Astra Log - Panama to Galapagos, Crossing the Equator 23-29 April
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Astra Blog: Despite weighing anchor at 13:47 local time, it was
another half an hour before we actually left the anchorage. This was because we had to “hover” Astra next to the causeway in order to
save some air time and use a nearby wireless facility to upload the previous
blog and download the weather! This
done we motored out through the numerous merchant vessels awaiting their
west-east transit and began our 900 mile passage to the
Galapagos. Thankfully the weather forecast and GRIB files
(predicting no wind) bore no resemblance to the actual conditions and with the
sails up we were soon achieving a comfortable 8 knots. During the night things got even better
with speeds up to 11 knots and all in the right direction. Consequently in our first 24 hours in
the Pacific we covered 214Nm – not bad!
Sadly this was not to last and Thursday morning the wind
began to diminish rapidly. Ash and
Sally who were on deck at the time decided to take the opportunity to have a
fishing competition to see who could lure in and land the largest fish. Ash decided to go after Wahoo and chose
a deep diving lure whereas Sally went for her favorite surface lure a fluffy
yellow and green object she affectionately refers to as “The Canary”. The lures had been in the water perhaps
a minute before the reel on Sally’s rod shrieked into life and after a bit of a
wrestle, which Sally supervised from a distance, a particularly energetic 4 foot
mahi-mahi was landed and filleted.
Jeremy (who was lucky enough to be the galley slave for the day) then
deftly turned ¼ of the fish into a delicious mahi-mahi cerviche. Unfortunately with no more room in the
freezer we had to bring in Ash’s lure just as an enormous Wahoo was literally
about to bite it!? On Friday, the Doldrums reared its ugly head, the ocean
became a mirror, the wind died totally and it was necessary to let the donkey
stretch its legs. This was all very
well except that we were not carrying enough fuel on board to motor the whole
distance. We decided to head south
towards the equator in an effort to clear the Doldrums and pick up the fresh
winds that come up along the coast of Early on our first windless morning during Ash’s watch, a
very small fluffy object, later identified as a bird of some sort decided to bum
a ride onboard Astra, this
hitch-hiker looked exhausted so Sally and George went to a lot of trouble
preparing a bowl of water and some seeds for it. It politely declined to eat or drink any
of our offerings but seemed to enjoy our company; so that’s something! Our little visitor proved to be
extremely friendly and allowed us to actually stroke it. Unfortunately it might have got the
wrong end of the stick as it was later found in George’s bunk (with
George!?). However, finding George
not to its taste the little tart decided to fly next door into Ash’s bunk where
much to its surprise it was quietly told to “bugger off”! Undeterred by its lack of success below,
it spent the rest of the day close to us in the cockpit.
Finally we succeeded to pick up the promised breeze from
the south and close-hauled we managed to sustain 8-9 knots of boat speed on a
course for the Galapagos. Excellent
news for every one except for George who had the misfortune to become galley
slave on the same day that the wind filled in and was thus required to carry out
his tasks at an angle of 30 degrees.
Still he rose to the challenge admirably and along with a lot of sweat,
tears and profanities he also managed to produce some lovely
food. Every evening we were followed by a small number of less
friendly squawking seagulls, we are not sure what they found so interesting
about us, but with our spreader lights on for dinner it is possible they thought
that we were a trawler or some sort of fishing boat. On discovering that the only fish
available was that being devoured by us in the form of a delicious blackfin tuna
and mahi-mahi fisherman’s pie (all caught from Astra and prepared by Sally), they
registered their disapproval by defecating in mid-flight sending a generous
helping of guano onto our head sail.
Looking at the mess on our genoa we are just grateful that it took the
hit and not us! The closer we got to the Galapagos, the number of fishing
boats began to increase. On one of Jeremy’s more attentive watches from the
comfort of the blue cushion he awoke mid-watch to find himself in the midst of a
fishing fleet. The log entry reads: “01:19 – Passed 3 fishing boats and buoys
etc. No AIS and not on radar – all very close!” It is for the best that Jeremy
has a psychic ability to detect imminent collisions and rouse him from his
slumbers! At 15:00 (GMT) on Monday 28/04/08 we crossed the equator.
A particularly significant milestone as none of those aboard had previously been
to the Southern Hemisphere. As is traditional we each sacrificed a cherished
possession to We were enjoying a post-prandial game of Scrabble as the
sun dropped to the horizon when we were treated to a fishing boat to look at.
While scanning the vessel through the binoculars we noticed that it was being
followed by what appeared to be three very large dolphins. On further inspection
and reflection we decided that they were too large to be dolphins and were most
likely a small pod of killer whales. An impressive sighting, hopefully the first
of many. After 5 days 19 hours of sailing we anchored in Academy
Bay, Santa Cruz, Galapagos at 0830 (local time) on Tuesday 29/04/08.
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