This anchorage is flat! It also has a nice beach on the back side of Espiritu Santo that appears as the tide goes out. A Fountaine Pajot Catamaran tied up to some trees with a stern anchor out and was high and dry by 11AM. They spent the day working on their bottom and floated off around 4PM.

We did some work on the boat finishing up projects and what not. Nobu and Ed used the windsurfer to get into the back side of the new chocks we had installed. The chocks needed to have the nuts put on but it was too choppy in the other anchorages we were in to go under the boat and remove the access plate to get at the bolts.

It is the two year mark for our shock cord holding the tramps on. This is about when they start to give way. We have two patches in place, one added today. We need to get about 80 feet of shock cord to redo both sides next time we run across it. Catamaran folks are always searching for the holy grail, tramp attachments that never need maintenance. We have nylon line tying up the front edge of our tramps. It will last forever but it doesn't stretch compared to the shock cord. This is fine for the leading edge because folks don step onto the tramps from there. I like the feel of the shock cord and it is easy to replace and not too expensive. I think we'll just replace it every two years until someone invents perpetual shock cord.

The tramp material we have, kind of a vinyl coated fine webbing, is holding up great. It is comfortable to walk on or lay on and survives the sun day in and day out. I would choose this again as well.

The other tramp plague is the sail slides, the little cars, that fit in the tracks that the tramps attach to. Many folks have these break often. We haven't lost any as of yet (knock on wood) and there are several spares installed. We'll see how long they last.

We made a first pass at gasketing the lazarettes today as well. This is an item I would hope the factory tackles on future boats. Crossing the Baranquilla coast we had some waves tops break and put a fair amount of water on the side decks. This runs about with some pounding down on the lazarette hatchs. They are not water tight and the drain channel fill easily and the excess salt water (read: evil medium of incredible corrosion) rains down on the gear in you locker (i.e. genset enclosure, folding bikes, etc...). Big following seas can be a problem as well. The shape of the lazarette opening doesn't lend itself to a 360 degree seal. We put a good seal on the aft and port/starboard sides though. This is where most of the water over flows due to the shape of the locker opening.

We knocked off all of my high priority projects while floating aimlessly about our chain between Isla del Rey and Isla Espiritu Santo. At the end of the day Swingin' on a Star was in the best shape she'd ever been in for off shore travels. Everyone shut down early in preparation for a crack of dawn departure for the Galapagos.