Panama to Galapagos Passage: Day 9

Author: Pete
Location: 00º 57.866S’ 90º 57.747W’
Date: 17:00 March 17 to 17:00 March 18

 

Day 9 at sea.

 

Landfall in the Galapagos!

Last night we had our last set of night watches for this passage!  In the dark a turn appeared over our bow, flapping powerfully as it welcomed us to the archipelago.  Not sure what he was doing.  He never dove for fish, nor swooped to our deck for a rest.  He just led us to harbor like a good spirit guiding us to safety.

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Had trouble connecting and sending email in the last days as we were motoring and had some weather affecting our signal.  Trying to send position updates to the blog via the radio.  The thing astounds me (when it works).  It turns text into sounds into radio waves, received by an onshore station which turns the signal into something digestible by the World Wide Web, and fires it out as email.  Neat.

During the day we had a long, rainy, approach upwind to our intended harbor, Puerto Villamil on Isla Isabela.

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We slowly approached then passed north of the sickle-shaped island on Isla Tortuga.  The island was a conical volcano at one point, now collapsed into a caldera, whose southern side has been eroded away by the prevailing southerly winds.  It draws schools of hammerheads apparently, and schools of divers to visit them.

As we pulled into the Villamil harbor we noticed the prevalence of the local fauna.  Pelicans and frigates soared, sea lions frolicked, and something else… shark fins…  Two black, sleek fins cruised back and forth like in the pirate cartoons.  I cried a little inside.

On the positive, as we motored around the breakwall and into the anchorage, a double rainbow lit up the sky, terminating on the little town of Islabela.  Our pot of gold at the end of this long rainbow of a passage.

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DCIM100GOPRO

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We put down anchor, made some dinner, and were asleep by nine.

 

Panama to Galapagos Passage: Day 8

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.

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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.

DCIM100GOPRO

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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

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.

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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!

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

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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.