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After a day in Panama City getting a few stores and looking around the old town we headed out to the Peralas Islands with Julie's Dad. Had a great sail seeing loads of wildlife in the Pacific with Dolphins, whales and loads of manta rays on the surface, never seen that before? We anchored at Isla Contadora, great spot and it was coming up to Easter weekend so a lot of the wealthy locals were there on their flash cruisers and also some massive mansions ashore that makes you wander where all that money comes from?! After 4 days hanging out Elio caught the ferry back to catch his flight home to Argentina and we had a good forecast to head south for Ecuador. We left Easter Saturday and had a cracking start with the wind up our bum. It's about 550 miles from the islands and the first 2/12 days we made really great time, one 24hour period 190nm with just the 2 headsails, 25knts and a bit of current in our favour. Was the first time sailing with the new autopilot downwind and man it's awesome, straight as a die surfing down the waves, good times. The last day and a half though the motor went on, wind died to a light headwind and the current swung and was against us although not so strong as expected so it wasn't too much of a problem. The last evening out we crossed the equator for the 3rd time aboard Sunflower and for the first time nothing broke! Once we got closer to Ecuador though there were a LOT of fishing boats, small open doreys with just 2 guys setting floating long lines in the deep water. We hooked up on one in the daylight but it didn't break and nearly hooked up another soon after so we decided to head in and go inside of the 100m contour for the last night and didn't see any fisherman at all which was great and had the anchor down at 3am Wednesday out the front of Bahia de Caraquez.
High tide was at 6am and you need a pilot to enter the river as the sand banks are always changing. We started calling at 5 with no reply until about 6 when he said he would come but still there was no sign and the tide was ebbing. A couple of fisherman offered to show us in and being so tired I just wanted to go so in we went, the tide racing out and we were going places the chartplotter tells you not to go. It was pretty hairy to say the least with at times just a foot under the keel and still 2m of water to go out but after 20 minutes we were in the deeper water and all was well. Puerto Amistad Marina is run by an American fella named Gene, really nice guy and he has moorings for rent which we went on. He organises all the formalities for a cost of $180 to clear in and the next day we had Customs, Immigration, health and the navy onboard checking everything from food, medication, fire extinguishers, flares and our vaccines. Probably the most detailed inspection we have ever come across but they were all nice and we didn't have a problem.
It's not a bad town but in 2016 was hit with a 7.2 earthquake which pretty well totalled a lot of the town and it is still a wreck but it's not so bad. Everything handy with shops ect and the marina clubhouse is nice with a good bar and clean showers and good food. After a couple of days we got the bus into the capital city Quito which was really different at 2800m above sea level it's right up there. Beautiful scenic 8 hour bus ride through the mountains and then once you arrive you realise how big the city is right up in the middle of know where it's quite bizarre. We stayed in the old town which was very nice, safe place to walk around and check it all out. We stayed at a backpackers for the first couple of nights and then moved to the more modern part of the city close to the French Embassy were Julie had an interview for her visa for French Polynesia. After 4 days sightseeing and getting that sorted I flew out back to Australia for work and Julie went back to Bahia.
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