The Brochure

Yesterday morning we gybed onto starboard to head back north and keep us on track to Fatu Hiva. The wind angle had forced us to sail further south than our desired course so we had no choice but to put some time in going north. Last night was very bouncy, very difficult to sleep. And it followed two squally nights so we were pretty ragged. But then things calmed down this morning and we were both able to get some sleep during the day so we're feeling much better this evening. With more northing in the bank we gybed back this morning and are now able to just about hold course. Maybe one more short starboard hitch.

We have 606 miles to go so I'm expecting to arrive very early on the morning of Thursday the 12th. Since we don't make landfalls at night we'll probably have to heave to for a few hours somewhere so we can match our arrival with the sunrise on Thursday. Funny how our perspective has changed and now 600 miles seems like the "home stretch". That's longer than from San Francisco to San Diego, or about like Newport to Bermuda, neither of which would have seemed like a short distance a few years ago.

Fay and I often talk about "the brochure". A usage example is "this was not in the brochure". Pounding into 30kts with waves breaking over the hard dodger on the way to Bermuda was not in the brochure. We've concluded that going east in the tropics is not in the brochure. Most of this passage has not been in the brochure. The brochure showed pictures of long smooth Pacific swells with a 16 second period which we would glide over at 8kts while a 1kt current pushed us gently towards French Polynesian paradise. Instead we've had mostly short steep wind waves from the SE pushing us into a SW swell, combined with who knows what else to create what a cruiser on the net this morning described as a "washing machine". I think she had a rough night also.

But tonight is probably in the brochure. A quarter moon is lighting up the cockpit and reflecting off the ocean from the starboard bow to the horizon. We're broad reaching in 18-22kts of true wind with a reefed main, reefed jib. With a steady 8+kts and about .5kt of current we did 104 miles from noon to midnight which suggests we'll have another 200 mile day. When the waves align correctly the autopilot guides us down their faces at over 11kts. A full set of stars illuminates the sky and the only squalls on the radar are a dozen miles away. Most importantly the boat is not jumping around spasmodically as she's slapped from side to side by confused seas; she's just slicing through the water. The waves aren't entirely orderly, but the rambunctious ones come in sets and not often enough to destroy the illusion.

Three hours later, my midnight to three watch. The breeze is up slightly to 20-23kts and our motion is a little bumpier. The moon has set, leaving a much darker night. New Morning is not so much gliding along as she is rushing through the darkness with conviction. It's in the fine print of the brochure.

Squally squally night

More squalls last night. They started at sunset and are still coming through at 9:30am this morning. Very little sleep last night with reefs going in/out, and even a brief period of motoring when the breeze dropped below 10kts for 20 minutes. This morning the seas are much larger and very confused so we're rolling around quite a bit, sometimes violently. It's amazing how fast New Morning's 45,000lbs can move when a wave drops out from underneath her.

Half way there with Chez Fay

Actually that's a pretty poor title, but it's 2:20am. Decomposing it, this entry is about passing the half way point to the Marquesas, and also about dining on board. The first point is self explanatory, the second is long overdue and could require pages.

Chez Fay is what we call our onboard dining experience. To cut to the chase, Fay serves up amazing meals night after night.

Her first challenge is provisioning. She provisions both with long term planning, like bringing key items in our luggage from California, and opportunistically along the way from local fisherman, sport fisherman, good grocery stores and local farmer's markets. She's always on the lookout for what is available. Preparing for our Pacific crossing and time in French Polynesia (where availability is still an issue and prices are reported to be very high) she did weeks of planning and shopping in Panama. Two months after our Panama departure, New Morning is still fairly bursting with food. Both freezers are entirely full of fish (from a sport fishing boat) and meat, the liquor cabinet has been turned into a pantry of canned goods, the wine locker is full of beer (and some box wine), the starboard deck locker is stuffed with gin, tonic, rum and coke, and the drawers under the forward bunk are also full of gin and vodka. I'm pretty sure we do not need to do any further shopping this year!

And what becomes of all these ingredients? Well for this passage the liquor is pretty much locked away, though last night we did have a couple of beers to celebrate passing the half way mark. But what about dinners?

Our first meal out was spaghetti and meat balls. So you're thinking, "big deal, you open a jar of spaghetti sauce". Not quite. Fay spent an entire afternoon preparing her own sauce which even included herbs from her onboard herb garden. And the meatballs are not just rolled up hamburger, their crafted from an ancient German recipe. The meal was complimented with my own artisan white bread.

Then we had stir fried shrimp with rice and vegetables. How about salmon with a papaya sauce and papaya/avocado salad? Or steak fahitas (sp?) with a greek salad of tomatoes, red onions, feta, cucumber, etc. Tonight, one day in advance of Cinco de Mayo, we had chicken quesadillas with fresh guacamole and Presidente cerveza.

All of this while she's also taking half the watch time and we're bouncing along through confused seas at 8 kts churning out 200+ mile days.

The creative meals keep coming and we eat well! Chez Fay, where the discriminating sailor dines nightly.

Night of the living squalls

Yesterday was busy.

In the morning we hove to for about 30 minutes to fix a problem with the transom shower. "Heaving to" is how we "park" the boat in the ocean. We don't really stop, but we slow to about 2.5kts, in a fairly stable position and it feels like we've stopped with a fairly gentle motion.

After my shower two days ago we had large amounts of water entering the aft cockpit locker and our main fresh water tank was entirely emptied in about two hours. Connecting the dots, we feared a recurrence of a problem which caused the shower hose to be sucked into a steering sheave (block the cable runs through). Since we didn't want to give up our showers, and we needed to confirm there was no problem with the steering, we needed to empty and disassemble the transom locker to accurately diagnose and hopefully repair the problem. I steered while Fay, wearing her harness and clipped to the boat, kneeled on the swim platform and passed me the entire contents of the locker, then the panels of the locker itself (long since left unscrewed for easy access). All the while the ocean lapped up onto the swim platform as we slowly drifted backwards so that she was working while standing in about 6" of water.

Behind the panels she found that the hose was not in a sheave (good), but the hose connection to the boat's plumbing was loose and leaking (bad). A few twists with a pair of pliers and all was good. I handed her the locker parts and contents in the reverse order and she reassembled the locker and restored the contents. The whole drill took about 30 minutes. We tacked through the wind, eased the sails and we were off and rolling again.

In the afternoon our wish for lighter winds came partially true as the wind moved aft which reduced our apparent win and improved our angle on the seas, smoothing our our ride. But it was a short respite.

Just as Fay was handing up dinner about 5pm local time, a series of line squalls came through. The wind rose to 24-28kts and it began raining. We liked the fresh water rinse, but not the series of events. Over the next four five hours we had three different series of squalls. The wind would increase dramatically, we'd race off for 30 minutes, then the wind would drop just as quickly as it rose and shift way aft to directly behind the boat at only 8-10kts and leave us with the sails slamming around violently. I motored briefly between the 2nd and 3rd and then after the 3rd until they had passed through entirely. Of course nobody got any sleep during this time and there was tons of work with reefs going in and out, jib being rolled up and unfurled, etc. etc. Finally about 10:30 things settled down and we were sailing again.

Then about 4am, during Fay's sunrise watch, the fatigue took its toll and Fay hit the wrong button on the autopilot. The boat swung up into the wind, began to roll wildly and the sails flogged with a deafening sound. Continuing with the horror movie theme, Fay let out a scream for help that would have impressed any fan of the genre. I leaped from my sound sleep in terror, envisioning that Fay had gone overboard and I had to find her in the water in the dark (our worst fear). Fortunately she was in the cockpit and working together we had the boat straightened out in a few minutes, back on course and sails trimmed. The whole episode proved that our ear plugs would not prevent us from being roused in an emergency, and confirmed my doctor's repeated assessments that my heart was in good shape. I took about an hour to get back to sleep.

We did 194 miles yesterday and should pass the half way point later today.

One third of the way

We could have celebrated 25%, 50%, 75%, arrival, but since the overall trip is about 3,000 miles, we've decided our milestones are 1/3, 1/2 and 2/3. Today was 1/3. We celebrated by splitting a beer at dinner.

We've consistently had about 5kts more wind than the forecast. And this evening while the forecast is for 15, we have 20-22. It may not seem like much, but the force of the wind on the sails (and on the seas) rises with the square of the velocity. That means that 22kts of wind is more than twice as much force as 15. It means we need half as much sail area and it means the seas get pushed up with twice as much force, making bigger waves.

Basically, it's just more wind than we need. We'd be more comfortable and moving only slightly slower with 15kts. Yesterday we did 210 miles and today we did 206, but we'd gladly have 190 mile days in return for a smoother ride.

As far as I can figure out, the confused and lumpy seas we're experiencing are the result of three sets water moving in different directions. First there is the prevailing SW swell which is apparently the result of the winds in the Southern Ocean at 40-50 degrees south latitude. Those waves disperse and span out in the South Pacific where there are no land masses to block them. Then there are the waves generated by the SW trade winds, theoretically blowing at 13-15, but in our experience more like 15-25. Then there is the west bound current. The current is mostly a product of the wind, but over a huge area and doesn't follow the path of the local wind. I estimate that we've had .5 - .8 kts of current. So there is water and energy moving in three different directions, SW to NE, SE to NW and E to W, constantly bumping into each other. The result is a lot of vertical water, wave fragments and general chaos.

And water is very heavy, about 62lbs / cubic ft.. So the wave fragment that might be just 10' x 6' x 2' that slaps up against us, weighs over 7,000 lbs. It's like two SUVs running into New Morning. She gets slapped around. And gravity does some of the work as well when a wave lifts her up on one side and there is nothing to support her other side, so she tilts or lurches.

As you've probably figured out by now, we're a little tired of being slapped around and we'd like to dial back the wind a bit, let the waves drop down a bit, and have a smoother ride for the second two thirds.

Rocket ship

It's utterly black out tonight, about 1:30am local time as I write. No moon, no stars, no rain, no horizon, just darkness. Even the bio luminescence seems a little dimmer tonight. And the radar shows an absolutely blank screen on ever range from 2 - 36 miles.

The previous 48 hrs have had plenty of wind, but fortunately no drama. With true wind speed of 15-20 yesterday, and 20-25 last night, we've yet to fly the full mainsail. My thoughts of flying our spinnaker for endless days now seem absurd. But this also means that my concerns about the chafe on our mainsail halyard are not yet an issue since the halyard has't reached full hoist. We've always had at least one reef in the main, and yesterday we had the 2nd reef in for 12 hrs, and the 3rd reef in for about 6 hrs.

The seas have been fairly lumpy, not the long smooth Pacific swells we had expected. We have 5' - 7' seas from the SE which are crossing with the SW swell coming up from the roaring 40's and the result is a lumpy cross sea that looks more like the Caribbean than the Pacific. It makes life on board a little less pleasant. None the less, Fay has fully recovered and we're able to sleep, eat, play Scrabble (no - not with a board!) and write email so it can't be that bad can it? There is just a little more rolling around than we'd like and every few minutes we smack into the intersection of a SE sea and a SW swell and 45,000 lbs of boat lurches in a seemingly arbitrary direction. Then things settle down and the freight train rolls on.

To smooth out the lumps we've aligned ourselves a little more with the waves resulting in a course of pretty much due west. We can do this for a few days, but eventually we'll need to turn left about 20 degrees and make some southing to reach the Marquesas. We're currently at 4 degrees south and the Marquesas are close to 10 degrees south so we need to travel roughly 360 miles south at sometime in the next ten days.

Even with such little sail, our daily runs thus far (noon to noon) are 173, 177, and 206 nautical miles. This is kind of a big deal because yacht marketing materials love to use the phrase "capable of 200 mile days…". It's sort of the holy grail of performance under sail for a cruising sail boat. New Morning is just tearing that up. With a reefed main, and reefed jib we haven't even let this dog off the leash, yet we did 105 miles from noon to midnight yesterday so we're well on our way to another 200+ day.

All of which means a shorter passage, but we would happily trade a little slower pace for a little smoother ride. But oddly, if we slow down the boat, the ride is a little less comfortable because the waves push us around more than when we're scooting away from them at a higher speed. We don't actually move away from them, the waves always travel faster than we do, but when we're going faster they overtake us more gradually.

Time for the 2am log entry so I'll get this up to the satellite. Coming soon: "Eating on board" and "Why cruising makes you a pack rat". Those are separate topics.

Galapagos wrap up

Our three weeks in the Galapagos were a mixed bag.

The anchorages were poor, very rolly, lots of traffic / wakes, etc. The weather was hot, humid and rainy. The supply of fresh produce was limited and the sea lions in San Cristobal were not cute, just dirty and annoying. But the larger issue was the Galapagos myth versus the reality.

The Galapagos we envisioned, the product of various documentaries and tour books, was teeming with a variety of species that evolved uniquely because they were on these remote islands, untouched by man. The Galapagos would be an opportunity to experience the environment which led to Darwin's epiphany on the evolution of species.

The reality is that humans had been harvesting and exploiting the Galapagos for 200 years before Darwin arrived, and for another 100 years after his visit. Tortoises were hunted, some to extinction, others to the brink of extinction. Invasive species were introduced to the detriment of species which had evolved for centuries in the absence of the invasive species. And there is a large human population (estimated at 40,000), most of which is, like the other species, trying to put food on the table, raise their children, and generally get by. For some reason the humans are a species that don't show up in the documentaries or guide books.

Another reality is that while there are some striking examples of evolution and adaptation which no doubt helped Darwin develop his thesis, many of the evolutionary examples are a fairly subtle for the layman. There are unique species all over the planet that have adapted to their ecosystem and niche. What Darwin saw, and what zoologist and biologist continue to study in the Galapagos, is not entirely obvious to the layman.

That Darwin's visit to the Galapagos spurred his thinking and made a valuable contribution to his knowledge base is well documented. But by analogy, a visit to the apple orchard that triggered Newton's epiphany regarding gravity and led to the development of calculus and Newtonian physics, would still be just a visit to an apple orchard. What Newton saw, and what I would see today are pretty different!

Casting aside the mythical Galapagos, we adjusted to the real Galapagos and there is quite a lot to enjoy. The islands which are not inhabited by humans, just visited by tour groups, had a unique and wild feeling. North Seymour, Bartolome and Genovesa were worth the trip on the tour boat. The birds were plentiful and showed little fear of humans, the penguins darted around us in the water, the sea lions were fast and graceful as they swam by. We saw fish we had not seen elsewhere (large Moorish Idols), the Golden Cow rays were impressive and the marine iguanas are just weird. With the exception of the birds, the other animals were not present in huge numbers, but they were enjoyable none the less.

Overall my conclusion was that the Galapagos was one of the few places we have visited where it would have been better to be with a good tourist boat than on New Morning. A striking contrast for example to the San Blas Islands. A full time guide, minimal interaction with the government bureaucracies, no necessity to attempt to purchase staples like food and fuel, no need to hassle with sea lions moving aboard, access to islands where private yachts are not permitted, and an itinerary that would basically show you the "Galapagos greatest hits" is the way to see the Galapagos. Book a luxury tour as even the back packers we met found the "first class" accommodations to be disappointing and the quality of the guides was also disappointing.

We came away with hundreds of photographs and when we eventually find an internet connection with good performance (something we didn't find in the Galapagos), we'll upload some great photos and movies that Fay captured.

As I write this entry, some dolphins are darting around New Morning in the dark. I can hear them breathing and chirping, and I can see the phosphorescence around them and in their wake. It's very dark tonight, but I even caught a glimpse of one making a big jump off the port quarter.

On our way

We motored from our departure yesterday about 10:30am until early this morning on a roughly SW course. There are a variety of strategies for the first part of the passage, but it was a long day so I won't go into them.

Fay had very heavy rain during her 3am - 7am watch, but when she broke clear about 6am we had 15kts from the SE though it seemed far too early to have reached the trade winds. The seas were very lumpy all day but there was plenty of wind so continued on our SW course moving very fast and averaging about 8.4kts for much of the day. Nine mph may not seem like much, but it's really quite fast in our situation and would result in having the coveted "200 mile day". But the boat was uncomfortable with that much speed in such lumpy seas so we double reefed the main and throttled back.

Just when we thought we would get a little more comfortable the high water alarm for the aft cockpit locker went off for a second time. We've had a persistent leak there from an unknown source and now it was moving up from annoying to threatening. Pumping it out twice in one day was not good, particularly since this is also where the rudder bearing lives. I removed all the contents of the locker (a lot of stuff!) and investigated further. Fortunately the leak is what we had long expected, though thought we had solved, water is coming in around the transom locker doors. When the boat is moving fast, the entire swim platform is submerged and the lower portion of the locker doors are awash. Water is leaking through the door seal and then finding its way to the bottom of the aft cockpit locker. That was a relief since there was no problem with the rudder bearing.

However, looking closely, I saw that the steering cable looked light it might be chafing on the newly installed starboard autopilot ram's hydraulic lines. I hadn't noticed this with my pre-departure inspection when I viewed it from the opposite side, and even today it was not clear if they were really touching. If they are touching, then the cable would eventually saw through the hydraulic line, or vice versus, since the hydraulic line is sheathed in stainless as well. Neither would be good so with Fay steering by hand I disengaged the starboard ram and connected the port ram. I threw a switch, reversed two wires on the autopilot computer and we were back in business using the port ram. I'll investigate further when we get to the Marquesas.

Then I repacked the entire locker. The high water alarm had initiated a series of events which consumed most of the afternoon!

In search of a more comfortable ride we tried bearing off a bit and heading directly to the Marquesas, roughly WSW. The ride seemed a little smoother and certainly no rougher, so since the wind has held up (the forecast was for much less wind as this latitude) we're headed straight to the Marquesas now rather than sailing the longer distance to first get south before turning west. If the wind doesn't hold we can always turn south again.

I've started a summary of our Galapagos visit, but I'm too tired to finish it tonight.

Departing today

We're departing this morning for the Marquesas. I'll post a Galapagos wrap up in a day or so. Time to finish preparing and hoist the anchor. Check our progress on "Where's New Morning".

Isabela Update

Here you see a great shot that Fay took of this Sally Lightfoot crab when we were at Isla Bartolome. The colors are amazing!

There are a lot of conflicting comments about the Galapagos weather that we've finally sorted out after a couple of weeks. We were confused because people would frequently comment on how cold it was in the Galapagos, despite being on the equator. And how dry the islands are with water always an issue. But we've had temperatures from 80-86F, humidity 70-77% (high!), 80F water when we went diving and lots of rain.

As we've learned, the "rainy" season is Feb-May, the dry season is the rest of the year. The dry season starts when the Humboldt current pushes north, and the Cromwell current pushes east, bringing colder water which lowers the temperature and humidity and thus the rain. The colder water also brings whale sharks (they eat plankton) and other pelagic fish. Most tourists understandably come in the "dry season", hence the reputation for colder, drier weather and colder water. And of course some years are wetter than others and this is apparently a fairly wet year; we've certainly see plenty of rain. And this explains the high temperatures and humidity (77% in the boat yesterday!).

We've been here in Puerto Villamil on Isla Isabela since Sunday morning. We are pleased to report that the sea lions are much less aggressive. They swim under and around the boat (exhaling under the boat so we hear the bubbles come up the hull) chasing the small fish that move in under the hull. Occasionally one moves onto the swim platform briefly, but it will depart as soon as it sees us. There are also usually 1-2 penguins swimming around the boat, again chasing the small fish. They are not nearly as graceful as the sea lions, but they're fast as they dart around, making sharp turns and surprisingly quick dives. Great entertainment.

The town of Puerto Villamil is definitely is much smaller than San Cristobal or Santa Cruz. The streets are unpaved, the cars and trucks in poorer condition, the general income level appears lower, almost nobody seems to speak English and the people are friendlier. I walked through and around the entire town today in search of a shop to weld some eyes onto our flopper stopper. After many questions, and directions I mostly couldn't understand, I eventually found a "shop" that did the work while I waited. The place was surrounded by prior projects. Once they understood what I wanted they picked up some scrap, cut it up with a hacksaw, pounded it into shape and then arc welded it onto the flopper stopper. They even added a coat of red paint for an additional charge. Then a long walk back to the municipal port, where it was low tide which meant very careful circumnavigation of the sand bars and lava rock that make up the vast majority of the "water" between the dock and our anchoage.

Yesterday we took an excursion to The Tunnels. This in an area where the lava flowed into the ocean and created a network of lava flows with channels between them and then tunnels under and through the flows. It was an exciting and noisy trip in a boat with twin, but unmatched outboards (150hp and 110hp) and in a generally poor state of repair. As we accelerated to full speed to race through the surf break (at low tide no less) and into the sort of lagoon at the tunnels I could only think that should it touch any of the lava rocks we were dodging it would instantly splinter into pieces leaving us to be pounded into the jagged lava by the surf. But the driver's skills (or luck) were survived to write another blog entry.

Inside we went snorkeling for about 40 minutes. The fish were not special, but the geography was unique. The lava flows are covered with cactus and it was pretty odd to be snorkeling between the lava flows, looking up at cactus. Not the usual tropical snorkeling scenery.

We then went to a second location with a slightly less dramatic entrance. There we snorkeled at the edge of the mangroves, between the lava rocks on the coast and the mangroves just slightly further inland. The water was very murky and full of loose vegetation, but we saw a large seahorse (5" - 6") and a very large green turtle. Definitely the largest turtle with which we've swum. Fay got some nice pictures and a video. When we eventually get some bandwidth we'll upload them.

Anchored in Pt. Villamil, Isla Isabela

A slow overnight passage. The wind was promising in the beginning, then came around to right behind us at 5 kts so we motored slowly all night with a strong current behind us. We arrived around sunrise and it took another two hours to get to the anchorage.

The super yacht Lauren L is here also. Google "Lauren L" to see an alternative way of touring the Galapagos - only $1M / week.

Time for some sleep.

Back on board - departing tonight

Another week has flown by.

We got back to New Morning from our tour boat trip and found that the sea lions had not been satisfied with just the swim platform but had taken up residence in our cockpit. We've deployed various defenses to keep them off the boat, just short of the barbed wire which is what the locals use, and had someone watching the boat, but they still moved right in. They are very athletic! While they are cute and playful for a few days, when they move in, they're just big, smelly, dirty and rude. It took Fay about two hours to clean the cockpit and wash away all the fur they left behind.

Each night, beginning about 10-11pm, the big males, defeated for mating, are looking for a place to sleep. They eventually overcome our defenses and move onto the swim platform. One even managed to lift the clear plastic panel at the back of the cockpit and move into the cockpit. We wake up many times during the night, particularly when they start making a lot of noise, and encourage them to get off the boat. The big old ones aren't easily intimidated and talk back at length, but we've found that they really hate being sprayed with the deck wash hose - salt water. Who would have thought that animals living in salt water would hate to be sprayed with salt water. But they move very fast when the hose comes out.

Unpacked, boat cleaned up and back onboard we took it easy on Tuesday, checking email, going through the over 1,000 pictures we took on land and checking some web sites. One of the odd things here is the internet access. There is a "free internet" initiative which provides free internet access via WiFi throughout the most populated islands. But for some reason it is heavily filtered. First, they block the usage of a VPN, so the access is less secure. Then they block the ports used for email, so we can't do email from our usual Mac mail client, but we can get at it from the webmail interface. Then they block access to many sites, but the pattern is not clear. For example we could access my.yahoo, NY Times, SF Gate, etc., but not NPR. And they block downloading any content via iTunes (like podcasts). The president of Ecuador paid a short visit to San Cristobal yesterday, and today they have blocked virtually all web access. I'll skip the technical details, but the only site I've been able to access is the Rackspace webmail. Everything else is blocked. Go figure.

In any event, after a restful Tuesday we went scuba diving at Kicker Rock on Wednesday. We hadn't been diving since Bonaire last year and the diving conditions turned out to be very different. The visibility was maybe 30' - 40', not horrible, but not great. There was also a lot of surge and current. The first dive we spent almost all of the time kicking as hard as we could to make some progress against the current between the two big rocks (probably 100' tall) that make up kicker rock (a "foot" and a "ball"). Fortunately while we were kicking hard and consuming air rapidly, we were still able to see white tip sharks and Galapagos sharks below us which was one of the reasons for the visit.

The second dive was around the NE corner of the rock, on a wall that dropped vertically about 500'. The current was not quite as bad and we were able to explore the wall a bit. We saw green turtles, a quick look at a hammerhead shark, some eels in the rocks of the wall, and some fish. But at one point, diving at about 45', we were grabbed by a down current and in less than a minute we were at 85'. Not quite the benign conditions we had experienced in Bonaire.

Back on New Morning we've come to appreciate that San Cristobal is a busy place. There are always 1-2 cargo ships being off loaded, and then 4-5 tour boat / cruise ships of various sizes. This generates a steady flow of traffic between the boats and shore which in turn creates a steady series of wakes and the sound of screaming outboards from 6am - midnight each day. Combined with the sea lions, it's not restful. It's also the tail end of the rainy season so it's frequently cloudy (which keeps the temperature down), and we have regular rain, sometimes quite heavy and lasting for several hours. The boat gets a good wash down which we like, but it can get a little stuffy below decks.

So tonight we're moving on to Isla Isabela which is supposed to be much more tranquil with fewer sea lions, penguins right in the anchorage, and maybe even the opportunity to swim with the marine iguanas. Isabela is a very large island so we'll also be able to take day trips to see the wildlife. It's also 100 miles closer to the Marquesas.

The passage to Isabela is an awkward distance. The days and nights here are essentially equal, with sunrise at 6am and sunset at 6pm, give or take ten minutes. It's too long for a day trip because we would arrive after dark which we avoid. So we'll depart about 5pm this afternoon and sail or motor very slowly (i.e., 6 kts) all night so that we arrive in the morning and have the sun behind us as we thread through the rocks and reefs into the anchorage. Sunday is also a full moon so if the clouds part a bit it should be a nice night.

Galapagos by tour boat

I'm writing this on Sunday, the third day of our four day, three night tour boat trip and we are on our way back to San Cristobal so it's time to recap the trip.

We took a "ferry" from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz on Friday morning. "Ferry" because it seemed more like a modified fishing boat with bench seating for 20 people and three outboards totaling 400hp so that we could make 22kts, but didn't seem terribly sound, as though the whole thing could fall apart if we hit the right wave the wrong way. Fortunately the seas were fairly smooth so the almost two hour trip was deafening, but otherwise uneventful.

In Santa Cruz we met Pati, a friend of a friend and a naturalist, originally from Switzerland, but who has now lived in the Galapagos for 15yrs. We had a great chat for a couple hours and agreed to meet again for dinner.

Our tour started with walk to the Charles Darwin Research Center where we saw several varieties of giant tortoises. They really are huge and can easily live to be 175-200 years old. They aren't fully grown until they reach 75-100 years! The tortoises were hunted by humans in the 18th and 19th centuries which led to the extinction of several species and endangered all of the others. At the center learned of the impressive results of their breeding program which has repatriated over 2,000 tortoises back to their respective islands (each island has it's own species); assuring that the remaining species will survive. The late afternoon was left for a walk back to the boat, through a gauntlet of tourist shops that reminded us of Sausalito. That evening we had a great dinner with Pati in local restaurant and lots of good conversation that further educated us about the Galapagos and Ecuador. The boat departed at 3am for North Seymour Island and we arrived just before breakfast.

The first activity was a hike around a portion of North Seymour island. The animals have no fear of humans so Fay was in heaven as we encountered swallow tail gulls, marine iguanas, frigate birds (in full mating ritual), and the coveted blue footed boobies (also performing their mating ritual). We also saw herons and some frigate bird chicks. For me it was mostly a hot and humid walk, but for Fay it was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to be so close to these animals. The next activity was snorkeling. The visibility was not great, but we saw some new fish including king angel fish, spanish hog fish, some really large parrot fish and a couple of new species we couldn't immediately identify.

While we had lunch and a nap, the boat moved to Bartolome island which is referred to as a moonscape due to the relatively recent (in geological terms) volcanic activity and almost total absence of vegetation. We went snorkeling again, and the fish were similar to the morning, but this time there were also penguins! They dove into the water near us and then swam around, darting in and out, chasing some small fish and generally ignoring us. In fact in it's haste to chase fish one of them actually ran into Fay's mask, bounced off and continued on with seemingly no concern. They were literally close enough to touch. The Galapagos penguins are apparently the smallest species of penguin, but fascinating none the less. A sea lion also dove into the water and swam past us, but didn't return. Then add sally lightfoot crabs crawling at the edge of the water on the rocks above us, and who's appearance and color scheme could not even have been conceived by Pixar, and it was a great snorkeling trip.

Then the day was capped off with a hike to the top of 300' hill which gave us a sweeping view of the island and the adjacent islands as the sun was setting while thunderheads and rain showers dotted the horizon and a pod of dolphins were visible swimming in the ocean. That night the boat moved to Genovesa island and dolphins cut back and forth in our bow wave, entirely encased in a glowing white shell of phosphorescence. Pretty spectacular!

Today started with another morning hike across the island to see Nazca boobies, red footed boobies, short eared owls and more frigate birds. The Nazca boobies and frigate birds were actively propagating the species as we saw them performing mating rituals, tending eggs and raising chicks, all at a distance of no more than 5-10'. More birding activity in two hours than Fay normally sees in two months.

The late morning was another snorkeling trip. This time we saw several species of puffer fish and some fairly large moorish idols while Fay also got a quick view of a hammerhead shark. When you see a moorish idol in a fish tank it's quite small, these were probably 8" - 10" across. After lunch it was more snorkeling and this time the highlight was a brief but exquisite view of a large school of golden cowrays. These rays have about a 2' wingspan and with their diamond shaped bodies swimming in formation they look like an air show display of stealth bombers.

This afternoon and tonight we're motoring to San Cristobal. We'll return to New Morning tomorrow and then assess the anchorage. If it's reasonably calm, we'll stay a few more days and go diving at Kicker Rock. If it's still rough and rolling we'll probably move on to Isabella fairly soon

We have literally a thousand pictures to go through and we'll post the best ones when we get enough bandwidth to upload them.

Whirlwind week

We arrived on Sunday, had two gin and tonics, dinner and went to sleep. Monday was officials day. Port Captain, Parks Department, Immigration, Custom and agricultural inspection.

Tuesday was fuel day. We transferred 135 gallons (although I'm skeptical if we got that much) from 18 gallon drums via a very slow hand cranked pump. All the while both the water taxi with the fuel and New Morning were flopping around like crazy in a growing swell. After a few hours we'd transferred all the fuel and the tanks are close to full. The quality of the fuel is definitely questionable so we cleaned out the local hardware store who happened to have six of the fuel filters we use. Tuesday night the swell grew substantially and we rolled wildly through the night.

Wednesday we got off the boat, walked to the "Interpretation Center" for a further education on the human (not pretty) and naural (a little nicer) history of the Galapagos. We then hiked out to the point and another beach. We saw Darwin's finches and a variety of lizards. The swell continued to grow, to our discomfort, but to the joy of the surfers on the point. On the way back we saw our first marine iguana!

The most common animal life thus far are the sea lions. They are everywhere. They lounge around the benches in town, cover the beach wall to wall and wage a constant battle to take up residence on New Morning. They're a little smaller than the ones in California, and much less aggressive, but they are not house trained...

Wednesday afternoon we decided we needed to get off the boat, and also wanted to figure out how to see the islands that we couldn't see from New Morning. We killed two birds with one stone and signed on for a four day, three night tour of some other islands. Wednesday night was again very uncomfortable, mixed with 40 minutes of torrential rain.

Today we prepared New Morning for four days on her own. The batteries are charged and we hope our sea lion defenses are adequate. Late this afternoon we've packed up our stuff and we'll leave shortly for a hotel on shore, then a ferry to Santa Cruz in the morning. We should see more sea lions, blue footed boobies, giant turtles, marine iguana's and most of the animals for which the Galapagos are famous. We'll be back on Monday afternoon. More next week.

Anchored in Wreck Bay

The name doesn't seem like a good place, but it's fine. The full location is Wreck Bay, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Isla San Cristobal, Galapagos, Ecuador.

We motored the last 18hrs, then went very slowly the last hour through a large rain storm which gave New Morning a thorough fresh water rinse.

Time for a gin & tonic, dinner and some sleep.

Busy day in cruising land

Relatively speaking, it's been a busy 24hrs.

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.

Moving along

Another day of pleasant sailing as we make slow progress towards the Galapagos. From 1pm Thursday to 1pm Friday we progressed about 140nm. Better than yesterday and probably reasonable considering we're sailing close hauled, into a prevailing SW swell, against a .6kt current (which turned favorable for a few hours, then adverse again) and rarely see more than 10kts of wind. In any case the weather has been beautiful and the sailing very enjoyable. We'll get there eventually.

The sailing is so smooth that even though we are close hauled, a normally unpleasant point of sail, Fay baked cookies today! It was fish tacos and fresh chocolate chip cookies for dinner.

Shortly before dinner a pod of porpoises went by at high speed. They were traveling across our course. We saw the splashing pod a few hundred yards to port and within five minutes they were out of sight to starboard.

Today we were also visited by Betty Boobie. Fay's pretty sure it's a brown footed boobie, but it could be the fabled Galapagos blue footed boobie. Whatever it is, it landed on the anchor about 2:30pm and proceeded to preen it's feathers until dark. After three hours of preening Fay decided it was a female. I'm not sure about that, but we do think it might be an adolescent as the feathers on its head look very fuzzy and immature. It was on the anchor sprit at sunset, we'll see if she's there in the morning.

Smooth sailing

Not fast, but smooth. The long Pacific swell is so nice after the short steep waves of the Caribbean. We're still beating to the Galapagos; another day hard on the wind. For the non-sailors, that means we're sailing as close to the wind as we can. Think taking a walk, do you want the wind in your face or at your back? Normally this is pretty much a dreaded point of sail. There is even a saying that "gentlemen don't sail to weather"; "to weather" being another way of saying "hard on the wind". But the long smooth Pacific swell, moderate wind, clear skies and warm air combine to make this about as good as it gets if we have to sail this close to the wind.

And we do have to sail this close to the wind if we don't want to motor. Late this afternoon the wind moved around to directly on our course, and dropped to about 5kts, too little to sail. So we shattered the peace and quiet and motored for about two hours. A really unpleasant reminder of what we had done much of the first two days to get through the ITCZ. Fortunately the wind came back and we were able to continue sailing.

The only negative is that we also have about .6kt of adverse current. So when we're sailing at 6kts (remember - light air), we're only moving over the ground at 5.4kts. Add to that the effect of the current on our course (it pushes us off about 10 degrees), and 6kts of sailing quickly becomes 4.5 - 5kts of progress. The adverse current is total mystery since normally there is about .5kts of favorable current flowing from Panama to the Galapagos. It's well documented and referenced in many books; even the Galapagos natural history book I was leafing through this afternoon. So how did we get .6kts of adverse current? And to further confuse things, the water is 84F. Normally the favorable current carries warm water to the Galapagos to meet the cold water of the Humboldt current. If water is flowing from the Galapagos to Panama (or at least Columbia), how can it be 84F? I'm sure some oceanographer has the answer, but they are not onboard.

The upshot of all this is that from 1pm yesterday afternoon to 1pm today, all sailing, we moved 104.6nm closer to the Galapagos. That's about 5mph. But of course if we wanted to get there in a hurry we could have flown.

This evening the sky is totally clear and I can see the Southern Cross for the first time. And while the Big Dipper is still there, the North Star that it points to is no longer visible. Our equator crossing ceremony can't be too far away...

Beating to the Galapagos

We came out of the ITCZ about 5am this morning. It was nice to leave the rain, lightning and high humidity behind. Or at least I hope it's behind. As I write this evening, lightning is flickering in the sky to the north.

Today was really delightful sailing though not very productive. The wind is coming from the Galapagos, as is an adverse current. So we're sailing hard on the wind in 5-10kts of true wind into about half a knot of current. In the last 12 hours we traveled 62 miles and got a nice rest. Fay served up a great mid-day dinner of spaghettini and meat balls, with freshly grated parmesan and some ciabatta that I made a couple of weeks ago that has been in the freezer. Mid-day dinner while sailing along on a sparkling sunny day with smooth seas and 7kts of breeze. That's about as pleasant as sailing hard on the wind at sea can be. As Fay wrote in the log - sublime.

But in the last 12 hrs we only made 38 miles towards the Galapagos which is a little too slow. The breeze has pickup to a steady 8-10 and faired us a bit so we're only about 10 degrees off course and we should do better in the next 12 hrs.

Tonight it's almost cool. I still have just a t-shirt and shorts, but Fay had long pants and a hoody before she went off watch. There is an almost full sky of stars and as we've reached 3 degrees south, the north star is no longer visible. Fay has made preparations for crossing the equator with suitable props, costume and script for King Neptune! But first we need to sail another few hundred miles.

ITCZ comes to us

We departed the Las Perlas islands yesterday morning around 7:30am and began our passage to the Galapagos.

We've been watching the daily NOAA surface analysis weather faxes to try to avoid the ITCZ. It had spent a lot of time further west and north which convinced us to not stop at Isla Coco. Instead we plotted a course recommended by Jimmy Cornell that went south early, then turned west later on. This looked promising since the ITCZ jumped around a lot, but getting south and staying east would improve the chances of making an end run around the ITCZ.

Well the ITCZ came to us anyway! The surface analysis about three hours after our departure showed it had moved right onto our course! We had about 4-5 hours of smooth, light air sailing, then the wind died and we had to start motoring. Last night was all lightning and confusing winds. We were able to sail for 3-4 hours this morning, though about 30 degrees off our course. Then we came into a very large area of rain from which we could not escape. Heavy at times, very confused seas, but no lightning. At one point a ship crossed about 2nm behind us and we never saw it, visibility was really poor. AIS is really fantastic. I think the south then west course did help us with the ITCZ, even though we were hoping to not pass through it at all.

We finally escaped the rain about 5pm this afternoon, but the wind was 3-4kts on the nose and the seas very confused and sloppy, so we're motoring. Ten minutes ago we had 6kts on our starboard bow and I was considering sailing, now we have 4kts on our port bow and the bumpiness has jumped significantly. It would be nice to get the seas straightened out a bit and even just 7-8kts of reliable wind so we could sail. But in this area we know we can count on the conditions changing frequently, so we'll wait and see what we get next.

The ocean has a lot more phosphorescence tonight. Our bow wave and our wake are dazzling. And again tonight we've been visited by white birds. There was just one last night, but there are three tonight. They dart back and forth, mostly along the starboard side of the boat in a sort of ghostly illumination from the starboard running light. I think they're grabbing small fish turned up by our bow wake as they occasionally swoop down onto the water for a few moments. They're white shapes really stand out in what is otherwise a very dark night.

Some cloud cover has returned, masking the few stars I could see earlier. And the seas have gotten lumpy again after a teasing period of smoothing out. But the radar is entirely blank (no rain squalls - no ships - no fishing boats) and there is no lightning. We should turn to the west early tomorrow morning. Time for the 8pm log entry and another attempt to reach the Pacific Puddle Jump net controller on the radio.