00 35.545 S  089 24.210 W

Our first blog entry from the Southern Hemisphere;  we crossed the equator about 8 hours ago!

We have had the first islands of the Galapagos in sight for a few hours and now we are coming down the western coast of San Cristobal to approach Puerto Baquerizo Moreno where we will go through the formalities of entering the country…with the help of the agent (Bolivar Pesantes) with whom we contracted to assist us.

It has been the easiest passage ever for us over our last 5 years; if the experience across the Pacific to New Zealand later this year continues in this fashion, it will be a terrific year in our sailing life.

We will cover more of the passage experience once we get settled into San Cristobal; in the meantime, I thought we might post a bit of trivia for those who are interested in some of the detailed aspects of the passage;

The trivia:  We are finishing the 841 nautical miles under sail having had an equal number of hours under sail ( 65.6 hours) and on engine power (65.4 hours). The mileage split is similar, “sails only” at 409 nm and engine at 432 nm. Average speed under sail was 6.3 knots and under engine was 6.7 knots. Engine was operated at 1400 rpm (55 % of max engine revs) on this passage to experiment with fuel economy; our normal cruise is at 1800 rpm (70% of max). The suspense is killing us as to whether we improved on fuel economy or not….we can’t do an accurate check of fuel remaining until we are anchored so that the boat is flat and not moving/rolling. Hopefully we will have found a much better burn rate as that will give us more range for the LONG Pacific passage(s) ahead enroute to New Zealand and beyond.

DTG to Wreck Bay: 20 nm

ETA: 2 pm local time (2000 UTC) – 129 hours (5 days – 9 hours) after we lifted anchor in Las Perlas