After spending a week in Golfito, Costa Rica, a little town set in the jungle with tropical plants, flowers, birds and monkeys, we headed across the Pacific to the Galapagos. There was absolutely no wind the first three days and nights so we crawled along at a bearing of 215 degrees at about 3.5 knots to conserve fuel. It was a 691 mile (if in a straight line) journey from Costa Rica. The next several days out we saw high winds, confused seas and angry skies. It was like being in a washing machine, turned on with the lights out, or like skiing down a steep mogul slope, with your goggles all fogged up. As soon as it calmed a bit (15 to 18 knots of wind), we sailed on, through day and night. For several days we only turned the engine on to charge the batteries.
We crossed the equator at 3 am on April 7, 2007 at 00’00.000 degrees latitude and 89’40.00 longitude. Ken prepared a beautiful ceremony/celebration to signify the event. We were dancing in the dark!
We arrived in Ecuador, the Archipielago de Colon, (Galapagos Islands) and anchored on the Isle San Cristobal, at 2 pm that afternoon.We are amazed at the fact that we are here and have to ask each other “Where are we?”. Our first impression is that this is a pretty cool place.
After taking a tour of the island, it was without a doubt confirmed that this is a cool place! The pictures tell it all:
Amazing tree house in the biggest oldest tree in the
Galapagos
Galapagos (turtles)
Marine iguanas
Mareno (Wreck Bay) on San Cristobal in the Galapagos
View from on top of Isla San Cristobal
Our next sailboat
These two swallows joined us 200 miles offshore and
spent the night
This guy slept on the tip of the fishing pole
Swear to god, this bird just flew in and landed on my
head. I had to move it to a perch that I made.
Crab
Us
Golfito, Costa Rica
posted by Suzanne 2 @ 1:39 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Ken and Paula,
Don’t know if your sailmail is working or not so , I’ll try this one and the blog.
Are you just amazed that you got to the Galapagos Islands? Sounds like it was quite a passage there from Costa Rica. How does your auto pilot work under sail at sea? Do you need to have one of you on watch at the helm 24 hours a day, or can you relax some? Seems like a passage could be kinda tiring.
How is your other equipment holding up? Mainsail okay since the repair? Is your sail plan working out, or do you wish you had different sails at times? Is there equipment you didn’t get and wish you had? Sorry about all the questions, but I am very curious.
I finally got a chance to take Penguin out for a real sail for the first time yesterday. Sailed her from LaConnor to our beach on Camano Island. What a different boat to sail than Apache. In fifteen to twenty knots of wind, and sailing at about 60 degrees apparent on a starboard tack with the main, genoa, and staysail set, she literally sailed herself. She was so well balanced there was zero weather helm and minimal heel. Don’t know if that’s because of the weight of the boat, the full keel, or the cutter rig, but she is a very easy boat to sail. In those conditions on Apache I would have been fighting the helm thinking about shortening sail. Granted, going to weather in light air is not Penguin’s best point of sail, but overall she is so easy to sail, I never felt overburdened sailing her alone. I’m really looking forward to getting her out in some seas and figuring out how to use the wind vane self steering. There are three mainsail reef points and a storm staysail. I’m anxious to have the opportunity to need that configuration, too.
Well, enough of Penguin. What’s your next leg? And when are you going to make it? You guys are having some kind of adventure.
Ruth says hi. She has been watching your blog with great interest.
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