Days 179 and 180, Year 1: The Waiting Game
Date: Friday, April 14 and Saturday, April 15, 2006
Weather: Cooler, Breezy, Clear Blue Skies
Daytime Temperature: 80 degrees F (down from 82 degrees F)
Nighttime Temperature: 74 degrees F (down from 80 degrees F)
Location: Academy Bay, Puerto Ayoro, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos
The weather here is changing. We don’t know if this is temporary or if we are beginning to feel the change from hot and wet season to cooler and dry season. It has been dry since we have been here, so we have only experienced hot. The cooler temperatures are a welcome relief, but the evenings actually feel cool. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Seventy-four is not that cool!
We are still waiting to hear about the Fed Ex shipment. Late Wednesday the Fed Ex online tracking system told us the package was in Panama City, and on the computer it has remained there. There is nothing we can do until Monday morning, but it does seem strange that the computer has still not been updated or that the package really hasn’t left Panama City. This one is trying my patience. Since there is no way for us to know if there are further problems until the parts arrive and are installed, it is really difficult to think about what we can do. Let’s just hope the parts arrive early in the week and once installed, everything is back to normal. If not, I might become a basket case. Until then we are busying ourselves with boat maintenance. We have been cleaning the teak deck, stripping the varnish from the wooden rub rail in order to refinish it, completing the cockpit sunshades, and on and on and on. The waters here are nutrient rich, and I mean really nutrient rich, and our waterline and boat bottom are growing colonies of algae. Right now the waterline looks like it needs its flowing green “hair” needs to be cut. We have arranged to have someone work with us to do this on Wednesday as cleaning the entire bottom is quite a job. Heather and Jed helped us clean the waterline while they were here, but everything has grown back. Heather assures us that once we leave here and get further into the South Pacific, things will settle down again. We sure hope so because the constant cleaning is a full time job.
Easter weekend here is taken seriously. Most people who live here are Catholics and many things were shut down yesterday for Good Friday and will not open until Monday. But some that were closed yesterday opened their doors today. We were actually surprised at how many shops were open both yesterday and today. When your economy is totally based on tourism, I guess you can’t close the doors during peak tourist season. We went to the Saturday market today and bought many of the vegetables that we will need for the trip to the Marquesas. I guess that is being a bit optimistic, but we do want to be ready to take off as soon as the transmission problems are solved.
Yesterday we visited with Betty Lee and Tom Walker on Quantum Leap. They are from Mobile, Alabama. We first meet them in Panama and this is the first time we have been in the same port with them since sometime in February. It was good to visit and catch up on their plans for the next part of the transit. I get very sad when I listen to the Pacific Net in the mornings. Thirty-four boats, most of whom we know, are currently in transit from here to the Marquesas. We had hoped to be number thirty-five, but that just didn’t happen. We hope to catch up with everyone at some point along the way, but our delay here means that we will have to skip some of the places we had hoped to visit. Aqua Magic is leaving on Monday and that leaves just Procyon and ourselves. I know there are more boats on their way here, but we do not know them. I guess we will need to make new friends.
