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.
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.
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.
We put down anchor, made some dinner, and were asleep by nine.
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.
Thursday. We were hoping to meet up with a broker we had already talked to when we were still in Chile, but he’s been down in the Carib selling a boat and we’ve been playing phone and email tag. So, plan B. In a quick perusal of Yachtworld and Sailboatlistings we found three boats of interest with the Multihull Company brokerage. Gave Alexis de Baucaud, their senior broker, a buzz. He too was down in the islands, but set us up to check out the boats on our own! Armed with some addresses and key-codes we jumped into the car, again, for a treasure hunt. There’s always a mast at the end of the rainbow. All week we’ve been driving up to some unassuming house, not sure if there’s any water nearby, and lo and behold, a mast sticking up from behind the low, one story house.
Our first boat of the day, a 2001 Fortuna Island Spirit 37’ was an immediate hit. Great size, nice and beamy. Felt solid and stable. Lovely open cockpit and excellent access to uncluttered decks, solid bimini and superstructure, well outfitted, and good vis from the helm. Nice open salon and galley up. She had a few knicks in her decks, but then again, so do I. We scampered about happily, feeling a little sneaky for being there on our own. Peered in cupboards, through hatches, and under mattresses. It immediately went to the top of the list.
Our next stop, luckily only a few minutes away was a Maxim Yachts, Voyage 380. Again, snuck behind someone’s house, slipped through a fence on the side, and finagled our way into the boat via a lock box. I think the James Bond music was playing the entire time. The Admiral was stout and strong. She would’ve been a favorite had we not seen the Island Spirit previously. The salon layout was much more crunched and the overall space on the boat was inefficiently distributed compared to similar boats. Would do the trick without a problem through, I’m sure.
Our last stop of the day was to see a 2001 Lagoon 380. Dariousz, a Polish-French gentleman was selling it right after seven years of cruising it from the Med with his wife and young daughter. He took great care, pride, and records of his boat, all of which he showed us with eagerness. The boat was immaculate, almost perfectly loaded, and at a great price. The only problem is that the great price is still at the upper limit of our funds.
We toured the boat with Dariousz, then sat and had a beer with him in the cockpit, chatting about the boat, international living, and futból. He had Brazilian beer, Brahma, in honor of the World Cup that was playing in the salon. He told us the boat was pretty much sold to someone in Boston who didn’t even come down to see it, but still wanted to haggle over the price. He was adamant that he set the price fairly, and that anyone who came down to see her would agree and not insist on haggling per industry standard.
Of course we loved the boat immediately. He asked us if we had liquid capital, which we do, and he started discussing selling it to us instead. I think he partially didn’t like the current buyers as much as us, and partially thought that we could move the boat faster.
Called Alexis when we left as a rumbling thunderstorm came in and started spattering the mango trees around the boat. He gave us the scoop on how we could potentially throw a bid coup. We took notes, sort of stunned that this might even be a possibility, our brains churning over the logistics and gravity of the situation at hand. We went out for dinner and over an hour or so weighed the pros and cons of the deal. Miranda was enamored with the boat’s immaculate condition and sturdy feel; I played devil’s advocate and discussed the price being higher than we had originally been planning to spend. We hemmed and hawed. We looked at our finances, and attacked the situation from all different angles.
