Crossing the Line!

Date: 12th April, 2024

Where am I? 

Latitude: 00°44.9 S

Longitude: 090°18.4 W

At anchor off Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos. Our first blog from south latitude and beyond 090° west longitude!

How is the weather?

Warm, dry days and cool evenings and nights. We have not seen rain since we left Panama, even though it is rainy season now in Galapagos!

What am I feeling?

Really proud of our crew for completing safely the 900 nautical mile passage from Colon to Puerto Baquerizo on San Cristobal, Galapagos. The prospect of such a long passage in open ocean, far from nearest land and safe harbour, is a daunting one. Despite the trepidations of some of our crew, all passed the test with flying colours and our collective sense of accomplishment is palpable.

What has happened this week?

We arrived off the port of Baquerizo, the capital of the Galapagos, at 0300 on Sunday 7th April after motor sailing for the much of the previous 36 hours. We waited for dawn before entering the wide and well protected bay, dropping anchor at 0730.

The passage from Colon was approximately 900 nautical miles and the PredictWind forecast of 4+ days of motoring was about right – we logged a total of 90 engine hours and 21 generator hours. This includes the 12 hours of engine hours used in transiting the Canal, so from Panama City, we used 78 hours, better than expected when we set off.

We took on 400 litres of fuel on Monday 8th April – delivered by water taxi in blue plastic drums at $6.50 per gallon. This quantity of fuel figures as our engine uses around 4 litres per hour at 1,800 revs while the generator uses around half that. Based on the engine/generator hours, we should have used 402 litres of diesel. So we know our machines are running at their usual rate of efficiency!

The highlight of the passage to Galapagos was our crossing of the Equator which we accomplished at 1343:25 on Saturday 7th April at 088°30.5 W in fine weather and a calm sea, drifting across so as not to disturb whatever lies beneath the surface at the fateful latitude! We had been sailing with main and gennaker earlier in the day but the wind had died just before.

Thanks to Chris’ inventiveness – ably assisted by Elizabeth – King Neptune made an appearance, splendidly crowned, belted and cuffed, brandishing a trident of burnished silver foil! All members of the crew were ceremoniously admitted to Neptune’s court and libations (of Dr Nielsen’s Danish medicine!) were drunk and offered to the denizens of the deep, in time honoured fashion. Being transformed from pollywog to shellback is an accomplishment dreamed of by many a sailor. Achieving such a milestone under our own steam, so far from land, made the achievement all the sweeter.

We were escorted into the bay of Puerto Baquerizo by sea lions – our first sighting of many in that bay, which is home to a sizeable colony of the creatures. Not long after anchoring, one individual took up residence on our transom, despite multiple attempts to dislodge him with fenders. Because of the number of sealions, use of one’s own dinghy is not advised – once in the water, it would quickly be swamped with sealions seeking a new sun bathing spot. Thankfully, a call on VHF Ch 14 summons a water taxi for the short trip to the dock, at $1 per person.

The clearing in process was quite smooth. Soon after dropping anchor, a water taxi arrived with 6 officials and 2 staff from our agent. A diver went down to check our hull for growth, resurfacing later thankfully having found none – barnacles on the hull would mean being denied entry and a 50 mile trip out to remove them before coming back in. The form filling was voluminous but the process was reasonably efficient and painless. The environmental fellow inspected below deck, quarantining frozen beef (but not chicken or pork) and checking the expiry dates on many of our food packaging. He did find a feather from one of the red footed boobies which hitched a ride on our pulpit two days previously, and asked if we had a pet parrot on board!

After 3 days at San Cristobal, we motor sailed 6 hours to Santa Cruz on Wednesday, anchoring at Puerto Ayora. Thursday saw us on a full day outing to Bartolomé Island to see the stunning volcanic landscape, swim with many fish and a couple of sharks and enjoy being on someone else’s boat for a while! We will depart from Puerto Ayora on Monday 15th April so we have time between now and then to see a bit more of the island as well as prepare for the next stage of our voyage.

Our tally of fauna so far includes red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises, seals and sealions, a marine iguana, lava lizards, frigate birds, green sea turtles, many varieties of fish and a couple of small sharks. And, of course, lots of Darwin’s finches but don’t ask me to name which of the 17 species… We have not seen any penguins (the Galapagos is home to the most northerly colony of penguins) and the marine iguana we spotted was a small one – perhaps we will see more in the next couple of days.

Our next blog will be from somewhere to the south west of Santa Cruz. The passage to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas is 3,000 nautical miles and we expect it to take us 21 days or so. We expect to motor sail in a direction of 210° for the first 24 hours before picking up the trades winds which should carry us all the way to French Polynesia.

Fujin out!