Greetings from yacht Ensemble!
Yesterday we caught up with most of the rest of the World ARCers who have all gathered at Puerto Ayora for the start of the next leg on Sunday.
We have the rally dinner tonight and the Captain's briefing and prize giving for the last leg on Friday. So we planned to spend the next few days provisioning, refuelling and preparing the boat for the next leg.
We had arranged on arrival for us to get fuel today. At 10am I saw the fuel boat (a water taxi with jerry cans and an electric pump) finish up with Wind Dancer and he stopped by to say he would be back in 20 minutes (Galapagos time)... 3 hours later he returned. I had carefully got the boat fenders organised so he could come aside - but even so, with the swell and waves there was a lot of bumping and scraping. He filled the main tank and we started on the jerry cans (we have just under 200 litres worth plus a maximum of 450 litres in the tank). We only managed to fill 6.5 of the 10 jerry cans when he told me 'finito'. We had ordered (and paid for) 164 gallons (roughly 625 litres) - with the tank still having at least 50 litres (Mike ran the generator while we were away - and it won't run unless there is 50 litres in the tank) - so we should have had plenty.
The agent came by a couple of hours later, reviewed the situation, and then promised to come back at 4pm. It is now 6pm - and no sign of them... What a waste of a day!
Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive....
Dave & Magali
29 Feb 2012 003