Passage from Panama to the Galapagos

After weeks of preparations at Shelter Bay Marina and transiting the Panama Canal, it was liberating to finally setting sail, a lovely 35 mile downwind, to Isla La Contessa in the Las Perlas Islands.

We spent a few days preparing for our 850-mile passage to the Galapagos, studying the weather, putting new connectors on our solar panels, and discussing the weather some more.  There was wind in the forecast for the next few days and we decided to make a go of it.

Sailing close to the equator the biggest worry is not having enough wind and tales from boats being stuck in doldrums played vividly in my mind, stories of madness, mutiny, madness, and demise. 

  Despite the dread of the doldrums morale was high as we set off with 18 knots on the stern and one reef in the main, the afternoon of February 18, 2019.  By midnight as we passed Punta Mala and the winds built to 35 knots with confused seas.  Miraj heaved back and forth running down wind under a handkerchief of a jib at 8-9 knots.

The winds calmed and the next 24 hours we sailed under full sail in 10 to 15 knots of North Easterly winds. Our first day average was whopping 175 nautical sea miles, a record.

 As expected the winds died down the following evening.  It was too early in our passage to run the engine and we spent the night drifting, propelled forward by a two and a half knot currant.  It was a magical night, gliding through calm waters enveloped by silence.  A giant pink full moon rose in the east and wales blew and splashed nearby.

As we crossed the equator, latitude 00, and performed a customary ritual to appease Neptune, dressing up and sacrificing personal treasures to the sea. I think it worked because the seas stayed calm.

The wind came and went. We flew the asymmetrical spinnaker on and off and moved towards our destination with the waning moon.

 About halfway two Red footed Boobies joined us. They spent the nights on the bow pulpit or on top of the solar panels, adding the task of cleaning guano in the mornings to our list of chores.


The day before we arrived we dropped our sails and jumped in to the water to scrub the green slime the bottom. The water, crystal clear, indigo, and ten thousand feet deep offered us an exhilarating swim.

Myth and history blended with the mist surrounding the mountains of San Christobal Island. Our 8-day passage was easier and quicker than expected. We arrived feeling rested and excited to go ashore to explore.




 th

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Windward Passage and Jamaica

Image
One year ago when we were in the planning stages of our two-year sailing trip I read about the Windward Passage for the first time. I sat on our leather couch in our rose colored living room with a view of the RivannaRiver and Goggled: “The best way to get from the Southern Bahamas to Panama”. I pulled a blanket around my feet and read a few blogs from sailors who had gone that route. The Windward Passage is a strait of wild and wily water situated between the west tip of Haiti and the east coast of Cuba. Not unlike the dreaded cuts in the Bahamas (see past blog post) the prevailing easterly winds funnel masses of water from the North Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea resulting in high, chaotic waves and a 5-10 knot increase in the prevailing wind speeds. One of the blog posts I read reported their boat being approached by Haitian fishing vessels. They never stopped to find out what they wanted, but it sounded potentially worrisome.   The Windward Passage made...
Read more

The Bahamas

Image
The Bahamas We arrived in the Bahamas November 8, after crossing the Gulfstream and sailing along the south coast of Grand Bahamas most of the night. At first light we reached the entrance to Luccaya and followed the channel markers into the harbor and the customs office. An extensive canal system branched out from the main harbor and we dropped the hook in a well-protected anchorage in 10 feet of water.   A strong low-pressure system was approaching and we were happy to be in protected waters in our first foreign port.   Our highlight in Luccaya was Oddliegh’s house.   Hot and hungry and looking for a restaurant in a rural neighborhood, we had the profound embarrassment of stumbling into someone’s personal living room, thinking it was a restaurant, and encountering two older people sitting at their dining room table watching daytime TV.   Turns out no problem, Oddliegh had some sodas to sell. We sat on his porch for a spell after declining to watch TV w...
Read more

January, cuts, cold fronts and our arrival in George Town

Image
Three weeks of sunshine and low winds ended with the New Year and 2018 brought unstable weather to the Exumas. The tail of the low that battered the US East coast with freezing temperatures brought us higher winds and rain.   We started the Exuma shuffle, waiting for a weather window to go to Georgetown on Great Exuma. The shuffle meant sidestepping waves and wind to find a protective anchorage and occasionally returning to Staniel Cay to provision.   The 30 mile sail south in the open ocean required a day   or two of calmer weather that would lay the seas down and allow us to enter from the banks   into the ocean. Each area of the world has its own particular sailing challenges, which is one reason why cruising can be both   ‘hair-raising’ and exciting at the same time.   For the Bahamian Exuma Islands, this challenge is navigating the ‘cuts’.   The Exumas lie in a line between thousands of square miles of shallow banks and th...
Read more