Slow boat to Galapagos 08.05.09
Winya_wynah
Fri 8 May 2009 23:06
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It's hot, it's still, the sun is blazing down,
seeing lightning every night and if we can sail at 3 to 3.5 knots we think it's
fantastic. Yes we found the doldrums, more correctly in this part of the
world the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). We could gather very
little information on the current position/state of the ITCZ in Balboa so it's
deal with what comes again. (Add SSB to the long list for when we do it
again).
So it will be a long wait for the ITCZ to move away
from Panama and having gone to Las Perlas Islands in the Gulf of Panama we are
now heading south to find wind rather than going on a direct route to the
Galapagos Islands (South West). This means a combination of motoring on
our limited supplies of diesel and making the most of what wind we can
find. (''You don't want to start from there'' springs to
mind.)
All said and done the calm seas make for good
wildlife spotting, yesterdays highlight was a pod of dolphin swimming, jumping,
backflipping, leaping generally a way off the port bow - long lens and
binoculars required..... Not for long the whole group moved from that position
as if to pass us on the port side, then headed straight for us! Cameras
poised but wondering what we should do when they got really close? Too
smart to leave it to us evidently the whole lot still jumping shifted course
again and headed off past our bow. The noise of them was amazing as it has
been so quiet and still and minus the screeching was just like kids hour at the
swimming pool. The shark, whale birds and dragon fly!! who hopped a lift
for a few hours, all paled after the dolphins, here's a taster of the
photos.
  Last night bobbing again we could hear breathing
and gentle sploshing as we think dolphins swam around the boat.
We appear to have crossed the route used by
shipping heading for Panama from South America, We now have fishing boats
with very bright deck lights dotted around us all night. Add AIS to the
shopping list. * AIS is the Automatic Identification System Marion
told us about- tells the user name, speed, course, cargo, destination etc
of vessels in the area and transmits the same info to them. Spent so
long getting EPIRB anchor etc sorted forgot we were going to even look at
one!
Still bobbing,,,,,, From our last passage,
4.5 knots with no sails, this is a bit of a difference.
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