It's been about a ten days since our arrival in the Galapagos and it's been quite an adventure. The wild life here is really amazing, such diversity that's really goes well with the crazy weather we have had here and it just seems to fit in with the whole feel of the place. Johnny and I have suffered from some upset bellies and strongly recommend not drinking the local desalinated water! As we have since found out from the local doctor that it's not so reliably desalinated, we thought it tasted funny! Dr Gabriel was recommended to us by one of the yacht agents as the best man for the job and he was excellent. Had our rear ends back in normal operation in a couple of days! Thank god. He also proved that Jason really can blow smoke out of one ear and needs to have surgery to fix it, or he could grow mushrooms or worse! Showed us on the computer and you could actually see the tiny hole opening and closing. Our unpleasant bellies could also have been from the local Tucker we were eating below. The first week was spent getting Spirit ready for the next leg. We didn't have anything major to get done but did want to do a lot of small jobs mainly maintenance to the rig, tightening the shrouds, sail repairs, reinforcing some of the batten slides, making new bolts for the rudder attachment (larger ones) greasing and tightening the rudder bearings, swapping out the small foot blocks on the centerboard to larger ones, cleaning out all the boats compartments and re-stowing the spares, doing laundry, re-fueling and taking on water (which we recommend others not to do!). We also bought more heavier chain from a really nice Australian couple we've meet as we may need it for the deeper anchorages in the Pacific. The new Fortress anchor has proven it's worth here as the local anchorage is crap. There is tourist boats coming and going all the time and boats anchoring on top of you as well. Making for sleepless nights. We had about 1-1.5m swell rolling in for the first few days as the anchorage is totally open to the south east. Luckily we were able to tuck right into the bay using a stern anchor as well, which is highly recommended and got into about 15ft of water. In the surge Spirit just rode back and forth and with the 100ft of nylon line she just pulled up nice and slow. We buoyed the anchor so we could also keep an eye on it's position and make sure no one anchored on top of us. Then only people that did ended up being anchoring on top of us was another cruising yacht that had no idea of what they were doing! And that also ended up hitting another yacht when they weighed anchor and departed. We used a local agent here to clear in, which is something that all the guides say you have to have. It's not law but you can't clear in and out without one? Work that one out! I've put the details below of both the agents I think are ok. We used YachtGala but a lot of the boats here used GOS and all had great things to say about him but he was a little more for some boats as he's price in based on the yachts length but less for others. Yacht Gala Johnny Rommero - has transport and can arrange anything for a price. I would only try and deal with Johnny himself. + 593 52 527 403 www.galapagosdestiny.com Galapagos Ocean Services - offers a dinghy dock and laundry services great deal and well recommend by al the yachts that used him. +593 9 377 2718 Tuomo Vauhkonen www.gos.ec While here we never used our own tender. The reason was the seals do try and get in them and also the amount of growth and how quickly it grows put us off. The locals have taxi services that constantly run all day and night, which you can call on channel 14 VHF and during the day it's 60 cents per person and a dollar at night. We would just whistle as they went past. They also offer laundry services for very reasonable prices and can organize water and fuel but make sure you get your fuel legally getting your receipt and paper work from your agent. We also had our favorite taxi captain help us clean the bottom of Spirit before we departed for $40 USD and considering the amount of weed and growth on the bottom it was very reasonable. He also did a great job with our laundry bringing it back on time and smelling wonderful. Fuel is $1.05 per gallon for locals and $5.00 for everyone else! Like most places the yachts get ripped off. Like most things here the process of receiving fuel is ludicrous even bordering on plain insane. You have to have your agent get a permit from the port captain for the EXACT! Amount then you take this to the fuel station (there is only one) in a taxi. You head upstairs where to lady behind the desk takes your permit and issues you with a receipt. You then head downstairs to the pump controller whom fills you up with the EXACT amount, no less no more! He then takes your cash at four times what the locals pay, then issues you with another receipt that you fill in and both sign. Then back upstairs To the lady behind the desk who stamps it and makes it all official looking. This then goes to the agent who gives it back to the port captain to prove you bought your fuel! Talk about a joke this is to supposedly stop the back market for fuel as some taxi drivers where filling it up for the yachtie's and selling it to them at a cheaper rate, by the way we were still offered fuel on the black market by water taxis so little good this painful process has done. Santa Cruz itself has been nice Not as seriously and well looked after as I would have imagined but coming from one of the most highly Protected reef areas in the world they seem a bit slack here. On a few occasions there has been diesel and black oil floating all over the anchorage! We have the pictures to prove it. Feelthy bastardos. Then to top it all off, a 100ft triple decker dropped anchor with an extreme list to starboard! Portholes under and deck awash! A cast of thousands, slight exaggeration, tinnys water taxis and port authorities etc etc onlookers, all failed totally to avert disaster! Within half an hour she flopped right over to port and kept going!, all the way to the bottom! Once again we have the pictures to prove it. After that, about 2 hours after, the oil boom arrived and they got a circle around the spot but by then there was crap everywhere. That was a week ago and nothing has happened since. She lies in about 50ft of water and is slowly breaking up in the surge. Do not anchor there! Rumor has it they were "transferring" fuel and left the tanks linked as they transferred giving them an angle of lull that eventually flopped them over to the other side and over she rolled! As my good mates back home would say muppets! More like an insurance job we think who could be that stupid? 2 days ago we finally stopped work on Ssspirit and did a dive trip to the Gordon rocks. Visibility poor but the variety of species more than made up for it. It was like swimming in a fish soup! Everywhere you looked there were more fish. Hammerheads, white tips, turtles, spotted eagle rays in squadrons, barracuda, tuna, jacks, big snapper, cod, moray eel, plus heaps of extremely colorful unknowns of all shapes and sizes. Then there were the birds! frigates, sheer waters, just like our own mutton birds in Oz, gannets, blue footed boobies, mother caries chickens, pelicans are everywhere, darwin's finches, little sparrow like birds with short arse tails, etc. On the way to the dive boat we drove over the highlands and there were many tall slender trees with the same trunks as our own Queensland red cedars and it turned out they are an indigenous local cedar used extensively In their architecture which is a mix of third world post and beam concrete in various states of completion or otherwise. And some really stunning curved forms in a Spanish style. There is an an exclusive jewelry studio, so exclusive it is never open, that is a really stunning piece of art. Even though we have not been able to see the jewelry the building is a real gem. Later on today we're off to provision and hope to head off to the Marquesas Islands tomorrow after a nice big hot breakfast and hot shower in our ten dollar a night hotel! Have included a photo below of the shower head so you can see why it's ten bucks a night! For anyone wanting to stay there it's called the Charles Darwin hotel.
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It's our first night out on our way to the Galapagos and we've just finished a big spaghetti bol. The breeze has only just filled in after a day of variable winds from mainly around the west to north west. We have only been able to manage from 4-8kts at times and have now began to sit on 6-7kts steady as the winds filled in to about 250 true giving us around 195 COG. Ez departed Spirit in Panama city and it's Johnny and I onboard now. Were doing the watches in two hour shifts from 8pm until 6am and will divide the day time hours as we feel. Yesterday (Thursday the 9th) we departed Panama city after provisioning the day before. We were going to leave the day we provisioned but we had a call from a vessel near by that asked if we could postpone incase there was some parts we could take with us to the Las Perlas Islands where we spent last night. There was an Australian yacht that was there and in need of a new seal for there main engine cooling pump. As it turned out they didn't have the parts and we were off the following morning early after a weather check. We got away from Panama about 10:00am and it was another morning of variable winds until about 20nm from the Las Perlas group when the wind filled in from the north west at around 5-10kts. It ended up being a magical sail into Isla Pedro Gonzales where we sailed right into the anchorage dropping the sails about a mile out. Flat calm water with a steady breeze and Spirit doing 7-9kts it was bliss. It was such a nice sail that I was able to get into the dinghy and get some shots of Spirit ghosting along in the light airs and glassy seas. The small village on the island where the cruising guide offered two anchorages was not so nice looking so we sailed past to the following bay where there was also another anchorage located. Once around the corner the bay opened up to a gorgeous clear sandy beach that was lined with hundreds of palms. It was a magical spot and with the flat calm water it made a great stop for the night. Johnny and I scouted around in the tender and had a nice walk along the beach spotting a sea snake making it's way out on to the beach, old building foundations, flower gardens behind the beach and a wonderful little spot that had been cleared with flowers a few seats and a hammock, a small peace of paradise. Sunset was spent enjoying a few beers and some fine dinner that we had kept from great little Columbian restaurant the night before in Panama. Off to bed early after a big feed and few beers ready for today's departure. Last night was also the first night for our new anchor set up. In Panama we dragged anchor as we lost our CQR. To try and make anchoring as easy as I could I had the anchor on a clip that came undone. It just proves if it can happen it will. So back to the drawing board we went. We now have a Fortress 27FX on 80ft of 10mm chain and then 100ft of 14mm three strand nylon. It's much easier to pull onboard now as the fortress holding power is great for it's weight but it's still bloody hard. We definitely need a anchor winch as we don't even have a bow roller getting it aboard isn't fun. We have also set up the anchor on a float so we an retrieve the float first hauling the anchor aboard then pulling up the chain to reduce the total weight being lifted and it seemed to work well today. When we have some wind and wave action will be the time to tell how well it works. Friday 10th We departed about 1000 after a nice breakfast. This place is so testing with the light winds being so variable. It's just crazy. I have never seen such large areas of no wind. We seem to have it come in for an hour then die out. Then an hour later it'll come from the other direction for 30 minutes and then die out, we'll get all excited when we see some cloud the wind will pick up rain starts then it's over. This has been the day all day today. With grey all around some sun in the afternoon and a great little burst from a squall giving us just over 18kts which is a new record for the trip since leaving St Maarten. Not bad as it was around 16kts of true breeze at about 40 degrees apparent. Johnny was on watch and just about fell over as the boat took off. As with everything else out here it didn't last long and five minutes later we were drifting again. Tonight is a clearer night we have some steady breeze just settling in now, and we're doing wind speed, which is around 4-5kts and we're on the rhumb line. Saturday 11th Well that didn't last long. It's now 0200! for those that can't read 24hr time that's am! The wind died out hours ago and we've been motoring along at about 1500rpm giving us about 3-4kts. Johnny had a bit of rain while on watch and I've just had a ship pass behind us by a small margin. Amazing how you can be in the middle of nowhere and have a 1000ft ship bearing down on you at 21kts. And the ship just happened to show up in the squall on our STB side about 13nm away. This is where the AIS comes into it's own. Never did we realize the amount it would help out on this trip home. As the radar couldn't see the ship so far away within the squall the iPad and iNavX with AIS integration was awesome. Instantly we could see the closest point of approach, the bearing the ship would be at that time and also the amount of time before this all happened and this all happens instantaneously. Giving us this info allowed us to increase our speed for about 15mins so we passed a safe 1.5nm in front. This is about the smallest limit most commercial boats want you pass ahead of them. From memory it's about .7 nm astern and 1.2 ahead. In the photo above you can see that our AIS is receiving data from ships over 70nm away. Unbelievable! May have had something to do with us being 100ft above sea level? even though we were able to get even further once we were on the Pacific side where it was showing ships as far away as the San Blas back up to the North of us. Sunday 12th Clear skies today and in the morning we had some great sailing with about 8-10kts of boat speed. It lasted until the afternoon when it slowly disappeared into nothing which we have now. We had some kind of seabird stay onboard last night and it was still there in the the morning along with the dragonfly we spotted on the bow rail. Will be interesting to see if they're with us again in the morning. Did some laundry today mainly boxer shorts and tea towels. Refilled the diesel and we now have around 80lts remaining. Glad we bought two more jerry cans in Panama. Monday 13th Another really nice calm day. Unfortunately no wind and what there is on and off is variable and testing. Seems to go as fast and it comes and never stays in longer than an hour. The calm weather means we can cook and clean and living onboard is easy. Even though it's frustrating we try not to complain about the lack of wind as it can always be so much worse. Made a great curry for dinner and did some laundry and general tidying of the boat. Also started to read some of the many guides we have onboard for the Pacific. Tuesday 14th Later Monday afternoon the wind picked up and became steady from the south west. Put two reefs in the main when we spotted a large grey cloud south of us and then questioned why we were even thinking about sailing through it when we had so much ocean to cover. We tacked out away from it on a port tack and was clear a few hours later. It was a big system and for sure some weather in there. We're now making good 260 COG and have the wind tending south all the time. Just about on the rhumb line another 20 degrees south and we are sitting pretty. Man for such a short passage it's taking us sometime to get south. Swapped the paddle wheel over in the log as the old one was missing a blade. Hope to be able to get the B&G set up more accurately now. Wednesday 15th I think we may break a record here for the quickest boat to do the slowest passage from Panama to the Galapagos. There is no wind at all and we are going backwards, parked with no handbrake. Very testing and frustrating you can understand how they went crazy in the old days trying to get through the doldrums. Today we had some wind from the West and we were making great time compared to now. At one stage we were doing around 7kts VMG the best we have seen so far. Now as you can see from the screen shot above and below we are heading the wrong way flopping from side to side, if only we could harness the power of the flop to give us some forward momentum! our weather guru back in Australia says we should have 15-20kts from the south west at the moment and this is also what our latest grib files say, so much for weather forecasting? Better than a gale on the nose. I better put the kettle on! Today we had the wind go from 270 degrees to 370 degrees true in a matter of seconds. We had two reefs in the main and headsail up so it was a quick jibe over onto STB tack and off again all this going on in about 18kts of true wind with squalls all around. Then we decided to put up the staysail and to put another reef in the main as the seas were getting large starting to break a little and we needed to slow down a touch. Well that did it the wind died and we had the worst washing machine Johnny and I had seen with waves coming from three directions and us in the middle like being in a fight with the ocean. We yelled you've won! leave us along. Still out here flopping now! Hard to believe we have had variable winds all the way since the coast of Columbia three weeks ago. No more than a few hours of steady breeze, man can not wait to get into the trades and some stability. Thursday 16th The wind came in again strong but this time from the South East as it had been predicted for the last few days. And it seems to have settled in and become consistent at around 18kts true or 25-30 apparent. Crap weather no reports just wet, tired and wanting more then three hours sleep, also without the sound of the mast trying to come through the deck, which has returned with the rough weather. Below was an old forecast for the 16th was it was correct? Friday 17th After the strong winds that we had through Thursday today has been a great surprise. The weather file we received and the info from ashore has not been at all correct. We did have stronger winds than forecast but from different directions, not stable at all and it has been for different durations and strengths. Not as reliable as we have found it in the Atlantic and other regions. The wind strength began to subside yesterday afternoon and we had a few hours during the night where we parked. Earlier this morning the wind came in at about 10kts true and has been shooting us along from 8-10kts so we are finally making some good ground. As we get closer to the Galapagos there is more and more bird life around us. We had two birds land on the float bow yesterday but with the residual waves they were finding it hard to stay on and it was quiet a sight watching them land again and again trying their hardest to remain onboard. Saturday the 18th The wind that came in yesterday increased in the afternoon and we had a wet and wild ride during the night. It seems to be steady with direction and strength at around 160-70 true and 16-22kts apparent. We were just off the breeze with the apparent angle being from 30-46 degrees and when it cracked off away went Spirit with speeds from 12-14kts and a constant 10kts. Johnny and I have been hand steering since last night when the autopilot dropped out on Johnny. I'll have to look into it when we arrive. We powered along for the last 24hrs doing an average speed of around 10kts and getting into Academy Bay on Santa Cruz Island around 1400 local time Saturday. From what we had read and seen on the charts this bay looked like a pretty poor anchorage. Open to the prevailing South winds and swell. Looks can be deceiving so we thought we'd better head in to look for ourselves before making our minds up whether to head to another of the islands. Also our agent was here and the services ashore offer more, which made it our preferred place to be. We have spent the last 4 full days in the Marina awaiting our transit of the canal. Before arriving in Panama we did a lot of research on the formalities and tried to find other people experiences so as we could prepare as best we could for our own. Given the large amount of info on the net and also personal experiences running yachts overseas. It was decided that the best way would be to pay for an agent whom knew the ins and outs and that would take all the pressure and responsibility off us, leaving us to enjoy the pool here, do some odd jobs and some small provisioning. Eric from Centenario was recommended from a few people so we decided to go with him. So far our passage and experience has been great. He has taken on everything delivering the ten tires to the boat two days before our passage along with the four lines of 125ft needed for the canal. The canal measurer was here the day after our arrival and everything has proceeded smoothly. As we don't have a holding tank onboard he also provided us with a porta poti. He even drove us the thirty minutes into Colon to see the Port Captain as he wasn't happy with our securing points. As Spirit is a race boat she has no cleats, fairleads or real securing points. We plan to run lines through snatch blocks and back to the four winches in the aft cockpit. We spoke of this to him and described our plan, we also took some blocks along with their working loads into him so he could see that they were indeed strong enough. It helped a lot when Johnny mentioned that the small line we gave him was stronger than steel. Hard for commercial people to understand the strength of some of the gear we have. It's so small it looks fragile but in reality it's incredible strong. The Port Captain was an American and I believe one of the last to remain here working with the Canal Authority. Once the Canal was handed back most of the American and foreign staff departed. The canal does fifteen transits daily in each direction. The new third locks to be opened in 2014 will allow for vessels up to 1,400 ft x 180 ft with a depth of 60 ft. So far the place has been a real surprise. Not sure I had the best image of this place but being here has changed that a little. The marina and services here are basic but it's kept nice and the service is good. Eric has saved us time and stress and with the port office and immigration also being here it has save time get our clearance and formalities done. For those doing the same passage here is a breakdown of how we proceeded with things and how much things have cost us so far. -Arrived at Shelter Bay Marina 0130 very easy to enter during night hours. We had rain and squalls and found it easy to slowly motor in. We just pulled into the easiest berth once we arrived. Our berth was around $70 USD a day plus around $10 a week for the Internet. Electricity and water are on top of this but we didn't use any so I'm not sure of the costs involved here. -The next morning after we arrived we registered with the Marina office and paid for seven days as thats the normal transit time. It only took 5 days though so we were refunded when we checked out. - We then cleared in with the Port Captain and immigration that are located right behind the marina office. - Eric has looked after all our transit details coming to the boat meeting. Then delivering the tires, ropes and our toilet all for $1,000 USD. This is the total that it has cost us on a 40ft x 35ft trimaran. The marina here has nice rainforest walks you can do. A great pool area and lounge that is air-conditioned up stairs with cable TV and excellent WiFi Internet. I also have to mention that the Internet here has been the best I have experienced in the a Caribbean. It's super fast, reliable and they have about ten hot spots through out so there is a signal from just about all points of the marina. There is a small chandlery here and also washers and dryers. The restaurant has a limited menu but the food is good and the breakfasts are cheap and really delicious with the staff always smiling and doing there best. We've heard of a few complaints being here but it's nothing that was really anything to bother about. We'll depart the marina about 1230 today for the flats anchorage where will sit for an hour or two before entering the locks at around 1600 we hope. We'll transit the first set of three locks in the afternoon today then stay in the lake over night before motoring through the lake tomorrow and then proceeding through the other locks later in the day. Sounds like fun I'll update you with more tomorrow. All went well for our first transit of the Gatun Lake Locks. It was a real experience with the water rising rapidly at around 4ft per minute for a total of about 40ft. The turbulence created from the water entering the locks through the bottom of the lock is crazy, this along with the ships prop wash when departing the lock made for some fun. We were very lucky as we can raise our centerboard and also Spirits weight of around 4 ton makes her easy to handle. The keel yacht in front did ok as well but you could see them getting pushed around a lot more and they also rolled a bit from the water surging in and pressing on there keel. At each end of the canal there is three locks. At the Colon end they are all together but at the Panama city end there is two sets the first one called the Pedro Miguel locks and then another two that are called the Miraflores locks. It's easy to do the last three into the Pacific as this is just a matter of easing your lines as you slowly get lowered within the lock. The Gatun is the harder one as your being raised and have to keep a good eye on your lines and be quick to shorten them up. We we able to run all our lines back to the cockpit and have them all with a dedicated winch so we could load them with more than just a hand pull. It worked great and the other thing that made it easy was that we were on our own in the lock not nested next to another yacht or tug boat, I think this was mainly due to our beam. We went through the Gatun locks at around 1800 hrs local time. So once through there was about a 4 mile scoot around to the mooring where we were to stay for the night. A bottle of champers was opened to celebrate some roasted chicken was devoured then it was off to bed as we had our advisor arriving around 0600 the next morning to get underway for the passage through the lake. It's roughly 30nm from one end of the lake to the other and with the fresh water being less dense than salt not only did Spirit have water lapping at her cockpit drains she was about half a knot slower. We were flat out trying to keep up with the other yachts but in the end did well and arrived in the middle of the pack. On the way through Gatun Lake we passed some huge ships with lengths of up to 1000ft. These had tug boats escorting them through. There was massive dredges in some parts and some huge amounts of work going on with maintenance and the new larger lock expansions. The main part of the lake is just amazing. It has the thickest jungle you could imagine and bird life and monkeys howling in the mornings. It was a real treat to be able to spend a night there. For the last three sets of locks all the yachts went through together. The two monohulls where nested together and the tris went through placed in the middle of the lock. This end was a breeze as the water exiting leaves very little disturbance and all that needed to be done was the lines eased as the water level went down. It was a surreal feeling to enter the Pacific ocean at the other end. When the final doors opened we all felt the pressure of the last few days preparation drop away and a new adventure had begun. It was another few miles down the channel to the Balboa yacht club where we dropped our two fantastic line handlers off and the ten car tires that Eric had arranged for us. We ended up not going into the dock but just dropping the gear and boys off in the dock tender along with the ten dollar fee for doing so. We then high tailed it around to Las Brisas the anchorage to the North East of the causeway just North of the Flormenco Marina. Its a great spot very well sheltered but with a bit of a soft muddy bottom. The local yachties there do a 0800 VHF net that has some great info on it. They operate on channel 74 and it's a must for any new yachts to the anchorage. We put a call out to see if anyone had an anchor for sale and ended up buying a new Fortress from a yacht while there. |