Panama to Galapagos Passage: Day 8

17. Mar. 2015
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Passages
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Author: Pete

Location: 00º 50.007S 89º 51.142W

Date: 17:00 March 16 to 17:00 March 17

Day 8 on the sea.

Greetings from the Galapagos!

Tayrona made it to the land of giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and blue footed boobies! We, however, haven’t gotten to land yet! Right now we’re cruising between islands, an odd sensation to have land so close, and all around!

This morning in the haze we spotted our first Galapagosean island, San Cristobal. I made up ‘Galapagosean’. Sounds legit to me though. Felix gave the obligatory ‘Land Ho!’ and we all clamored up to the deck to see our success.

Then the tides got funky. Had we been trying to sail in the light wind we would’ve certainly been driven back into the sea. Since we had the iron gennies at 1500 RPM, we powered our way un-ecologically through into the inter-island waters.

We watched San Cristobal move towards us at glacial pace. Really. The kind of slow where you’d have time to write a doctoral thesis, learn Swahili, and then clean the bathroom, and you still wouldn’t be there. Our maddeningly sluggish progress was on account of contrary tide and wind, and also not being accustomed to coastal sailing. Out on the sea you have nothing to judge your motion, so it doesn’t matter. Good thing we had lots to do.

We’ve generally seen bright, sunny days on this passage, so the cooler cloud cover was kind of a nice novelty. The boat had been accumulating quite a good deal of crud, so when the clouds opened and the rains came down, we took the opportunity to clean the boat’s topsides and our own.

We should be at our anchorage by tomorrow morning to do the clear in procedures. All good aboard Tayrona on our last (hopefully) night at sea!

Panama to Galapagos Passage: Crossing the Equator

16. Mar. 2015
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Passages
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Author: Pete

Location: 00º 00.000’N 88º 11.209’W

Tayrona is crossing the equator!

Felt like New Year’s Eve as a little kid today, waiting, counting down to the moment when we crossed the center stripe of the planet! The evening found us motoring in glassy conditions with only 5 knots of cool air flowing over our bow from our forward motion. Now wind of any kind.

In preparation for the event we baked a batch of Ghirardelli chocolate brownies, dug out of the recesses of the hold. Stayed up after dinner past our 8:30 bed time routine and played games in the cockpit with an eye on the GPS, something like watching the ball drop.

At 00º 00.035’N we poured five shots of Polish Krupnik, squirreled away in the bilges for a special occasion, grabbed towels, and gathered around the GPS. At 00º 00.005’N we put the engines in neutral and coasted into the netherworld between the northern and southern hemisphere. The EQUATOR!

We toasted with our libations and poured one over the railing for Poseidon, per sailor custom.

Then we stripped down to our birthday suits and jumped in the black ocean! It was something of a scary feat. Glowing, glittering life forms floated on the surface and in the depths. As we hit the water, green exploded around our flailing limbs and lit us like fire. We bravely jumped out of the dark water as quick as possible and sat guffawing on the transom.

After a freshwater rinse we sat on the trampoline in the bow and watched the bio luminescence go by. With a touch of haze in the air it was hard to tell where sea and sky met. No horizon could be discerned in the distance and the stars cast the same twinkly glow as the floating creatures in the sea, reflections mixing in the water. Tubular green blobs bobbed under the boat. I felt stoned. As we sat at the bow a huge, swimming form, maybe 10 foot across, body deep but lit up in green glided under the boat then disappeared. Maybe a manta ray. Maybe not. Who knows. It was an otherworldly night.

And now we’re in the southern hemisphere! Huzzah! We motor on over the flawless flat sea. I think we’re really in the trip now.

Panama to Galapagos: Day 7

16. Mar. 2015
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Author: Pete

Location: 00º 36.577N’ 87º 43.819W’

Date: 17:00 March 15 to 17:00 March 16

Day 7 at sea.

Yesterday was calm and slightly overcast. We had three squid lures in the water, but no bites! Dang! Perhaps we were sailing too slow for our lure size. Made 108 miles, ran 4 knots most of the time.

Felix and I worked on a plumbing project to make better use of our idle holding tank. It was a good day for it, being flat. Our repair of the outhaul car is holding great.

Yesterday Miranda was standing watch at the bow and gave a shout. We all ran out to see what was up. A hundred feet off our starboard a pair of thin black fins cut the water. I could almost hear the theme music, duh DUMP… duh DUMP… SHARKS! I thought they only swam with their fins out of the water like that when prompted by cinematographers to scare moviegoers. Needless to say, there was no swimming.

Last night the stars were out in force, raking above us as we chilled in the cockpit after a beef stroganoff dinner. The moon has been rising late, last night at 4AM, so most of the night is dark dark dark. Great for stargazing. We are at the point where you can still see the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, but can’t see the North Star it points to. Polaris is just on the northern horizon, out of sight. In the other half of the night sky the Southern Cross points generally southward. We’re heading southwest with it 45 degrees off our port bow.

I walked out on deck with my headlight and looked out to the empty sea on watch to see hundreds of little eyes staring back at me. The sea was full of finger-length squid! I pulled out a spotlight and watched them go by the boat for a while. They darted and jumped in the light, unhappy to be so exposed. Occasionally a forearm-sized squid would go by, pale in the light, and zoom quickly away. Pretty neat. I’m going to imagine that’s why no one is biting on our squid lures. Ruined their appetites on the real thing.

More later from Tayrona.

Oh wait… we saw more jumping dolphins… if that doesn’t brighten your day, I don’t know what will.