Taxi Strike!

Water taxi, that is. Not only were the tour operators all on strike in Santa Cruz, so were the water taxis that are the only way we were allowed to go to shore. Our agent, Javier, told us we would be allowed to take our kayaks to the pier to get ashore, but we were not to paddle anywhere else. He also thought the strike would be over in a few hours.

But other chores kept us aboard for a while. First, S/V Marnia was weighing anchor at eight, and their anchor was under our boat somewhere. I thought we could use the stern anchor to pull us to the side, but that was not enough, and even when we hauled up short on the bow chain we were still over their anchor. I fired up the engine to move our boat out of the way, but just then a Zodiac tender from one of the tour boats showed up and it’s driver, Pico, played tugboat with the zodiac and pushed us sideways out of the way while Marnia hauled up their anchor and set off to join the S/V Freydis at Isla Isabela. “See you in the Marquesas” I called to them as they motored away. We also sent muchas gracias in Pico’s direction.

Next chore was boat plumbing: the outlet hose on our head was clogged. Without getting into the dirty details, the hose was crumbling too, and needed to be replaced. Removing it made a mess.

By the time I had cleaned up and measured the hose for replacement, I had to rush ashore before the chandlery closed for lunch. At the chandlery, the stock clerk measured hose with an inch and feet tape measure but sold the hose by the meter. I also stopped by the dive shop to get our money back from our cancelled dive. And I stopped for another six return bottles of Ecuador Club beer before returning to the boat to install the hose.

The new hose is not proper head hose, it is clear reinforced vinyl hose, so sea blue daylight now shines through it when you open the seacock under the sink. Cool!

By now it was getting late for lunch out. We grabbed the propane tank that needed filling and paddled in together. We stopped for lunch at Tropic Bird, with a view of intense blue ocean waters in Pelican Bay. The five dollar menu del dia was Sopa de Menuense (chicken soup) and rice with ceviche. Both were excellent. They eat a lot of rice in Ecuador, I have noticed that all of the markets sell white rice in 100 pound bags.

We found the ferreteria that was also the propane refiller after lunch. Our tank should be ready tomorrow. Then, back to the beaches at the Darwin Research Station. The Station was crowded today - many visitors had their day tours canceled like us. Playa de Estacio was a very lava-rocky and crowded with families. The second beach, Playa Ratonera, was also lava rocky and had high waves with surfers. Although there was a sandy ankle deep protected pool, we did not feel like ankle wading or body surfing among lava rocks, so we went back and swam out beyond the small break at Playa Estacio to cool off.

By the way, the last two days have been unusually clear and sunny here - the highlands were out of the mist today. It gets hot when the sun comes out! But just as we ended our swim, garua clouds rolled in again and it cooled down.

We stopped by Javier’s office to say hello, and to arrange for water delivery to the boat on Friday morning. Javier said the water taxi strike was over. But when we got back to the pier there were still no water taxis, just our two kayaks pulled up on the floats.