May 5, 2014

We woke and went to shore with the great idea of going to find this elusive waterfall.  Many people have hiked to it; few have found it.  The directions are simple, but maybe too simple.  Go past the last house.  The road will turn to dirt.  Cross two bridges; don't go right.  That's basically it.  We hiked up past the last house, across a bridge, then there was a hairpin turn in the road up a hill which turned right, or a dirt road with a bridge to the left.  We went left.  We hiked up a ways.  A truck in 4WD passed us with 3 goats in the back, then a guy came with a cow and a dog.  I asked him, he said we were on the wrong road, and then he disappeared into the bushes.  We stopped for snack.  About 10 minutes later, he and the dog popped back out of the bushes without the cow and headed back down.  We hiked down, swam in the river under the bridge and headed back to town.  I went up the hairpin turn to look around, but there are no signs or directions giving an indication that you are or are not on the right track.  Coming down, we passed another boat family with 2 little girls hiking up.  We gave them our wrong turn information and off they went.  They found it; we were only half way there.  We may try with just some of the big people tomorrow. I think that if there was one "tourist attraction" to be had in the tour books and it was a waterfall that most people can't find, I would make a few road signs saying waterfall, 5 km with an arrow or something to place along the route.  But that's just me.

Back in town a lady inviting people to dinner at her house greeted us.  We negotiated a price and determined that kids were free.  She then went to the other boats and our other two families with kids are going to come also, so that will be nice.  We told her not tonight, we have a party on our boat, so tomorrow.  It took about 15 minutes, but we did it mostly in French!!  We'll get it!

We went home and did clean up and food preparation and rest after our hiking.  Around 5:00pm our friends came over for a potluck dinner.  Cruisers are so easy to host!  They bring food, their own drinks, their own plates and silverware and cups.  No one typically has plates for 20-30 people, so they know to come prepared.  Therefore dishes afterward are our standard evening dishes and the meals are much more exotic and the company quite entertaining.  I realized that our cultural exchange doesn't end onshore.  Our crowd was a Swedish family, Argentinean couple, Australian family, Swiss couple, American family and us (27 total).

We discussed many things, making yogurt, recipes, trading with the locals, the crossing, other boats still out there, etc. Poor Jean Marie which we heard many times on the net when we were crossing were staying north due to concerns about a counter current.  They had no wind.  When our group passed them by, they were 31 days out from Panama to mid-Pacific.  Apparently they are Swiss German and check into a German net in the evening, along with the Swiss couple that came over.  So Jean Marie is still out there with about 200 miles to go and almost no wind.  Maybe 2-3 days??  She thought they were around 38 days, I think it was well over a week since we passed them, so I'm saying they are at 40-45 days already!  Some decisions work better than others.  There is also another 40-foot catamaran out there, Escape Velocity, who was cruising acquaintances of a family here last night.  They apparently got dismasted about 600 miles from the Galapagos to here.  We've heard a little about them on the net, which sounded like they had jimmy rigged a 10-foot mast/sail and were coming west.  Other on land sources indicated that they were reportedly motoring back to the Galapagos.  We are quite curious to know what they decide to do and how they handle it.  Do you go slowly downwind in the same direction as everyone?  Or do you try to motor against the wind and waves back 600 miles?  How much fuel do they have?  What is their range?  From Galapagos, they'll have to try to fuel up and make Panama.  From here, they have to make Tahiti.  She was going to send the wife a SailMail and get the skinny.  I told her we can't go back 2300 miles, but we would happily go a week or so out, bring fruits/veggies/fuel, even an aluminum pipe to rig up a mast, so let us know if they are coming this way and want a welcoming party rendezvous out there (see, rendezvous, use of French!). 

So many boats will be basically passing them along the way; they are in good company!  The people are fine, they are just on a motorboat in the middle of the Pacific without a stockpile of fuel as if they were a motorboat.  The boat has been around the world twice, so it's proven itself in the past as being seaworthy.  Fascinating stories out there!  Makes our crossing look like a cakewalk.

Long and lovely day, so off to bed!

Shannon