My Mission: Sail to Bahía!

Sailboat "Suitt" - Docked at Salinas Ecuador

Professor Bruce Hoeneisen of USFQ is within a year of retirement and he wanted to upgrade to a bigger sailboat. He plans on doing quit a bit of sailing.

As Bruce puts it, "I either could have paid for a psychiatrist or buy a sailboat. I decided on the sailboat".


As of Friady (28 September 2012) “Suitt” is now his sailboat. Bruce bought the sailboat from a former commandant of the Ecuadorian Navy, Comendante Martín, who had the sailboat in Salinas. Salinas is a 24-hour sail away from Bahía where Bruce has a small second house.

Nicholas, Joe, Comandant Martín, Bruce, Matico

The Former Owner

The Commandant gave us a 2-hour ride from the Guayaquil airport to Salinas, then had dinner with us, took us to the yacht club (multiple times), helped us find a captain for the trip, took us to his apartment for lunch, and so on.

I’m thinking that this sailboat was a member of his family and not just another business transaction.

Humpback Whale

The Trip
The five of us - Captain Pablo and first mate Ricky (his son), Bruce, Joe and Nicolas (Bruce’s grandson) - left Salinas at 5 a.m. for a 30-hour trip to Bahía.

Along the way we saw:

• whales,
• dolphins,
• cargo ships, 
• islands, 
• diving birds (for fish), and 
• lots of water, and waves.  

Our arrival

Dolphins

We arrived at Bahía at 5 a.m. the next morning, sailing straight through the night. I got to take the tiller (i.e., drive) for two of the 24 hours, from about 1 a.m. to 3 a.m.

However, the port at Bahía has a narrow inlet channel that can only be navigated at high tide by a boat Bruce’s size. So we had to wait until 3 p.m., i.e., an 8-hour wait.

Unfortunately, there was no place to anchor the boat that was not in at least 1.5 to 2 meter high waves. So we anchored the boat a kilometer or so from the beach and waited.

Oil Freighter

La Isla de la Plata

The boat rocked constantly, and all we had to do was sit there and wait. At many points I thought about putting on my swimsuit and making a swim for the beach.




The Broken Rope
Sometime around Noon to 1 p.m., two big waves hit the boat and this broke the anchor rope.

We think a 7.1 earthquake that occurred in Columbia at about that same time might have generated these waves.

The boat quickly headed toward the beach, and if it were not for some quick thinking by Captain Pablo, I believe the boat would have been beached and most likely lost. Pablo started the engine and we proceeded to drive around further away from the beach area for the next two hours.

Joe, Captain Pablo, Bruce

It Was a Great Trip
The seven to eight hour wait at the end of the trip was a big pain, but I new tomorrow would come, and made it through.

Immediately after getting to shore, I could feel that as each minute passed, the trip became more and more priceless.

The "Survivors"! - Ricky, Pablo, Nicholas, Joe, Bruce
Having a beer at Puerto Amistad - Bahía Ecuador

Kicking back, at about 10 hours into the trip