After doing our email communications over the sideband radio we went ashore tying up the dinghy to the floating dock just inside the river mouth around 8am. The coastal path we were to follow was well made albeit a little confusing at first as it made it’s way through a small resort.
The hike was very pleasant taking us past camp grounds and the occasional shoreside property only accessible, it seemed, via boat. In between we were walking through lush vegetation, past deserted beaches and up and down craggy rocks. Around 10:30 we came upon a small river which had to be waded. There was a small souvenir shop there selling rides up the river in canoes to a waterfall. It seemed interesting but the women manning the store had no English at all and seemed unable to break the notes we had to hire us the canoes. We weren’t that interested so we plodded on a little further before deciding to return to the river to eat our packed lunch.
By the river we found some shade and hungrily ate our sandwiches and fruit. We all laid down in the shallow cool water to cool off before heading back along the path we came by. The days heat and the humidity meant we were quite drenched in sweat by our return.
Back at the dinghy we found it beached as the tide was completely out and we’d tied it to the floating dock at the shallowest point. Rather than lug it round to the water we continued our walk into ‘town’ which is just a small collection of sporadic buildings and bars. After buying some fruit from the back of a truck we climbed up to a bar on a hill and refreshed ourselves with a couple of drinks each.
Back at the dinghy dock we found we now had sufficient water to leave. We saw a crocodile in the water (I forgot to mention we saw two there the previous day) as we left the river mouth. We spent the rest of the day reading and resting as we were quite tired from our hike.
We have no real plans for today. I may do one or two minor boat projects but nothing major. Tomorrow we plan to head over to Isla del Cano for some diving before returning here to anchor for the night.
Over the past few weeks I have been downloading GRIB files (wind forecast data) for the area between here and the Galapagos so I can get a feel for what to expect. One thing is for certain is that we will not be heading there in a straight line. The prevailing winds around the Galapagos are southerly, almost in our face if we took the rhumb line. In most case this will require us to make our way south before heading west. Between our latitude and that of the Galapagos are the doldrums which typically have fickle winds although the occasional system can make it’s way through. Wind speeds are rarely high which may make sailing to wind more pleasant but will require us to use the Code Zero when running down wind. We’ll need to be careful due to the prevalence of squally weather through this passage.
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