Position 05:30.166N 081:17.476W
 

Thursday 4th March
 

We upped anchor at 2.15 pm yesterday afternoon. All of a sudden there was Lucy Alice, Blue Magic, us, Bali Blue and Enchantress all upping anchor together. We all motor sailed off down the east coast of Isla del Rey ready for a long motor to the Galapagos. Winds were expected to come late at night around midnight but we were all pleasantly surprised when we made our way around the corner and we were greeted with a good 12-15 knots of wind. Later in the day this turned into 15-20 knots and we were having a lovely sail. As darkness fell the seas picked up and we were in for a very rocky and rolly night. Not much sleep was had mainly due to the heat inside and because of the rolling around. But I think it was also due to the fact that it was the first night at sea and you always struggle to get into the watches. You almost need to have had a few days to wear you out so that you can just fall in and out of sleep when needed.
 
Before the seas picked up last night we had the rods out and within a couple of hours both were screaming together. Paul and Jack jumped on each line and landed two tasty looking tuna's, each one being probably about 400mm in length. Just as they had been filleted and as Paul appeared with two beers to celebrate the line started screaming again. We could tell by the bend in the line that this one was bigger. After a fight Jack hauled on board a 2 1/2 ft yellow fin tuna who was quickly chopped up into meaty steaks.
 
As the sun was setting we were surrounded by jumping/somersaulting manta rays. It was an amazing sight, they were everywhere! And when they weren't jumping they were swimming close to the boat in large groups, we could just see the tips of their wings raising out the water as they swam along. Very spectacular!
 
The chute was hoisted at 7.00 am this morning as conditions were perfect for it so we had a very comfortable sail for a good few hours. We're now flying the two headsails and the mainsail and the motion isn't so good, but we're flying along at 8.2 knots so we can't complain. Blue Magic has been to our port side all day and it looks like we'll be sailing with them throughout the night again. Miss Tippy are about 10 miles to Blue Magic's port side and Roundabout are heading closer to us and are about 10 miles to our starboard side. It's nice to know everyone is close by!