BobnRox in Ecuador

As you regular readers know, our home on the Coast is pretty much on the beach, so when we talk about our back yard, we are talking about the beach, and the rest of the Pacific Ocean.  Well, today, right after lunch, I was astonished to see, instead of the usual big and little fishing boats, a pretty darn big navy ship.

We decided that it was patrolling the Coast and was just stopping for a little while.  Well, about two hours later, the ship had not moved one inch.  When we see the huge oil tankers at anchor out in the Salinas bay, we notice that they tend to swing around a bit depending on the tide going in or out.  What was strange here was that we can sit on our deck, sight along the deck, a palm trunk, right out to the ship, and it is not moving!

We see no evidence that the engine is running--no smoke--no lights--just a radar dish spinning.  And--brilliant that we are, we decide that the ship is aground on the sand that makes up the bench that stretches out a long way from shore--and, in addition, they have ground the screw into the sand to boot!!  Here it is:

It took me about a minute to figure out what the CM15 was--and you can too...just take a look at Google...If you find out the that ship's name is the Galapagos, then just read the rest of the stats...I figure that it's not my job to spell out the details of another country's forces...

When the sun went down...they lit only one little blue light in the middle of the ship--I wondered why they didn't put out running lights, and I think I know...no engine, low batteries, and they are conserving the batteries for important stuff.  What is funny, is that they got stuck at high tide, they are the smallest of the Navy craft, so who can pull them off?  We think that maybe we will see tug boats out there tomorrow.

I just took Coquita out for her last walk of the evening, and the little blue light was all that was burning...I bet a fast moving fishing boat might get a big surprise this evening--sort of like running into a cement wall in the middle of the night...hope not...