Las Perlas>Galapagos July 7th 2011 - Day 8: DTF 0nm (00:53.7S 89:36.8W)

Aquamante
Vries Peter Pons
Thu 7 Jul 2011 22:50
On 7 July at 12.30h, after almost 8 days at sea we're there: Wreck Bay,
Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristóbal, Galapagos! Since our last tack last night
we sailed east towards San Cristóbal, but we only made little progress
getting more southerly. When we get closer to the island our course becomes
almost south, and, not surprisingly this trip, that's where the wind comes
from at a fresh 15 knots. We're some 20nm from our destination, and neither
of us feels like tacking another zillion times to get there. So we start the
engine, and motor the last part. When entering the bay, we see only 5 other
sailboats, all anchored off the east coast of the bay, whereas the pilot
book clearly specifies to anchor off the west coast. So we decide to follow
the crowd, all boats familiar to us from Panama City, and drop the hook near
them. We congratulate each other with a big kiss, tidy up the boat, and then
sit down in calm waters to watch the sea lions play around the boat.
Galapagos at last.

Statistics of the trip:
Time: 7 days, 23,5 hrs (of which 15 hrs heaving to, those actually don't
really count)
Total distance: 891nm
Distance travelled: 1077nm
Distance travelled through water: 1033nm (means overall we had a little bit
of current in our favour)
Motoring: 20 hrs (which means we should only need to carry some 10 jerry
cans toi fill up the tanks again)

Below a picture of the whale we saw on our first day of the crossing.

JPEG image