October 28-29

With our first destination the neighboring Salinas Yacht Club, only about 5 miles distant, we had time to answer a last-minute e-mail from our publisher concerning the revised edition of the Hawaii book, due out next month, before casting off the lines at Puerto Lucía for perhaps the last time. After leaving our boat on the hard here for the past three summers and spending many weeks aboard each season, we were leaving with a mixture of eagerness to see new harbors and regret to be leaving both the salubrious climate of Bahía de Santa Elena and the charming and generous people of Ecuador.

Our first destination was such a short one because we had decided to research the tenable anchorages between PLYC and the Colombian border. Though we’d been to the city of Salinas by land many times, as recently as the day before to check out with the port captain, we’d not been into the harbor there. The anchorage turned out to be good except for some roll at the tide changes and the loud music from the bars along the beach.

The next morning we took the sportboat past the breakwater into the Salinas Yacht Club to take pictures and immediately recognized we had all the security personnel on alert. One came down out of the tower on the end of the breakwater to watch us, another studied us closely from the dock farther in, and a third leaned on the rail of the clubhouse deck. We waved and smiled to all. They responded with waves but not the smiles. Yet no one made any other movements towards us, so we took our photographs of the spiffy clubhouse and deteriorating docks, many of them vacant except for generous populations of royal terns.

We hoisted the sportboat and the anchor and motored out of Bahía de Santa Elena, northward toward the next anchorage, Bahía Ayangue. With southwest winds of only 7 knots, we had high hopes for an evening at Ayangue. Motoring into the anchorage area at 1230 hours, we were on our way out to sea at 1235. The 5-foot swells rolling straight into the bay would clearly be more than our flopper stoppers (roll stabilizers, to be more technical) could dampen.

Motorsailing in 5-10-knot winds in a thick but high marine layer, we cautiously skirted the rocky islets along the shore, to Isla Salango, 32 miles north of Ayangue. Again, the swell made the island anchorage unappealing, so we went on into the bay and anchored among the fishing boats off the coastal village of Salango. The swells and wind pushing us toward shore were unnerving, so we abandoned this stop, too, and went on another 6 miles to Puerto López. Despite having deployed the flopper stopper upon our arrival, I was up during the night stuffing throw pillows, potholders, and dish towels in galley lockers and drawers to dampen the rattles of dishes and bottles, reminding myself to get back into the habit of noise abatement before going to bed each night. (None of these little annoying noises bother Captain Bob.)