We were having trouble downloading weather forecasts from our satellite phone, but managed to catch up with our friends on Chaotic Harmony who gave us the run down. By Friday night, it looked like Saturday evening was going to be good to leave to the Galapagos. On Saturday morning, the weather had already arrived. We hurriedly made final preparations and headed off at midday on the dot.
After crossing the Caribbean Sea, we were fairly relaxed about this journey despite it being just as long. Heading out of Panama Bay, we were singing along to music and trawling fishing lines from the back of the boat.
The weather was consistent for the first couple of days - at 20-30 knots and gentle swell. By the third afternoon, the wind dropped and we feared that that was the end of our hoped for weather. We shouldn't have worried. During my 6pm-9pm watch, the wind was already building. At one point we slid down a wave doing 15.6 knots. I was loving it! When Gary took over it was getting pretty windy. Just as Gary was telling me I was bad not to wake him to reef down, a bird sat on the wind vein. Now, this might not sound particularly important to the non-sailors. However, the autopilot is sailing to the wind direction, which is pretty much behind the boat. The boom is tied to one side of the boat (a preventer), so that the wind doesn't get behind it and push it to the other side (gybe). So, when the bird sits on the wind vein, that tells the boat where the wind is coming from, the boat gets confused and turns to where the wind vein has been moved to. So here we are, with a gale brewing, when the boat dramatically turns, snapping the preventer as the boom flies to the other side. We furl the gib, where upon the block that redirects the furling line to the electric winch detaches from the boat. We can furl the jib nonetheless. Gary then deals to the boom, "chicken" gybing it back to the correct side and we sail on, now with no preventer.
By 3am, and the turning of watches, the wind was building once more, now blowing 35 knots (Gale force winds), gusting over 40 at times. With this much wind, even the main alone was too much sail. We put in a double reef and have a much more comfortable night. In the morning, we looked the boat over and saw that no real damage had been done by our bird friend...well only to our pride. We re-rigged the preventer and put out a bit of jib to help steer the boat.
That evening, still feeling cautious, we went into the night with only the reefed main and small jib. But the wind then completely died, and didn't come back for the rest of our journey.
The following morning, with no wind and engine on, we crossed the equator! Gary woke me from a particularly good sleep, to see the crossing and pay homage to Neptune. We were bitterly disappointed that there was no visitors centre at the equator, or at least a sign to take the "we were here" souvenir photo with.
That day, and the next, were glorious in my mind. Flat seas and finally an opportunity to take some photos and read my book.
 |
| a whale in the distance |
We never saw the Galapagos Islands come into view, it was dark by the time we got close enough. We sailed down the length of the island, then tucked into Wreck Bay. This required all our charts, both paper and electronic, as the lights and signals were not clear. The pilot guide suggests you can go inside a rock in the middle of the bay, but the lights didn't seem to make sense so we took the safe leading light option from the other side of the bay - another half hour on. We anchored, with sea lions swimming around the boat. Then it was off to bed directly! In the morning it was obvious that the lights were not as shown on the charts and it had been a good call to go around.
I woke up early, expecting the port authorities to arrive at Toodles. This is a new thing for us, usually we go in to their office ashore to check in, but here they come to you. I had thought only a couple of people would come and the usual paper work filled out. Instead, 5 people turned up - our agent, a police officer, navy representative, national parks representative, and quarantine officer. The Galapagos are just as protective, if not more, than New Zealand is, being an island isolated from so many pests and disease. The quarantine officer put on his white gloves and took me around the entire boat, opening every cupboard and pulling up every floor board to check for bugs. No drawer was too private, nor recess too difficult for the officer to inspect! He opened my fridge, looked in my bin, the toilet, the dirty laundry, and went through every bag of rice, oats or pasta in the boat (which was a lot, seeing that we have a 6 month supply). Feeling somewhat violated, despite all the officials being especially nice, we are finally left to our own devices.
We head ashore to explore.
Very jealous right now!
ReplyDelete