Panama to Galpagos

Wandering Dream
Steve Litson
Mon 30 Mar 2015 17:03
07:00:8N 079:58:5W
 
Sunday 29th March 2015
 
Breakfast of Coffee and Banana Cake
The Country Inn, Balboa, hosted the WD crew for breakfast. Barnacle Bill, a retired Canadian pilot was there to offer some pirated software for passage planning. This was quite impressive, preloaded current and average weather data, enable you to plot departure and destination, the programme suggests the best course to get there...it didn’t work on my laptop. We dined on coffee, ham and cheese empanada and banana cake.
 
At 1030 we cast off our mooring and caught the ebbing tide to rendezvous with SV Elin at Isla de Toboga. We met at 1130 and the wind came up. We had a great down wind breeze, with genoa poled out we were making 5.6-7 knots. A favourable current was with us.
 
Bonito, Bonito
Fishing line out, the rig named, “My Little Man” by Robert...it consists of a length of stainless steel line, attached to a thick bungee, weights and lures keep the line down and attract the fish. Within a couple of hours two medium sized Bonito were caught, these were snobbishly shunned by our fishing experts as better tasting fair was already stowed for dinner.
 
Meditation – By Robert
Time 0100 Tuesday: calm seas and gentle winds
Alone with my thought’s, a moonlit night, grave yard watch, Sailing Vessel Elin off to starboard. Is she closing? 5 knots, 202 degrees, wind astern wanting us to gybe. A trail of phosphorescence streaming behind the boat. Alone with my thought’s, sailing is an exercise in meditation. A school of bait approach, glowing, changing shape, now looking like a beluga whale.
 
125 miles travelled in the last 24 hours
825 mile to go