Galapagos bound! Day 1

Nickanddenisesailing
Fri 31 Mar 2017 13:59
07. 32.9010 N 79.36.3460 W

We are on our way!!! Woo hooo!!

We had a good trip over from Panama city on Tuesday, when we finally managed to drag our sleves away. We were desperate to leave but its a strange feeling when you know you are going to be away from everything for 8 months - you find your self firstly totally sickened but how much food etc you have bought (imagining there is no possible way that you could ever consume so much) and then worried that you havent got enough of the things you need! Anyway we filled up on fuel and water and headed to Las Pearlas.

We had a couple of nights just off Contadora which was nice and very productive. We woke up the first morning parked right next door to our Alaskan friends (with two small boys who I did a canal transit with). It was great to see them as we thought we had missed them. They have a 6 week trip to Hawaii coming up and its great that we were able to wish them well. We also bumped into some Aussies we have become friends with - interesting adventurers- about our age and they have done so much! The latest one was buying horses in China and riding across mongolia! Interesting people. Lovely to catch up with everyone but we did kick people off our boat more than once as we had lots of jobs to do so that we could get underway.

We cleaned the bottom of the boat - which is a key requirement for us getting into the Galapagos. There is a lot of current in Las Pearlas so we had to time our dives very carefully. Nick used our dive gear to get the tricky bits and I did the waterline/greengrass line and free dived what I could. It was pretty tiring work!

I also managed to do a ton of cooking - so for those you are intersted this is what I prepared :)
- big box of energy balls
- 4 large bags of granola
- 2 rounds of spagetti bolognaise
- 3 rounds of leak and potato soup
- 2 rounds of chicken soup
- ribs
- fresh pesto (we had some corriander to eat up)
I was also able to jar 4 rounds of mince beef and a load of sweet red onion chutney. I also jarred up a whole load of cheese!

So in theory all the jars should last us months and months - which would be great! So we have been eating well already!

We left yesterday (Thursday 30th March) at around 5pm - hoping to catch the late afternoon winds. They didnt make an appearence so we have ended up motoring most of the way. We were able to do a few hours with just the head sail up which made a nice change (and allowed us to watch game of thrones in peace and quiet haha).

The ocean has just been incredible these last 14 hours. There is just so much life!!! We had a giant marlin swim right in close pass the boat - just on the surface chilling out - no interest in the lure of course! We have also had dolphins with us intermittantly the whole time. But what has been the real highlight and something we both will never forget has been the bioluminesence - it has been out of this world. I have never seen it so bright and so thick. We had a bright green trail behind us for a hundred meters or so and the wake on the boat was just glowing. What was most incredible was the fish in the water - when disturbed we could see them swiming more clearly than in the day - as they were just like little illuminous rockets. Nick and I stood on the bow for a while and watched while the fish darted out of the way of the boat in their thousands. It really was quite a sight. This continued right into the early hours of this morning when I got quite a fright when I hear
d a
blow and a big splash and realsied the dolphins were back again. Seeing them through the phospheresence was incredible!! Bright green glowing missile ghosts splashing and jumping in the darkness. This world we live in is really an incredible place.

Anyway I'm now sitting out at sunrise while we cruise through the metalic red waters of the start of the day. Nick is asleep after finishing his watch so wont be long till breakfast.








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