It was a great pleasure and relief to leave La Libertad and the Lucia Yacht Club Marina! It was truly the worst marina I have ever been in. We spent two nights out of the marina due to the conditions. There were two very unacceptable problems – oil and swell.
The oil was everywhere and coated the warps, yacht hull and tender in a thick black goo in just a few hours. The Marina did a great job to elevate some of the problems by hiring warps and cleaning hulls etc. but the ever constant heavy swell kept the yachts in perpetual motion tugging very hard on the warps with every lurch and making horrendous noises as the yacht’s cleats took the full strain of a 27 Tonne Yacht being brought to halt from a wild swing every 5 secs or so. The space along a rock wall allocated to Asolare was totally inadequate in length as, with the fore warps attached to the wall, as close as was possible, the two aft warps had to be attached to two buoys that where actually in front of the stern and could not therefore hold the yacht back away from the wall adequately. After a long night of watching and adjusting, we were obliged to leave to anchor out of the harbour for the following night.
We entered the harbour the next day to a much better berth just vacated by a departing yacht but by then we had provided our two hired warps to “rescue” a wayward yacht that had broken several warps and was being damaged badly. We now had to use our own warps which are now, having left the marina, in buckets and large carrier bags awaiting our cleaning.
The facilities in the marina were excellent however with a good bar and restaurant, gym, swimming pool, hotel and meeting rooms.
Despite problems I was able to leave the marina for a short time and the attached photo was taken on the very Western Point of Ecuador and
Capt. Peter
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