12 days to Galapagos
We left Panama City May 2nd in the morning and headed out to the Pacific. Our Australian friends on Jacaranda were just an hour behind us. We had decided to keep in touch on the SSB radio on certain channels at certain times of day.
A couple hours outside of Panama, we passed several pods of dolphins playfully swimming and jumping 6 feet into the air. When I asked Steve why Dolphins jump like that, he replied in his wisdom “Same reason kids jump”. I thought that made a lot of sense.
On the second night, Steve saw a sailboat a few miles away, and hailed them on the VHF radio. It was a boat named Sans Souci from South Africa. After chatting for a while, they decided they would tune in on the SSB when we spoke to Jacaranda 3 times a day. Its just nice to know that there are other boats nearby when you are that far out there.
We had very little wind , as expected and motored for two days pretty much a straight line to the Galapagos. Although we were carrying over 150 gallons of diesel, it was not intended to be enough to motor all the way there so we decided we would put up the sails and save the diesel for later.
It is a very challenging area to sail because we were in “The Doldrums“ This is an area of low barometric pressure lying between the trade wind regions of the two hemispheres also called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The trade winds above the equator in this area blow from the North East. Below the equator, they blow from the South East and along the equator, the winds are either light or nonexistent unless interrupted by occasional squalls and thunderstorms.
When the wind did pick up for a while, it was often coming directly from the Galapagos so we had to tack way south first before we could go west. We had to make sure we didn’t go too far west initially because there is a strong current once you get closer to the Galapagos that wants to push you North West.
When there was hardly any wind, we spent many frustrating hours constantly adjusting the sails to keep any forward motion at all. At one point, there was no wind at all and the current was drifting us to the North West (away from the Galapagos). The best we could do was minimize our drift until the wind picked up again. It was actually a really good experience to be forced to sail in conditions when we would normally just turn on their engine and motor through.
One calm night, in the darkness, we could hear a whale blowing out its spout. It sounded like it was really close. As the sun came up, we could see it was only about 100 feet away from our boat. The ocean smelled really fishy for some reason and we decided that the whale probably had fish breath (I don’t know if that’s true or not but you have to entertain yourself when you are bobbing around out in the ocean).
Ater 11 days, we approached the equator. There are many customs
that are practiced when one sails across the equator. We subscribed to the theory that you have to make a toast to Neptune. I particularly liked this one because it involves champagne and we never drink when we are on a passage so it was an exception to the rule. We opened a tiny bottle of champagne, poured a small glass for both of us and one for Neptune. After we made a toast, we sipped our champagne and threw Neptune’s overboard. This is supposed to bring us good luck. (Perhaps we should have toasted Neptune before we left Panama). Steve decided he needed a new haircut for the southern hemisphere so we took a moment for that and then carried on our way.
The next day, after 12 days at sea, we came upon the Galapagos Islands just as the sun was coming up. It was quite a sight to see with their tall volcanic peaks and black lava cliffs contrasted against white sand beaches. We entered the harbour in Academy Bay in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. The anchorage was full of cruising sailboats and liveabourd tour boats. A seal swam playfully around our boat as we prepared to anchor. Jacaranda had arrived just two hours before us and Sans Souci arrived a couple hours after. We look forward to continuing our friendship on dry land.
We had great sailing for all but 2 1/2 days.
A couple hours outside of Panama, we passed several pods of dolphins playfully swimming and jumping 6 feet into the air. When I asked Steve why Dolphins jump like that, he replied in his wisdom “Same reason kids jump”. I thought that made a lot of sense.
On the second night, Steve saw a sailboat a few miles away, and hailed them on the VHF radio. It was a boat named Sans Souci from South Africa. After chatting for a while, they decided they would tune in on the SSB when we spoke to Jacaranda 3 times a day. Its just nice to know that there are other boats nearby when you are that far out there.
We had very little wind , as expected and motored for two days pretty much a straight line to the Galapagos. Although we were carrying over 150 gallons of diesel, it was not intended to be enough to motor all the way there so we decided we would put up the sails and save the diesel for later.
It is a very challenging area to sail because we were in “The Doldrums“ This is an area of low barometric pressure lying between the trade wind regions of the two hemispheres also called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The trade winds above the equator in this area blow from the North East. Below the equator, they blow from the South East and along the equator, the winds are either light or nonexistent unless interrupted by occasional squalls and thunderstorms.
When the wind did pick up for a while, it was often coming directly from the Galapagos so we had to tack way south first before we could go west. We had to make sure we didn’t go too far west initially because there is a strong current once you get closer to the Galapagos that wants to push you North West.
When there was hardly any wind, we spent many frustrating hours constantly adjusting the sails to keep any forward motion at all. At one point, there was no wind at all and the current was drifting us to the North West (away from the Galapagos). The best we could do was minimize our drift until the wind picked up again. It was actually a really good experience to be forced to sail in conditions when we would normally just turn on their engine and motor through.One calm night, in the darkness, we could hear a whale blowing out its spout. It sounded like it was really close. As the sun came up, we could see it was only about 100 feet away from our boat. The ocean smelled really fishy for some reason and we decided that the whale probably had fish breath (I don’t know if that’s true or not but you have to entertain yourself when you are bobbing around out in the ocean).
Ater 11 days, we approached the equator. There are many customs
that are practiced when one sails across the equator. We subscribed to the theory that you have to make a toast to Neptune. I particularly liked this one because it involves champagne and we never drink when we are on a passage so it was an exception to the rule. We opened a tiny bottle of champagne, poured a small glass for both of us and one for Neptune. After we made a toast, we sipped our champagne and threw Neptune’s overboard. This is supposed to bring us good luck. (Perhaps we should have toasted Neptune before we left Panama). Steve decided he needed a new haircut for the southern hemisphere so we took a moment for that and then carried on our way.
The next day, after 12 days at sea, we came upon the Galapagos Islands just as the sun was coming up. It was quite a sight to see with their tall volcanic peaks and black lava cliffs contrasted against white sand beaches. We entered the harbour in Academy Bay in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. The anchorage was full of cruising sailboats and liveabourd tour boats. A seal swam playfully around our boat as we prepared to anchor. Jacaranda had arrived just two hours before us and Sans Souci arrived a couple hours after. We look forward to continuing our friendship on dry land.
We had great sailing for all but 2 1/2 days.
posted by tobogganride at 3:44 AM
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