Panama to Galapagos: Day 7

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.

DCIM100GOPRO

DCIM100GOPRO

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.

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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.

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Panama to Galapagos Passage: Day 6

Author: Pete
Location: 23º 04.648N’ 85º 09.370W’
Date: 17:00 March 14 to 17:00 March 15

 

Day 6 at sea.

 

Good wind today. Last night after dinner we made popcorn and watched Finding Nemo, all gathered around a laptop. Occasionally someone would pop up to look for freighters, but we haven’t seen one in days.

We do have a passenger for the night. A booby bird made several passes at the boat before alighting on our port bow. He spent several hours preening while doing an impressive balancing act. I was trying to get another one interested so we could have a pair of them, but didn’t see any others way out here.

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The night was easy, besides the shackle on the outhaul car which ripped free ten minutes into my graveyard shift. I had to tie the clue of the sail to the boom and take off the offending piece. Made it work until morning. Pulling the car off the boom track was fun in the dark on the rolling boat trying to catch plastic ball bearings as they rolled out of the car. The booby laughed at me I’m sure.

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So today was project day! Not super flat, but still we managed. Put the car back on the boom track, which sounds like it should take 20 minutes. Broke 1 bolt, 1 tap screw, and drilled 6 holes through metal, all on a rolling boat. Took all day! But, what the heck else do we have to do?

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Standing on.

Panama to Galapagos Passage: Day 5

Author: Pete
Location: 03º 18.939N’ 82º 45.492W’
Date: 17:00 March 13 to 17:00 March 14

 

Day 5 at sea.

 

Last night we got some wind in our sails at about 22:00, came up from 3 knots to 7 knots, enough to sail with. Miranda and Felix shut down the iron genoas and unfurled sails. We made 3 knots for a few hours. When I went on watch at 2:00 a line of clouds marked a weather shift. Sure enough as we went under the wind came up to 15 knots. I put a reef in the mainsail which balanced the boat and put us in a nice 6 knot cruise.

The price of wind is rougher seas. The wind hasn’t been strong for long enough to make any appreciable waves, but we have some chop making for a slightly annoying ride right now. In chop of a certain frequency and height the boat hobby horses until it’s bled off a knot or two, and then resumes its motion, an awkward dance that disrupts the normal flow of the boat. At least we’re moving, if not in style.

Liza spotted the reason for our lack of wind. There is supposed to be a low wind area as one passes through the ITCZ, a band of rising air. We finally got a surface condition weather fax that was a little more zoomed out to find that there are TWO ITCZs right now, one north of the Galapagos, and one south! Not a crazy phenomenon, but it means that we have a high pressure ridge (low wind) right where we want to sail. Nice sleuthing to our weather officer!

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ITCZ2

March 14th is always a special day for us math-geek folks- PI DAY! Being that it’s 2015, it’s exact special. Instead of just celebrating the first three numbers of pi (3.14) on the date 3-14, we now get the added bonus of tacking on the next two numbers- 3.1415! Too choppy to bake a pie, so we had pie filling instead. Sailing is all about being resourceful, right?

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We are progressing on our same course. It looks like we should have some wind for the next day or two, then have a day of motoring to get through a lull before getting back into some wind. But that’s 96 hours out, lots can change between now and then.

No boats last night. Only the odd albatross. Wonder what they’re doing all this way out here? They probably wonder the same about us! Still 467 miles from the Galapagos. At an optimistic 5 knots that’s 93 hours, or about 4 days, plus one or two more to make up for low wind and our arrival point not being the same spot as our projected harbor. But who’s counting? Anyone up for a round of ’99 Bottle of Beer on the Wall’?