Masked men
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 24 Mar 2010 05:30
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March 23rd 1144 UTC, 0444 March 24th
UTC
06:39.85N 081:02.3W
We are now well and truly into the Pacific Ocean.
We spent a pleasant couple of days in Islas Perlas and we left
our beautiful anchorage in Isla San Jose there at 0600 this morning.
Yesterday we were able to gather up some coconuts from the beach under the tall
trees and cut into them to get the "Agua de Coco" (OK - after adding a tot
of Rum to each one to make our very own Pina Coladas straight out of the
coconuts)
The forecast today was for no wind but after an
hour we got a beautiful 15 - 20 knots behind the beam and we had a wonderful
sail in the flat water in the lee of the Panamanian isthmus.
We hope to get the 900 miles to Galapagos in 5 days
as our friends have a flight booked out of Galapagos on the second of April and
having come all this way they would like to see some of the islands as well!. So
far so good.
Since the moment we have entered the Pacific we
have found the sea to be literally teeming with marine life, some of which we
have eaten, mmmm. There have been several species of dolphin around us including
some very large ones today. For the last two days we have had to stop fishing as
we were catching so frequently. The sea around about us has on occasions been
literally boiling with fish making "meatballs" and birds also getting in on the
act. We have seen countless rays, some very large leaping 6 - 8ft out of the
water and performing multiple somersaults and back flips. The girls aboard are
looking to get a whale sighting but as explained to them you actually need to be
awake and on deck if that is to happen.....
Today we had some drama when first we caught a fish
and brought the boat to a stop. Then when re setting the genoa the electric
primary winch stuck on electrically. This
could cause incredible damage and injury if not dealt with quickly. Thankfully
there is an emergency cut off switch near the helm which I was able to bang
closed. This winch is seriously powerful and is rated at 77 (times gearing!).
While working at the helm pod extracting and repairing the faulty switch I
confess I was not paying sufficient attention to my on watch lookout
duties. I got a real shock when 3 men mostly covered up and the guy nearest
the boat with his face and head covered in a scarf and in a 30ft open boat with
large outboard appeared along side us on starboard having appeared at very close
quarters from behind the genoa (on port) and round the bow of the boat to very
closely check us out. They were about 10ft away from us on the starboard side.
Clearly they powered towards us behind the genny and pulled a fast manouvre to
emerge from the bow. They eyeballed us and we them, then they pulled
away. Just a tad concerning and "nil points" for me on watch.
At the moment we are sailing at 10 knots with the
18 knot wind just behind our beam and I need some sleep. So ta ta for now
and I will try to be more regular again with the blogs now we are at
sea.
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