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American Spirit II - Day 55; Mike Settles in & Getting Ready for our Longest Leg; Thursday, February 27, 2014



The sailboat anchored behind us woke us up at 6:30 AM because they thought their bow anchor was under our boat. It wasn't, they pulled it up 10 feet from our transom. This sailboat was not part of our rally but was headed for the Marquesas, where we will be going in 3 days. We'll see them again.

Since we were all up, I put the kettle on to boil some water for coffee, only to find out after 15 minutes that we had no propane. Apparently, someone (Joel) had turned off the propane the day before when he weighed the cylinder and filled a small 16 ounce gas cylinder with the larger propane tank, using a special valve I bought to do so. By being able to fill the small propane cylinders, we don't have to buy a zillion of them to cook on our transom rail mounted grill.

There was a lot of anchorage traffic starting at first light. Barges from a couple of freighters going to and from the main dock to unload supplies for the island; water taxi traffic bringing workers to and from small cruise ships; panga (dinghies) bringing passengers to and from their boats; and dive boats zooming by with no regard for the wakes they throw off.

Pelicans were diving incessantly into the water after fish; and they appeared to be successful 50% of the time. Some of these pelican dives were so close to our boat that we got splashed. And every time a pelican dove into the water, a small bird would land on its head looking for scraps. Other smaller birds were diving into the water after fish. There were a lot of birds feeding. A lot.

At 9:00 AM a Marine Iguana swam by on his way to the rocks at the perimeter of the harbor. A while later he swam back. It was a miracle that a water taxi didn't run him over. He was about 18 inches long, black and dark gray, and swam with his feet while moving his tail back and forth with his head out of the water. Looks like a little dinosaur going by.

During the day we dropped off the propane cylinder to get filled; bought 10 dozen eggs; picked up our 2 bags of laundry, which the operator of the laundry couldn't find but we found them for her; and walked around to various markets looking for fresh fruit and vegetables.

At 4:00 PM I walked with Russ and Laurie from Nexus to Iguana Scuba, where we filled out paperwork and tried on some wet suits for our dive the following morning.

The evening hours were consumed with Happy Hour, followed by a Rally party, where awards were given out for Leg 2 from Panama to Galapagos. American Spirit II did not receive any awards, but was recognized as motoring the most on this leg (we had to to ensure that we were at San Cristobal to meet Janet's plane by February 15). During this party, the crew of one boat ended up in the restaurant/hotel pool with their clothes on.

Brian Fox

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