the Naugala office. We paid our invoice, retrieved our passports, ship registry certificate and our zarpe from the Galapagos to Capllao, Peru.

Callao is just over 1000 nautical miles to the southeast of here, and the prevailing winds this time of year are from the southeast. The 180-hour forecast showed a 10 to 15 knot southeast wind for the entire period, with a little more southerly component near the coast. It looks like it will be best to start out on a port tack, heading south and trying to make any bit of easting that is offered, or at worst trying not to lose any. Then after six or eight days, a starboard tack should give us a close reach toward Callao across the northbound Humboldt Current. This would mean sailing some 1400 miles and depending on the winds, might take ten to fifteen days.

We plan to leave early tomorrow morning, Wednesday the 19th of May, but tonight we are heading once more to the Angermeyer Point Restaurant for dinner.