Episode 10: Panama, Las Perlas - Crossing The Equator

Hi Everyone!

To conquer and experience the mighty Panama Canal was an absolute thrill for us all!

Young Jose’, our new line handler arrived on Marmax at Shelter Bay Marina in the Panama right on time at 1.00 pm. We had to employ a 4th line handler as the powers-to-be declared that Janelle was too young, despite her vast experience. Jose’ turned out to be worth his weight in gold. At 23 years of age, he had already been through the canal locks over 300 times. We had, besides the Captain, 4 experienced line handlers to work the four, heavy 46-foot lines necessary to reach the high sides of the canal from the boat.

Those big canal lines!

We waited a couple of hours on anchor out on ‘The Flats’ outside of Shelter Bay Marina enjoying a rather spectacular rain storm raging past us, the day was dark and overcast and we were surprised to hear we would not begin the transit into the actual canal until at least 5.15 pm; it seemed a little late! 

Waiting on 'The Flats'

'Ivan', our canal pilot arriving

Ivan goes through the paperwork

Our pilot, ‘Ivan’, arrived on a tug alongside. All boats have to have pilots aboard and Ivan was the leading man for our flotilla of 3 yachts to transit through.  We were allocated the central boat position with a 49-foot French yacht, ‘Sandetie’, to port and the tiny 27-foot USA yacht, ‘Tarka’, on our starboard. ‘Sandetie’ had been travelling around the world for 20 years and had been to NZ and Australia twice; it was their third time through the canal. We were in good company here! They were on their way to French Polynesia.

The 49-foot French yacht, ‘Sandetie’

‘Tarka’ had already circumnavigated the world with a previous owner, but the current owner, a lovely young man, had bought her in St Maarten, the Caribbean and, being new to yachting, had just spent 2 years sailing her from St Maarten to Panama: funnily enough, Marmax had just sailed St Maarten to Panama in 10 days; he could not believe it!
Once all 3 pilots had been safely dropped off on their respective yachts, we proceeded in single file, to an area just before the locks to all raft up tightly. It was then we all got to meet each other, shake hands and learn about each other’s adventures. It is such a different world these guys live in, real sea gypsies!

Tiny 'Tarka" - 27 foot long and tripping around the world!

If you ever Google the Panama Canal, the story is really quite incredible…
  

Panama Canal is considered one of the greatest engineering wonders in the world. Columbus started cruising Panamanian waters in 1502. Years later, Panama become a transshipment point for gold and silver from Peru. Due to a tricky terrain it made it a long, hard trip getting goods from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Panama. In 1534 Charles 1st of Spain ordered the first survey of a possible channel going from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Panama. The French were first to start digging in 1882, but the project was abandoned as it was too costly, dangerous and many workers were dying from tropical diseases.

In 1902 the Americans took over with the proviso that they could have permanent control of the canal. For two years, thousands of workers cleared bush and drained swamps, but many died from malaria and yellow fever, mosquitoes and bubonic plague from the rats. It took 10 years and 75,000 people to  build the largest locks in the world and complete the canal.

Before the opening of the canal, any ship going from New York to San Francisco would travel 11,000 nautical miles. The canal shortens this by over 4,300 nautical miles and avoids the treacherous Cape Horn.The first passage through the canal was made in August 1914.  An expansion of parallel locks to allow over-sized ships to pass through and to cope with the raising demand of transiting boats started in 2007. This took 9 years to complete. In 1979 the canal zone and its administration was given back to the Panama people. Ownership of the canal was transferred to Panama in 1999. This has been a massive money earner for the country, which is now thriving. (Sourced and written by Janelle)

So, back to the story. So we entered the first Gatun Locks with 4 guys on hand, up on the wall throwing monkey fists to our yachts to enable our crew to connect the heavy lines up to the sides of the canal. Usually forehead and stern lines are secured to each outside yacht, we ended up having the lines attached to us as tiny 'Tarka' would have had her cleats ripped out of her hull if she was to take the weight of all 3 yachts in the locks.The central yacht position is apparently the safest. The only problem is when the lock controllers decide to raft 3 or 4 yachts together, the two outside yachts hold the entire assembly. If their lines fail, or a line is mishandled, this usually causes hulls to crash into the walls. Smaller yachts like 'Tarka' can hit turbulence and can roll far enough for their spreaders to hit the wall. Scary stuff!

'Tarka' ties up alongside Marmax for the canal transit- note bananas on stern

Fascinating to see the history etched into the sides of those concrete walls. The old fixture points where ships from decades past had attached their lines; the spaces and old infrastructure of the old locks were still evident as with the gouges of past gunnels scraping past.

Once we were secured to the walls by the linesmen, the gates were shut, then the locks filled with water. Gates were then reopened and we moved onto the next lock...then the next. The 3 chambers of the Gatun Lock had raised us 85 foot up to the level of the fresh water Lake Gatun. Highly organised, professional and totally impressive.

The little linesmen (they looked little as they were so far up on the walls!), wore heavy uniforms and big boots with fairly basic flotation boards strapped to their chests, both front and back. I asked our pilot how often they fell into the water as they were often trotting along in that heavy gear, heaving ropes, operating radios and stepping over bollards and steel bits. “Often”, was the answer; an answer I had expected. Even more fascinating was watching those big 'mules' at work. The shining, state-of-the-art locomotives which hauled and controlled the lines connected to the large cargo and cruise ships.

The canal locomotive 'Mules' in action

My second question to the pilot, “How come these mules don't fall into the water when they are only sitting on tracks?”. Answer: “They do fall in, but not often”.

Wow, that would be costly!When pulling ships from lock to lock, they try to never take the full load unless pulling forward. A tug follows the boats to help the mules with controlling the movement. The mules gently pull-stop-pull-stop so as not to lose their balance on the track. They are wonderfully efficient and the drivers all beaming with smiles and waving to us. It was quite nerve racking to feel so small under the bow of a huge container ship sharing the same lock as Marmax. You feel like a mouse about to get eaten by a cat!

Our only close tragedy was when a young deckhand on the French yacht beside us, unthinkingly, went to pull in the slack of his forehead line (with 3 yachts attached), just as the water was swirling in rapidly in the first lock. All 3 yachts immediately lurched sideways towards the starboard concrete wall. Thank God the kid realised his mistake immediately, with all the yelling going on. He quickly recovered the situation, not without a major hand burn. He could have easily lost his hand or fingers. If we had hit the wall, 'Tarka' would have been toast and would have acted as a fender for Marmax!

So the Panama Canal obviously transfers ships from one ocean to another via a series of locks. The river Chagres was originally dammed to create a lake which holds the water necessary to operate the locks. Propelled by gravity via a system of culverts in the central and side walls, the water runs under the lock chambers. Each lateral culvert has 5 holes measuring 4.5 inches in diameter. There are 100 holes in the floor of each lock and 52 million gallons of fresh water is needed to lock a ship from one ocean to the other after having done its work. The pressure of the water was immense. It took around 15 minutes for each lock to fill. It is pretty full on!

Despite the overcast, hot, humid and rainy day, the sunset was magnificent as our raft of 3 yachts emerged from the third lock safely with a great deal of back slapping and hand shaking with our new friends. We untied our raft, and single file, slid silently through the fresh waters of Lake Gatun, past the exit of the mighty Miraflores Locks, to secure ourselves for the night on a simple, circular, amazingly clever mooring bouy. It was about 3 metres in diameter with soft plastic sides so as not to damage any vessels. 'Sandietie', ''Tarka' and Marmax tied up to the central mooring hook on one, while two other yachts from another raft ahead of us, tied up on another.

'Sandetie' slides up alongside us for the night

Janelle aboard the mooring bouy we all stayed on for the night

 We were all too hot and exhausted to have drinks with the other boats that night unfortunately, but I bet those bouys' could tell a few good party stories! After a fitful sleep, despite the oppressive humidity, I awoke at 5.00 am as I wanted to listen to those Howler Monkeys roaring one last time. I do not doubt that Tarzans' famous cry was originally inspired by the Howler Monkeys! They seemed to really get stirred up just before the sun rose. I'd hate to get caught in the forest at this time with them; their howling is the stuff of nightmares!

The young fella's aboard 'Tarka' started stirring by 6.00 am. Lord knows where all 6 people slept that night on the tiny thing! I heard a splash, one of the French line handlers had gone for a swim, Les yelled out to him, “Mate, did you know there are crocodiles swimming about in the lake?” He jumped out with a smile on his face. Not sure if he knew what we were talking about. Another deckhand accidentally bumped his head on a swinging net basket holding a bunch of bananas on the stern...yes, I said bananas. Yikes! Ever seen a Frenchman swimming after a bunch of floating bananas in a crocodile infested lake? My eyes were glued to him until he got out of the water. It was a quick swim!

The pilots had left the boats the previous evening and a new lot were due on board to guide us through the next part of the transit. At 8.00 am, the pilot boat comes roaring alongside with 4 guys; two pilots plus two trainee pilots but none for Marmax! We were consequently left alone on the mooring for 45 minutes until our pilot and his accompanying trainee turned up. We were not happy especially in consideration of the cost at which Bruce had forked out to his agent to ensure all went well. You simply have to “go with the flow” in a country such as this and trust that the pilot was actually going to turn up. Very few of them spoke English! Lucky we have a rather strong engine as we had to catch up with the others who had a head start. We steamed 31 miles up the waterways of Lake Gatun. You could easily been in Far North Queensland. From our wonderful pristine sapphire blue Meditterrenean, Atlantic and Caribbean Seas, we were now in a murky, fresh water environment with old tree tops still poking up from the water from when the Lake had been flooded, lush Amazonian like rainforests' growing all the way to the waters edge. Abundant bird life like we had not ever seen on our travels, crocodiles cruising past. A magical tropical environment, full of islands, creeks and inlets, volcanic mountains and 120 or so, port and starboard navigational bouys showing the way. And oh my goodness, it was HOT!!! We could hardly breath but the movement of the boat making her own breeze was a relief!

We stopped off for lunch on another one of those clever mooring set-ups and enjoyed quite a show of fast moving, massive ships passing us; all with tugs bridled onto their sterns as they followed them through to the next set of locks. We were there to get out of their way so they could reach their scheduled transits, and while we waited for other yachts to catch up. A water display from one of these fancy tugs; there was plenty to watch.

Off we continued, under another spectacular suspension bridge which was full of traffic seemingly linking one rain forest to another. Where was everyone going?

It was time to raft up again. This time, a Turkish 48 footer, 'Ginger', with a father and two sons aboard, off for a long awaited, 8 month dream cruise to French Polynesia. They had a lot of crew on board helping him through the locks to make up the 4 line handler rule. The handlers jumped on the bus into Panama later on to get back to Shelter Bay. There are many people willing to help out on these transits and obviously, a great way to score a position as crew to get to the Pacific. We had a couple of friendly guys ask if they could join us but we shook our heads “Family only”. It seemed a good reason. So many of these guys smoked cigarettes, you simply could not have one on board if you were non-smokers. Sadly, the smokers were definitely discriminated against when trying to get positions. Of course Glenys tried placing a couple of guys while we nattered away to other yacht owners. The fact they smoked was the only reason these two could not get aboard these beautiful big adventurous yachts.





The next three locks down were easy travelling now we pretty much knew the system. We dropped 31 foot in the first Pedro Miguel lock, then steamed 1 mile to enter a double lock which dropped us 54 foot down to the Pacific. Looking over the top of the gates of the final  lock, there laid the Pacific Ocean.Out with the blue, and in with the green; the water looked like dish water by comparison to our dream run across the last 3 seas. We all heaved a big sigh. The Panama Canal had been conquered, a life long dream complete. We wondered what the 'home stretch' had in store for us!

Again,on a perfect sunset, and with an escort of pelicans and parrots, we slid under the 'Bridge of Americas', almost a replica of the original Auckland Harbour Bridge, to pick up a mooring in the harbour belonging to the Balboa Yacht Club. What a brilliant, exhilarating, interesting and challenging day! It was still hot as hell but, by now, at least we had a sea breeze coming in from the Gulf Of Panama.

Bridge Of Americas - Panama

We spent the night on the fringe of the shipping channel. The Panama Canal operates 24/7 for the big ships, so all night we had shadows of enormous ships and the noise of their servant tugs charging back and forward. We were so tired, we hardly noticed.

Our main reason for stopping was to clear Customs and Immigration in Panama, but while here, we thought we may as well go for a reconnaissance of the town. A free water taxi man was operating on the moorings, it was a quick whistle, a shake of a hooter, or a call on the VHF and he would be on our side, they were brilliant! One thing that does freak you out though is when those big, bulky fibreglass taxi boats coming thumping up alongside your shiny yacht hull, you take a gulp. It made me realise, as a Kiwi, we do tend to treat our yachts like pieces of jewellery by comparison. Almost every Panamanian vessel was simply a work horse. Those things bang, smash and clonk into anything and everything, but boy they get some work done! This was not the sort of port you would throw down your tender and outboard to get ashore. Besides, ours was safely deflated down in the lazarette with the outboard to avoid any temptation from local undesirables who might fancy them.

We locked Marmax up tightly and took off for another land adventure. Man alive, talk about  that land of contrasts!

If you have ever seen the T.V. Show, 'The Amazing Race”, you will get a realisation of what it is like to travel as “Team Marmax!' when ashore. We had to get two taxis into town because there are 5 of us and well...5 to a taxi is simply, the law. After we hailed this guy down, and he in turn, hailed another for us, we were taken on a wildly interesting route, through, what looked like government housing, outrageously coloured shacks piled on top of one another among piles of rubbish. We got road blocked by a singing and marching band of people in traditional dress, diverted by the military and police for some sort of cyclist race, along a magnificently landscaped waterfront precinct with miles of patriotic flags, stunning modern buildings and stadiums sprinkled among derelict, once grand mansions and accommodations from the past legacy of the American Army, deserted embassies...you name it!

We wanted to check out “Old Panama Town”, which had just celebrated its 500 year anniversary. To get to such a destination, one has to speak into a translator app on your phone, show the Spanish, non-English speaking taxi driver where we want to go. He has to speak back into it in Spanish for those who do not know how they work, or you have to teach them how to speak into the phone over the din from the music blaring inside the taxi. Much hand gesturing, smiling, nodding, head shaking, then clapping. He understands! Phew!

Well worth the ride into town! We had a ball! The Panamanians are going hell for leather restoring their wonderful old buildings which have survived time...only just. Though not quite as elaborate as Europe, the churches were grand. Les got the opportunity to have a chat with the Patron Saint of Fishermen, Virgen del Carmen. He thanked her for his fishing abilities and asked permission to keep having fun. I was pleased to note, amongst all his fervent whispering, he also asked her to bless me too. It was quite extraordinary as her statue plaster eyes seemed to follow him around the church even as Les sidled out the door; I swear she winked at him on the way out!

Virgen del Carmen - The Patron Saint of Fishermen (Yes, spelt Virgen)

There were some rather incredible bronze statues about, many of them depicting babies, children, women and war; as you would expect, every one of them had heroic stories in Spanish which we took the time to decipher on our translator app. The usual colourful markets, but this time, many were authentic Panamanian artisan work. The art galleries were uniquely superb, the buildings...well I am happy as a pig in mud taking photos of such beauty. Let's say, they have not yet succumbed to the “blandness” of tourism or lost their direction whilst embracing their history and artistic talents. Personally, I believe the way in which some host countries are welcoming cruise ships, are the ruination of authenticity and culture in many ports. When you travel by yacht, it is painful to watch. Enough said.

I have dozens of photos of gorgeous buildings of Old Panama...but sadly not enough time to show you them all!

Old Panama in the distance, dwarfed by the new Panama City behind

Of course, Panama is the home of the Panama hat, who would imagine you could also get pink and green panamas? No prices in many of the shops, but everyone was friendly despite not speaking our lingo, they were great barterers and gave us reasonable prices. Les and I indulged in a rather romantic lunch in a great restaurant called the 'Cosmopolitan', also the coolest air-conditioning, great wifi and very cold beer!. We partook in a  meal of delightfully super crunchy pork crackle and a sensational clam broth finished off with a chicken baquettes'. We thanked our friendly, attentive waiter and delighted him with our compliments for not only the best restaurant meal we had had in months, but the very best service ever. Simple food, but perfection. When on extended yacht cruises, you do miss a good “crunch!” The food everywhere looked rather fabulous but, as we are participating in our own 'Amazing Race', we could not dither about as we had to meet Glenys, Bruce and Janelle back at the Balboa Yacht Club at 5.00 pm.

Panama tied with Paraquay as 'The Planets Number One Happiest Destination' in the latest Gallup Global Emotions Report. I'd believe it!

Beers and rumbos' at the yacht club, a thatched roof with bar, a book swap, two broken toilets and no staff who understood English. Another night in harbour because Customs and Immigration at the yacht club were closed on Monday, then off we headed next morning to clear the country. Into the Balboa Yacht Club. Tempers getting short with the “official” not knowing a stitch of English. Finally, via that handy little translator app, he told us to go to another office at the Flamenco Marina. We had it on good authority, Balboa could do the task but it seemed not. This conversation took over an hour to extract from the guy. In the meantime, a very friendly taxi driver was badgering us to jump in his taxi nearby. How many times can you tell someone the word “NO!” Turns out, all 5 of us (forget the law) ended up in 'Louis'' taxi, a beaten up affair with very loud music, at least 20 tree fresheners hanging off his rear vision mirror and a safety belt connected to the car with clothes pegs. We took off like a bat out of hell to the next marina, 15 minutes away. A much larger Customs and Immigration, still no English spoken! The trusty Translator app out – it was quite ridiculous really.

All the Marmax crew lined up like naughty school kids with our bags on the floor getting scrutinized by these very official uniformed women. We may as well have arrived from the moon! Fortunately, a cute Costa Rican guy lit up our morning by saying “Hello!” in English to us. Hooray! A Translator! He was clearing his bosses boat, an 86 foot luxury yacht. Bruce got marched off to another room for interrogation and the third inspection of our papers and passports while we waited, and waited, and waited along the wall of that Customs office. 'Louis', the taxi driver would not leave us. He insisted on waiting outside. After a great length of time waiting in Customs, Glenys went downstairs to attempt to pay off 'Louis'. “Please go Louis! We don't NEED YOU! Understand?” (Translator app time) He ended up following Glenys up to Customs; clearly he was well known to these ladies. Glenys finally got rid of him. Bruce came back relieved to have gotten clearance. They had Marmaxs' photo on their computer but could not pick up the position of the AIS ( Automatic Identification System). All explainable. Clearance papers were ready to be handed across. “Where's the taxi driver?” they demanded. “Gone”, we gestured. “You sent him away????” “Yes!”Oh dear, some very upset Customs officials – the look of horror in their eyes! Priceless! It seems we had made a mistake in sending Louis away! Fortunately Glenys had the forethought to get his mobile number. Customs rang it, berated him for leaving us and next thing he turns up smiling at the office. The clearance papers got given to Louis, not Captain Bruce. We got escorted to Louis' waiting taxi at the door with a guard standing over it. All 5 of us bundled in again and, despite Glenys pleading with him to let us stop at a shop to get some potatoes and bread, we went directly to the Balboa Yacht Club, Louis handed our papers into the other Customs dude and it was made clear  to us that we had to leave Panama immediately. 

Refueling at Balboa

Sometimes you come across fuel jetties which can slice and dice your fenders and boat!
Marmax got slammed up against these beauties, thank goodness we were quick off the mark.
Not exactly a calm anchorage!!

We refueled at the diesel dock and motored out of the harbour, again, escorted by multitudes of huge, brown pelicans zooming across the water and soaring up in 'V' formations. Sails up and we were off to the Las Perlas Islands, some 30 odd nautical miles away. The Las Perlas Islands are nestled just like a pearl, in the Gulf of Panama. We arrived in the dark and anchored up off the stunning, Don Bernado Beach, located on Isla Pedro Gonzalez...and what a beauty! A long white sandy beach, what everyone dreams of in a remote tropical island, with coconut and mango trees dripping with fruit to the sandy edge. 

Don Bernado Beach, located on Isla Pedro Gonzalez

Out tender was still in lock down so we blew up Janelles' kayak and Janelle ferried Glenys, Bruce and I ashore. You see, technically, we have cleared this country, so we only had a brief visit. We were not too certain about the sharks and crocodile situation here so we played with caution. After some beach combing, collecting mangoes and coconuts, the heat got the better of us and Bruce, Janelle and I swam back to Marmax, a fair way out off the beach. Hang it, it seemed safe. We had been observing several native fishermen in their little boats, pulling up ashore to feast on mangoes for lunch; they ate them skin and all. The main boatman waded around in the water tendering his boat while waiting for his mates to return. That's a green light for us, so off we swam, once again with our new flying buddies overhead; the pelicans who looked curiously down on us, tilting their heads sideways to eye us up as if they were short-sighted, swooping down over us. Apart from Janelle copping a painful whipping from an unidentified jelly-fish, we made it back alive. I'd like to think, the pelicans were guarding us.

In the afternoon, we lifted anchor to go circumnavigate Isla Senora, a pelican breeding sanctuary. Glenys kayaked in ashore to check out where the baby pelicans were learning to fly, while the rest of us stood on standby aboard Marmax floating about. We knew the pelicans would go into flight mode once they met Glenys, which they did...in their hundreds! Rather a spectacular sight, putting it mildly.

Isla Senora, a pelican sanctuary...if you look hard you'll see Glenys in among them all!

We also passed a native village on Isla Pedro Gonzalez. It was a colourful landscape, full of small houses, red, blue and green satellite dishes, a few white memorial crosses, dozens of traditional fishing boats pulled up on a sandy beach and sadly, sitting in a circle of household rubbish which they disposed of over their front fences, down onto the rocks fringing the sea! This was our first major letdown of seeing human pollution on our entire trip to date. I mentioned earlier, the land of contrasts? One mile away, a brand new, at a guess, 60 berth, marina development with 4 luxury launches moored on it, topped off by a salubrious boat club presiding over it. It seemed so out of place here in such a remote location!

A super show of rocketing dolphins zooming vertically up in the air entertained us on the way to our next anchorage, Isla De San Jose'. This island was only 3 hours away and a completely different environment to what we had just left. We spent the night off two beaches, both filled with smooth, round, black rocks; no sand at all. Quite bazaar. Only one coconut tree in the anchorage. The whole island was covered in some sort of smothering vine. We went to this island because we thought there were no rivers for crocodiles to inhabit on this side. Needless to say, Glenys and Janelle went off for the first paddle in the kayak and came flying back like Maoris racing in a waka, a crocodile had crossed their bow! We were seeking a safe anchorage so we could all jump over the side and clean or waterline and hull for entry to the Galapagos. The topsides had also gotten quite grubby coming through the canal with so many fenders, froth and bubbles alongside. We had kept the waterline clean throughout all of our travels until we got to the land of sharks and crocs...if it wasn't for Galapagos, it would not have needed cleaning.

Isla Del Ray

By now it was blowing 17-20 knots, we motored about for another anchorage, the wind was on the nose. The swells were too violent to enter the water anywhere here, so sails up and we took off to check out a tiny sheltered cove at Isla Del Ray. This was truly a scene from a Hollywood movie set. Very pretty with its 3 beaches surrounding a horseshoe shaped bay. Calm waters, lush, tropical and , this time – pure black, fine sand! Weird!

We donned makeshift 'stinger suits' to prevent getting stung by jelly-fish and 4 of us lept over the side, working quickly, to clean Marmax's hull. The water was very murky here so we posted Janelle on the top deck as the shark and croc spotter. There was no way she was going to jump in among jelly-fish! Nothing to report but Bruce looked very attractive in his stinger suit, compliments of Glenys' wardrobe. Let's say, it was good entertainment!

While lunch was being made, I slipped ashore in the kayak for some photos of this gorgeous little spot. From the yacht, it looked pristine. My heart leapt into my mouth when I got ashore! There was a rise in the beach, edged by native hibiscus' and mango trees dropping their fruit straight into the hot black sand and cooking them. On top of the rise, I was horrified to find piles of household rubbish under the trees. Mainly plastic bottles, jandals, (Thongs for Ozzies) and hundreds of 'croc' type footwear. Wow...it would only take a day of villagers to clean this mess up. Why O why do they allow this irresponsible behavior? Photos taken, back to the boat and we were off, straight into a 20 knot wind. Nice. It was going to be a great sail down the Columbian Coast by the look of it.

After we had reefed down, I had just thought out loud, usually goes wrong on these long trips. I wonder what this 1300 nautical mile adventure would offer us? Look up immediately and discover our wind indicator has just disappeared off our masthead. It was there 5 minutes before! Glenys and I LOVED that instrument. Was it a flying pelican or the mounting winds? Grrr! We can live without it, but it was an annoying loss!

On our 4th day of sailing, we estimated to arrive in the Galapagos Islands hopefully, Thursday the 6th June or Friday the 7th. This, initially, had not been a merry ol' ride as we had expected. We have had dead calm, airless hours of floating about, and within 15 minutes, it could blow up to 25 knots so we were reefing sails constantly. Some nights, the wind shift has been an immediate 180 degrees, bewildering on an ink black night, with no stars! The fluky weather is no surprise. The Galapagos Islands sit right on and near the equator and also astride a merging El Nino current from the Gulf Of Panama and the cold Humboldt current from the south. The south east trade wind is the prevailing wind with plenty of rain squalls upsetting the regularity of a good sail. There are no heavy swells, like the Atlantic or Caribbean Seas, but very choppy seas. Still hot as blazes, the yacht full of wet weather gear and clothes drying out. We have been thoroughly spoilt for perfect weather prior to this trip, so it was payback time I guess. For those of you watching our PredictWind tracking, you will see our frustration in our course!

A special Mother and daughter moment in calm seas!

Day 6, oh joy! A steady 17-24 knot trade wind arrived. It is so dark out on the water, still no moon or stars. Marmax gallops forward like a giant white horse with phosphorescence coming out her nostrils and flowing down the sides of the boat; there is no horizon, just blackness with the water, seamlessly joined to the sky. It is so surreal doing watches at night... 

Plenty of action here with the wind and ocean movement, but the boat hatches have had to be locked down making it so hot downstairs. Marmax College has doubled the workload for Janelle, with the boat lurching and bouncing and so much dolphin and Booby bird action going on upstairs, full marks to Janelle for her new ability to concentrate while the weirdest things are going on outside! One example: Glenys is upstairs reading the book “Knockdown”. It's all about the tragic Sydney Hobart Race of 1998. She is reading a passage aloud to the boys in the cockpit about these two rookie girls who are performing their first sailor rescue ever from a chopper in atrocious sea conditions. I have just finished a study of a passage from a logbook of the tragic Mount Cook rescue of Mark Inglis and Phil Doole in 1982 for Janelles' English lesson downstairs. Her task is to accompany a helicopter pilot in a sea rescue. She has to write the sequence of make believe events in a logbook. Marmax is on a 45 degree sailing angle thrashing through waves. This is all going on at once, in real time, to the minute. What happens next? Bruce yells out....”Chopper overhead!” What the? We have not seen a helicopter since we left New Zealand! Besides that, we are hundreds of miles from ANYWHERE! How can it be? Anyway, that's what I mean by weird things happening all the time. We clambered up on deck, waved at the military chopper, spied a frigate in the distance, and got back to our lessons. Janelle's learning is becoming something out of this world, it was a great idea to take her out of school for a year! Glenys will chat about the amusing Booby birds who have joined us aboard. The dolphins have been, as usual, a great joy and a source of constant excitement to us all. Thousands and thousands of the beautiful things!

One of the crazy booby birds hitching a lift!

Our final night before getting to Galapagos, the wind dropped right off, the skies are brilliantly clear with a quarter moon doing her best to light our path; the Milky Way sits at the top of the mast as we slide over the equator at 3.39 am on Thursday morning. I came on watch at midnight. We are now motoring on auto-helm so this watch is a doddle. We are constantly scanning the horizons for other boats as many of them do not appear to have  radars or AIS. I choke! There is a starboard light sliding right alongside us! Surely not. Everything flashes through your mind in a panic...that's right, surely not. We now have our bow navigation lights on as we are steaming (masthead when sailing). The starboard light flies away...its a Booby bird, its white chest reflecting bright green. Crisis over. I swing my head around quickly, there is another flying port light on the other side. The navigation lights are swooping everywhere. Hilarious! The bow looks like a Christmas tree, the boobys' are loving it!

Marmax is being spring cleaned in readiness for Customs shortly. School is out for Janelle for a week. We have waited all our lives to get to the Galapagos, and we all have high hopes that it will be the icing on the cake for our amazing sailing adventure across the seas. We can't wait to share it all with you on our next post, so until then, you all stay safe.

Les has just yelled out “Land Ho!”, Glenys has just lost a bucket over the side, so its retrieval time. Time to get going...

Adios from the Galapagos Islands!

Bruce, Glenys, Janelle, Les and Debbie