05:31S 90:33W 

 

Miles covered last 24 hours – 167.   Fish caught – none, too rough to fish but we have had two flying fish and two squid land on deck.

 

“There’s a few potholes in the road”, remarked the skipper cheerfully as he came on watch at 8am.  His cheerfulness surprised me – it had been a rough and uncomfortable night and I’d had to wake him at 4am to help me furl when a squall went through.  The way Bandit was bouncing around I couldn’t imagine he’d been able to get any sleep....but somehow he manages to sleep through anything!  While he was sleeping like a baby I was in the cockpit grimacing as  we bashed our way through the confused seas cursing him for leaving our forward head hatch open.  With such confused seas our decks were awash and one wave crashed through the open hatch so, when I feel like it, I have a salty mess to clear up!  Whoever called this Pacific passage the milk run obviously had far different conditions – our milk would be well and truly curdled!  We’re hoping that once we get down to the trades at about five degrees south conditions will improve.  Right now the wind is steady at 20knots from the east, waves about 1m or more from several directions.  It’s not a pleasant passage so far and if it doesn’t improve I’m applying for leave from the skipper.

 

Onto other things – our Wednesday morning net began with an announcement from Australian yacht Outsider that all harbours in the Galapagos (including San Cristobal where we’d left from on Monday) had been evacuated yesterday afternoon due to a tsunami warning.  Alarms on shore sounded and the Coast Guard went around telling all boats they had to go 20 miles out to sea.   Apparently there was an earthquake off Chile.  Outsider, who were leaving today anyway, decided to just head off.  Others weren’t so lucky and had to stand off most of the night and wait until the all clear was given.  Thank goodness it didn’t happen while we were doing our five day island tour – we would have been panic stricken to hear such news while not on Bandit.  Fortunately it doesn’t like like anything major eventuated.

 

Meanwhile back on the good ship Bandit we are rocking and rolling our way south towards the trades hoping for calmer seas.  We’ve got endless fresh fruit and vegetables on board but it’s been too rough to do much other than scoff the easiest thing to grab.  Emergency rations are great for this and I’m pleased the freezer has plenty of prepared meals.  Roll on calmer seas.