We have been sitting here for a little over two weeks. The authorities haven’t kicked us out, but they won’t exactly let us leave either. We have been waiting for the Autographo, which our agent tells us should be here anytime. With that piece of paper, Slick can then cruise to two other islands, Santa Cruz and Isabella. Evergreens are getting one two, so we will continue along together. In the meantime we have done every activity that there is on this island making us ready to go.
Strangely, the sea lions have lost their charm and are now more of a nuisance. They climb on the boat and the dinghy if they can. They really sneak up on you when you are in the water though and if they are in a good mood they will stop and play. There are also lots of turtles that swim by as well as boobies, the blue footed kind, also the German kind. There are quite a few German boats in the anchorage and they all insist on showering naked on the foredeck right around dinner time. The only other really interesting wildlife we saw was a ball of Golden Rays that swam up to the boat.
We have basically given up on the outboard, it stopped working and we are fed up with trying to fix it. We spent an entire day looking for a part that was broke. We finally found it at Bandito Elby Chavez’s, a mechanic in the hills. He charged us quite a bit for the part, but there are still many other problems with the motor. The only other casualty so far has been one of my cameras, it was waterproof to some depth, but I must have gone too deep and that was that.
There are lots of “volunteers” here. Basically they are students in college or high school that pay tremendous amounts of money to be here so they can get some good volunteer activity to put on their resumes for college or grad school. It is pretty incredible, all they seem to do is hang out at the internet cafe’s and update their Facebook profiles, further slowing down the already crawling internet.
The pharmacy was having a promotion, which might not seem like something of note, however, this was more of an extravaganza. It was really geared toward children with a juggling clown and a giant frog mascot. They would ride around in the back of trucks playing the theme song for the place and handing out balloons, I wish I would have gotten a video. It is sort of like marketing candy cigarettes to children, only it’s pharmaceuticals.
The only other thing I think interesting to happen was that I gave a Slick sticker to a ponga (water taxi) driver. When I asked if I could put it on his boat he got really excited and let the boat drive itself while he wiped off the spot where he wanted it. The whole time he was saying “Tunero, tunero!” which means that this is customization of his ponga. Well, when he wasn’t paying attention we ran into a dive boat at half throttle. The driver of that boat just gave him a dirty look and kept going. Now all the ponga drivers want stickers.
Its nice to be here with the Evergreens and it gives us someone to hang out with. They like to go on very long walks in the middle of the day, which usually leads to Nate and I sweating more than we would like. But at least it is something. Thanks to all the time spent here, I have been able to upload all the pictures and videos. Here are the links for the videos:
IDGABTT
Panama Canal Lockup
Reflections of Heidi
Underwater Monsters
Tortugas Running
With any luck, tomorrow we can be on our way to the other islands. Then off to cross the Pacific!