Author: Pete

Location: 04°10.162S 94°40.047W

Date: 11:00 April 1 to 11:00 April 2

 

Day 3 at sea.

Good wind and great weather today. Lots of sun but not too hot. Last night mid-watch the wind kicked decidedly to port and stiffened to a blustery 11 knots apparent. It was enough for me to pull out sail and kick off the motors just to see if there was enough to sail with. It’s hard to know. Going at 6 knots under motor in 11 knots of apparent wind almost straight on the nose gives roughly 5 knots of true wind once you kill the engines, hardly enough to sail upwind. The angle change in important as was the increase and we had enough to move us at 3.5 – 4 knots upwind. It’s so quiet with the motors down! Sounds like real sailing! We were happy to be under the power of the wind again even if we had to divert course some 20 degrees to the west to do so.

 

We’re practicing French aboard Tayrona! We’re on to the waters of French Polynesia, and our Spanish and German aboard won’t cut it! We’re having French Hour every day to get ourselves ready! Bonne nuit! Miranda is spearheading the operation, having had the most French exposure in school. Tre bien! We’re so used to slinging Spanish functionally and getting along with relaying our needs and thoughts. I’m out of practice in charades and gesticulation… but not out of practice of looking foolish I suppose.

Made contact again today with our flotilla of boats. A couple more have joined us, so we’re six going across. We’re spread out over a good distance, the closest at 16 miles and the farthest 150 miles away. There are still a few in port at Isabela who will be following us in a few days. Let the invasion of the Marquesas begin!

Something fishy aboard Tayrona tonight! A bright blue flying fish 10″ long on the trampoline just before bed flopping around. We sent him flying back into the sea!

 

All good aboard with just our wind generator chugging along cheerfully and the moon lighting up the sea.

Author: Pete

Location: 03°17.889S 93°04.842W

Date: 11:00 March 31 to 11:00 April 1

 

Day 2 at sea.

A giant marine iguana, some 150 feet long has been chasing us since Galapagos. It’s spitting fire, wrestling with other massive creatures, and plowing over audio-dubbed Japanese folks. It appears that we’re being followed by Godzilla!

Kidding, kidding. It’s April 1st. Couldn’t help but throw in an April Fool’s joke. All fact from here on out.

Today we got some wind, despite a rainy, cloudy day. We had several hours during the day of 15-18 knots of wind. We put out all our sails and cooked along at 6 or 7 knots. It’s always difficult to get used to the odd habit of waking up for a few hours in the middle of the night for watch, so we all had a nice, rainy afternoon nap at some point in the day. Although the seas are similar to yesterday, just big rollers, everyone is feeling better and getting accustomed again to the motion of the ocean. It’s disheartening that your sea legs come so slowly and go away without notice once you’re ashore for a while.

 

Got the towing generator up and running when we were sailing. We were getting 0.5 amps from the solar when it was really overcast and cloudy, and the wind generator was shadowed by the mainsail, so we were discharging 2.5A – 4A. Threw the towing generator’s 3kg ‘fish’ in the water, and plugged it into the power inlet I installed in Panama City. Viola! Power! Okay, not that much moving at 4 knots, some 0.5A, but when the wind kicked up and we started making 5.5-6 knots the generator put out 2.5-3.5 amps, even saw some ‘charge’ on our battery monitor. I almost threw the thing overboard earlier on the trip since it takes up a lot of space and we don’t use it going upwind when the wind gen really shines. Now doing some downwind when the wind gen isn’t putting out much I predict it will be more useful than it has been as extra ballast in the starboard bilge.

Ate more of the tuna we caught for lunch. And also for dinner. We even have some broth we made from the extra parts. Liza threw in some onion and fresh herbs. Time to get creative!

We have a bright, nearly full moon tonight, no clouds, no rain, no waves. It’s gorgeous! The bright silver ribbon of moonlight waving from the horizon up to our boat stretches off to the west.

If we only had some wind! Connected with our buddy boats out here; they’re having similar conditions. Sounds like that’s the general operation, motor southwest from Galapagos three days until you find the trade winds. If you get some wind along the way, great! We even saw one of them tonight, a single tricolor light on the horizon. Couldn’t tell who it was, but definitely a solitary sailboat like us.

All good on Tayrona this night.

Author: Pete

Location: 02°10.579S’ 92°14.572W’

Date: 11:00 March 30 to 11:00 March 31

 

Day 1 at sea.

Left the harbor Villamil on Isla Isabela in the Galapagos at 10:30 am. Skirted around the south side of the island heading southwest ~220 degrees. The wind is lower than predicted, so we motorsailed, rather uninspiringly starting our trip. Looking at the Grib files that show wind, it appears that we’ll have inconsistent and light winds for about 300 miles from Galapagos. So we are aiming at 0500S’ 9500W’, likely 3 days of intermittent sailing and motoring. But THEN we should have good wind, 10-15 knots east to west.

A few hours into the trip I caught a nice yellow fin tuna! I heard the line zip out when we were all finishing up lunch. I hand lined him in while Felix reeled. He was about 2 feet long and 8 or nine pounds. No monster certainly, but really great colors, blue, yellow, and silver. We filleted him and he should give us about 3 meals! It’s a good start to the trip.

 

Already got in contact with the other boats on our daily ‘net’ today. Wavelength and Centime left at dawn and are out ahead of us. Our connections were clear, and we all relay position, speed, and weather conditions. They aren’t sailing the same path as each other, so it’ll give us a good idea of which one to follow to find the most favorable winds! Several of the other boats aren’t leaving for 2 more days, so we’ll have a couple of them behind us as well.

Watched the island of Isabela inch out of sight, brooding under rain clouds until nightfall. It’ll be the last we see of terra firma for some time.

 

 

More rolling than expected with the light winds. Our sea legs aren’t ready yet! We’ve been spoiled by a calm anchorage. I think the rolling anchorage in Panama City prepared us for our trip to Galapagos. We all felt a little nauseous this evening as the seas built. Except Miranda. She feels no pain. She made spicy fish coconut curry with potatoes, onions, and fresh peas over rice with our tuna!

 

Dodged squalls in the area in the night. Dull lightning flashes from far away light up the clouds in the distance briefly. We steer clear of them visually, but can also see them pretty well on radar up to 20 miles out. As Martha Stewart says, “It’s a good thing.”

Woke in the morning to overcast skies but no rain, calm seas, and still no wind. Quack. Motoring on.

More from the deck of the Tayrona to come.