Seaduced's Web Diary - Off to the Galapagos!

Off to the Galapagos!

Seaduced

John & Jane Craven

Fri 7 Feb 2014 19:10

Day 1

After a week in and around the Las Perlas, the time came for the pre- departure rendezvous with the rally. This is the first time we have met a lot of the people on the rally, as we missed the San Blas rendezvous, and the canal transits were done in three groups on three separate days.

We had a drinks party the first night, and the briefing and a beach BBQ the second. It was good to catch up with Pat and Stuart again as we had not seen them since we left Panama. It later turned out that they had needed to return to Panama for a day or two.

The briefing unfortunately confirmed the rumours about the weather for the next few days. This leg is known for having light and variable winds. Each year there is a large amount of motoring required. So much so that the rally organise a fuel barge to stock us all up again in the Galapagos. The good news was that there would be a knot or two of current with us all the way which is more unusual.

The paperwork for entering the Galapagos has become more complicated, and we are now told that, under new rules, we will be visited and boarded by about 8 officials who want to check whether we constitute an environmental hazard! We have been given a long list of food items which are not allowed, including fresh tuna surprisingly, so we are eating that before we arrive. There are also a few other items which may need to be eaten or hidden. As we are a rally, the amount of boats needing to be processed may mean that process is done swiftly, and possibly not all that thoroughly, we shall have to wait and see.

Once we had all upped anchor, we headed to the start line. Winds were light but steady at the time. Seaduced crossed the line somewhere near the back of the fleet, having decided to avoid the melee at the start line, but soon caught up and started to pick off quite a few boats to take her place in about the middle of the fleet after a few hours.

The sailing on the first day was glorious and text book perfect. We had the main sail out and the large headsail and were making a easy 7-8 knots of speed in 12 knots of wind.

By the time the ARC net came on in the evening there had been lots of fishing done, people were just pulling the tuna out of the water it seemed, and we were all settling in for a quiet night. We hadn't done any fishing by then as we still had a freezer full from the last time! The net by the way, is done by long range radio, and involves all the boats on the rally checking in twice a day.

Brizo at the start flying their 'Limey'

Day 2

By 6pm roll call we were still sailing along nicely. A few had put their engines on already. There were two suggested routes to the Galapagos. You either go along the rhum line, which is the most direct, door to door route, or head further south and in a curve round a small island and then across. The downside of the straight run was that the winds would drop sooner and also as you came closer to the Galapagos, any wind in that area would be right on the nose. Alternatively, you took the longer route, which would hopefully allow you to sail further without using your engine, and you then would, in theory anyway, be in a position to make use of any wind at the end of the trip. We are currently heading south first.

Day 3

A bit of an update on our position and ETA. When we had the skippers briefing, there were two fun competitions. One you had to guess the combined ages of all the crew members crossings the starting line. The second was the usual 'guess your ETA' which is done on every leg. We went for the conservative option and put ours at 6 days, so we would arrive on Thursday 13 February at 10am. This was on the basis that we would sail most of the way, but slowly, and if we did need to use the engine, again we would motor slowly to save a bit of fuel. Each day at noon when we plot, John gets his computer out and we have to guess how far we have done in the last 24 hours. This competition is much more fun with Doug on board as at least I have competition - usually I win on the basis of being the only entrant, however wildly inaccurate my guess is!

Another 24 hours passes uneventfully. We are all getting into the swing of the routine now, the boys are dividing the watches between them at 2.5 hour intervals and I am doing the early morning watch, around 7/8 am to give them both a 5 hour break. In addition to that I am doing all the galley work. We are all agreed that this is a great system, especially the boys as they get lots of treats such as banana bread and flapjack for afternoon tea, something I would not have the time to do if I was on the watch rota full time.

Today, we have done over 200 miles in the last 24 hours for the first time ever. This was however partly under engine so doesn't actually count, 200 miles under sail is what we are aiming for.

The fishing team on Seaduced are taking a break right now. They freezer is so full that they were told that they absolutely had to eat what ever we caught, and due to the amount of fish over the last week or so in the Las Perlas islands, they are taking no chances.

It never ceases to amaze how 40 boats can set off together, stay largely together for the first few hours, and then separate so that by then time daylight comes on the second day, there is not a boat anywhere near!

We have arranged times to call Brizo twice a day on the SSB long range radio as we are out of normal radio range. It is great to see how they are getting on, what weather they have, in particular the amount of wind, what fish we have caught and a general catch up.

Day 4

The big excitement today is that we have done 100 miles under sail in the last 12 hours - will we make another in the next 12 hours to get our first 200 mile day?

The wind has been holding steady at 12-14 knots all day. After hearing the net tonight we are definitely one of the lucky ones, a few have been motoring all day and the few who have sailed are getting light and variable winds. As we are at the moment, we could make Galapagos on our current course. This would up mean crossing the equator and all that entails just a couple of hours before we reach the anchorage. The winds are, however, expected to drop, and if that happens we are debating heading south, crossing the equator earlier and then heading straight west to the Galapagos. So long as we are sailing well however, we will continue as we are and see what happens.

Just to finish off, we managed 189 miles. However, we have sailed for the last 40 hours comfortably so we are not complaining.

Day 5

We have crossed the Equator! Today at about 6am this morning we crossed into the Southern Pacific Ocean. There are lots of traditions associated with crossing the Equator, dating back to the 17th century when European boats started crossing it. Traditionally, Neptune arrives on board along with his mates, Davy Jones, Amphitrite, a doctor and a barber. Already we are unable to complete this tradition due to the number of people needed to play all the parts! The ceremony itself involves the 'shellbacks', those who have crossed the Equator before, getting the 'pollywogs! those who haven't, to do some horrid things and often involving smearing them in rubbish and rotten food - yuk! Also nasty alcoholic concoctions are often involved. The last thing is that the barber shaves the heads of the pollywogs. Most of these traditions were wiped out due to public outcry when some details of what exactly went on became public knowledge - you can probably guess as to the details!

Needless to say, we did none of this. We had decided a couple of days ago that we would treat Neptune to a glass of Veuve Cliquot champagne and a homemade cream tea. Quite what he thought about that we don't know, but the sea has been very calm ever since, so I guess it went down well. Also, we should probably have checked our likely time of arrival at the equator as I was up this morning at 5.30am preparing scones with jam and cream!

The Equator - it's a little blurry as the boat was bouncing a little! This was about my 25th attempt at the picture, we actually sailed forwards and backwards about 5 times to get a picture this clear!