our longest crossing so far, 10 days and nights from N08°.38’.079 W079°.02’.126 in the perlas islands in panama to S00°.53’.777 W089°.36’.769 in puerto baquerizo moreno, isla san cristobal, galapagos, ecuador. we traveled from one hemisphere to the other and thought we were going to jump in the water and actually swim across the equator, but the truth is that we crossed it at night and neither of us wanted to jump in the dark water at that time, so we crossed the 00° on board the boat dry and warm!
we left on march 17 at noon and had favorable winds for the following couple of days. the first nights were extremely dark and we could not see the moon or starts or anything else. what we did see, was the most amazing fluorescent plankton left by the wake of the boat and also by the dolphins swimming next to us. they looked like ghosts or rather falling starts. this was a truly an unforgettable sight, and even scary before we realized the shinny moving creatures making the noise and color were actually dolphins!
after the fourth day we were more settled into the rocking and rolling of the boat and generally the life on board. by the fifth day we started to lose the wind as we approached the convergence zone. this is where the north trade winds meet the winds from the south resulting in a gap of several hundred miles of no wind at all. thankfully our beloved little yanmy engine did not let us down and motored us away form this zone in the next 3 days.
finally on the last couple of days, the breeze picked up, and we found the equatorial current that pushed us towards our destination making the boat go at 6 knots with barely 6 knots of wind. this last part was a very relaxed sail with beautiful sunsets and clear moonlights every night.
on friday the 26 we saw land and on saturday march 27 we arrived early in the morning to the amazing galapagos. as we cleared the entrance channel through turquoise blue waters we saw many sea lions and rays and saw the breakers at a distance, all making for an amazing sight.
the fauna of the pacific is unbelievable. we saw schools of dolphin, many many many (really lots) of flying and jumping rays, sea lions and several birds. We enjoyed the big and calm swell and were amazed of by how little boats we saw. We must have seen only 3 or 4 in the entire ten days. we really asked ourselves many times if we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, but I guess not, the route was right on course; I guess this area of the world is just less traveled.
the only disappointment of the entire crossing was the fishing part, or better said, the NO fishing part. unbelievably enough we sailed over 1000 miles in the pacific and did not catch a thing. well, we actually did, we had 5 bites and lost 4 lures. we fished a tiny tuna that was trying to eat a lure bigger that the tuna itself, so we thought this bravery deserved to live and put it back in the water (plus it was really small to eat). later after we arrived and talked to other cruisers about our frustrated attempts to fish and our diet based on canned food, we learned that our nylon was too small. it is made to hold 50 lbs. so imagine the size of the fish we almost, but finally could not get. the good thing is that we now have a 100 lbs nylon which we hope to use on the rest of the pacific crossings.
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