We finally left Bahia Saturday at 4.30 PM, we waited an extra day to get
our “zarpe” form the port captain. This is an official document saying we
can go to the next harbour. The cost for this 120 USD ! Cruising is not
cheap in Ecuador. I was happy we could leave with all the documents since
there was still no electricity, Internet or running water in Bahia. It will
take months before they will have life back to normal. Every day we saw
people getting their things out of the dust and damaged homes into trucks,
not sure if they will come back. We were lucky we were in Cuenca and there
was no tsunami!

Today, Tuesday April 26th, we are 72 hours at sea and about 300 NM from the
mainland and another 220 NM to go. We have not seen another boat, it is
like we are alone on the world. No land to be seen in any direction. A good
thing we have the chart plotter telling us we are sailing in the good
direction and we are approaching the Galapagos slowly but surely.
Day 1 was spent searching for wind, we had to motor so much that I was
afraid we would not have enough diesel to get to the Galpagos. As soon as
the wind picked up to 8 knots we turned off the motor and sailed as long as
we could. At night we watched the movie “Room”, good movie !
Fortunately day 2 the wind picked up and we could sail most of the time
although not very fast, 3-4 knots boat speed but at least we were creeping
westbound. The sea was like a mirror, the sun was out and with the little
wind it was perfect weather to set Marcella to work. She did 2 loads and in
no time everything was dry and folded back in the closet, no ironing
needed. We saw lots of dolphins jumping out of the water and small whales
(we think a short fin pilot whale, but not easy to distinguish since there
are so many) . Are we approaching the land of Darwin..?

At night we watched the movie “Incendies”, sad story but great movie. During my watch from 9 PM to 12PM and from 3PM to 6 PM I watched season 5 from The Good Wife. I have an alarm set and every 20 minutes I go the helm to check if everything is still OK and if no other boats are on our route.
Day 3 has been a great sailing day ! Although the weather predictions were
not good, they said we would have no wind, we have had a constant wind of
12-13 knots out of South, Southeast direction, which is perfect since we
aregoing West ! The boat speed is close to 6 knots and with the current we
are moving close to 7 knots. Let’s see we might make it in 5 days….