I'll start where I left off, with Betty Boobie perched on the anchor. She was there when sun rose this morning. Fay identified her as a red footed boobie (the feet were the give away…). Boobie's got their name because they were not afraid of people and allowed them to walk right up to them which usually resulted in the boobie ending up on a broiler stick for dinner. Oddly, evolution has not eliminated this trait. Fay walked right up to the bow with the camera and took a number of pictures. Fay was convinced she could have reached out and touched Betty. We'll post some pictures when we get an internet connection. But later in the afternoon Betty flew off and that was that.
On my 12-3 watch last night I heard an odd noise so I popped up out of the dodger and did a scan of the horizon. With no moon it's been basically very very dark out here, not much to see other than the phosphorescence made by our bow wave and keel turbulence. This time I saw a swath of glowing water which startled me at first. Then I recalled a similar sight on the California coast where it turned out to be kelp beds, but there are no kelp beds here and I was a little nervous about what we might be sailing through. Then I heard the sound again and then more phosphorescence. I took a minute to figure it out, but we had been joined by a pod of dolphins! We've seen this a lot during the day, but never at night. Of course I couldn't see the dolphins, but I could see their phosphorescent wakes as they cut back and forth around the boat, mostly on the starboard side and starboard quarter (right side - rear half of the boat). The noise was some combination of dolphin speak and their breathing. They made wild patterns in the water for about five minutes, then swam off.
Today was laundry day, we made some water and Fay did a couple of loads of wash, then dried them on the lifelines and hung other pieces of a more delicate nature around the cockpit and over the crash bars by each wheel. It was a very warm day with a nice breeze so the clothes dried quickly.
But before they were dry, Fay spotted a sail behind us! In the last four days the only human thing we've seen was a medium sized fishing boat (80') with an associated 20' panga out tending nets, and that was at least three days ago. We see nothing on the water, nothing on the radar, no AIS targets, nothing on the radio. Just water, sky, sea birds and the occasional floating debris (we don't like to think about that). With the light air and sunny days it's been very peaceful. But here was a sail in sight which meant it had to be within 4-5 miles, and it was catching us, though fairly slowly. Not wanting to look like the Beverly Hillbillies, Fay took in most of the now dry laundry.
And then an AIS target popped upon the screen so we could see that it was an 18m yacht named Farrfly that would catch us in about two hours. Fay and I both chatted with them on the radio for awhile. They were an Irish Farr 56 (actually 58' overall) bound for the same harbor in the Galapagos as us. They had transited the canal and just kept on going, no stops. They were motor sailing which explained why they were catching us. Fay fixed a nice tuna salad for our afternoon dinner and we studied them as the got closer. Eventually they were alongside and we took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. They moved on and now they're about four miles in front of us.
We both tended to the email, including a little work email for me. We checked the weather and did a few minor maintenance things on the boat. I changed a fuel filter and transferred some fuel. There was some napping and sleeping. And of course we made log entries every hour and ate a couple of meals.
We're now also motor sailing. The wind got even lighter and we had to make a decision. We don't make landfall at night and the days here are pretty much 50/50 day/night. If we continued sailing, and the breeze held up, we'd have made landfall about 6pm Sunday night. That means we'd have to spend about 12hrs "parked" somewhere between here and the Galapagos to take the 12hrs off the clock so we could make landfall on Monday morning. Bobbing around in the ocean for 12hrs didn't sound like much fun so we started the engine, which is also not much fun, but we should make landfall about dawn and be into the harbor by 11am on Sunday.
So that's what constitutes a busy day for us. I sense you're not impressed. Maybe we're losing perspective. Or gaining a new one.
