Galapagos

It´s great here, going swimming with the Sea lions
this afternoon, water is excellent, going on a full
day excursion tomorrow, looking forward to it all.

Stuff is cheap here, sort of, good food and a beer for
lunch for about 6$, beer is $1.50 each, diesel is
cheap $2.50 per gallon (US) but it cost $570 to get me
and Prism landed through customs, immigration and
fumigation. Would possibly have been cheaper if i
could speak Spanish, lessons start tomorrow I hope.

San Francisco to Galapagos

First full day at sea in Prism this year, going south on longitude 123 West, at a somewhat slow pace. A large storm is brewing to the west and might hit the Oregon coast on Jan 4th morning. We should be much south of the storm, around 30 degrees north latitude, all things being equal. Ipso facto the storm will not affect us so much, we should get strong SE breezes starting Jan 2 or so.

Bruce has not been well, seasick, and resting in bed. That's good, it's better than being sick and discouraged. I've let him rest, we have had little traffic to deal with for many hours.

The first day at sea with the new retirement, what a novel feeling. No going back to the work in Iqaluit, no going back to the house in Port Alberni, just going forward on this boat, what a novel feeling. Instead of retiring to daytime TV, long coffee breaks in Tim Hortons and noon hour hockey, none of that, I'm sailing this boat where I will. Right now, it's due south from San Francisco, in the clear blue Pacific, wondering if a storm will keep me occupied tonight. NO TV, no internet, no phones, no family, no friends, just me and Bruce Taylor, what a new day.

Prism seems to be doing well, the engine starts and runs, batteries charge, sails go up and down. The larder is full, we have at least another 5 days of fresh food before the preserved, canned, dried and other foodstuffs are brought out. The radios are working, I'm getting the weather by HF fax. The winds are fickle though, so today I changed the headsail to the big genoa, that's helped. All this afternoon the winds have been light SE and so Prism steers herself pretty good into that breeze and that helps. The windvane can be a pain to get going in light airs, it doesn't steer too good until Prism is doing her full 5 knots. The Autopilot takes alot of electrical power and it is always used when the engine is on.

The new Sitex AIS 'Radar" is great. It receives the signal transmitted from all big ships and displays the track and position of the big ships. It also has an alarm so if a big ship gets within 4 miles, it beeps pretty loud and pretty long. Last night whilst Bruce slept his seasickedness off I got an alarm, not that I was asleep and needed waking up, but as a test the new system passed with flying colours.

Jan 2.
I hope this is the rhythm that we can have all the way to the Galapagos. Last night I took over from Bruce around 11 PM and was on watch until he got up at 7 AM. During my night watch, I sail the boat, and every 20 minutes or so scan the horizon for whatever. I take catnaps, sitting in the pilots seat watching straight ahead, then jumping up and checking behind in the darkness. I run with the big nav lights off, just a strobe on the masthead. That way my night vision is good and a ship on the horizon will not see those low lights anyways, and the batteries last longer without the big drain. If required I can turn on the low nav lights, but so far, all the big ships in American waters show up nicely on the AIS. Last night, I saw nothing. This morning we saw a container ship and hailed it on the VHF. It was outbound from Hawaii to Long Beach, it did see our radar reflector and we had a small chat.

Bruce is recovered from his seasickedness and moves around doing all sorts of stuff, he is presently studying the Furuno Radar manual, he will soon be our radar expert which I need. He's pumped and stoked to reach the Galapagos, so there should be no problem getting there with him on board. It's kind of neat to have him aboard, since he and I were colleagues in Iqaluit for years and got lots of stories to re-tell. 'And what would Larry think of our adventure?', so we spend an hour or two discussing good ol' Larry Gibbons. It is a bit of a double edged sword though, now whatever happens will be reported to my colleagues and friends in Iqaluit, no longer can the option be 'I won't be telling anyone about this'. Now Bruce can tell them, well Jim did this or that or he didn't have this thing or this thing didn't work, and yes indeed, his boat is full of 'useful stuff that was surplus to the requirements of the company'.

So far, for the past 16 hours we have been sailing generally SE, full sails, close hauled in light winds and small waves, getting about 5 knots with minimum heel. Generally an excellent ride, fast and easy in the direction we want. The wind vane is steering the boat, but it doesn't have to do much, Prism is pretty balanced on this tack in this wind. The SW winds that the weather maps predicted for today seem to be here, and so far a nice mild 10 or 12 knots. The day is getting warm, here at 34 degrees North latitude. If these winds hold, the next scheduled event is::: miss Isla de Guadeloupe, offshore Mexico.

Overnight the winds freshened and the waves built of course so that the boat was going far too fast and pounding into the waves. Bruce liked it, he wanted to get south fast and we were. Alas, we took a lot of water over the bow and the anchor locker filled up with water and flooded the front berth and cabin floor around 2 AM. So it was with quite a bit of alarm that I saw all this water in the boat in the dark in the Pacific in the rough seas, but all was required was a bunch of moping. I put the Staysail down and we jogged along with double reefed main for a couple of hours, then up the staysail again, then up the genoa, then up all the reefs then off all sails and onto motor for 3 hours.

Jan 5, Saturday.
After the dawn motoring, during which I had a nap to recover from my overnight exertions and mental stress, we are on a beam reach at 6 knots with the windvane and all sails. I stuffed a pillow case into the anchor chain hole and lets hope that adventure never happens again. Today has been easy sailing in warm fog, and lets hope the wind stays like this for the rest of the Baja. Bruce and I are reading, napping, eating chocolate bars and listening to Bluegrass.

In the evening the wind came from the south again, probably the influence of a large storm in San Diego right now. Prism had a half of the big genoa out, and a reefed main and was on a close reach and just hauled ass all night at 6 to 7 knots. There was no waves to speak of until dawn, but even then the waves didn't slow us down or get onboard. A great night of fast sailing. Bruce slept and snored contentedly in the leeward bunk.

The dolphins came to play with the bow again. To see them in the dark, in these very bioluminescent waters is really an impressive light show. You get a sense of where they are coming from at night that you can't get in the day. At night, they show as glowing streaks of white many yards to the side and they come, usually in pairs towards the bow. They congregate at the bow, swimming close to the bow, diving down from ahead to come up from behind to the bow. A dolphin below will cause a huge trail of white bioluminescence and the dolphin above is silhouetted. They spend a long time playing in the bow, and then suddenly the white trails behind the dolphins zoom off in all directions and disappear.

What made dolphins play in the bows of boats, this game could only have been invented a few hundred years ago, maybe a thousand in the Mediterranean Sea near Rome. And consider the first dolphins to play this game, getting very close to the bow of a ship full of hungry seamen with no stores of canned food, just barrels of salt beef. How very very simple to harpoon a dolphin, just a few feet directly below you. It seems odd to me that dolphins would invent such a game, and continue to perfect the game, if such a game makes you easy dead supper.

There hasn't been any traffic to speak off, one container ship heading into Long Beach from Hawaii and one bulk carrier headed into the Isla Guadeloupe. Otherwise the sea has been completely empty of ships, yachts or fishers. We see a black albatross working the waves every once and a while, but very little else to see or report. Bruce and I spend the time eating, sleeping, reading, doing some little chores, cleaning a bit, talking about helicopters and working on helicopters.

10 Jan

Since 5 PM 2 days ago we have had generally North winds, sometimes a bit west or east of North, and Prism has made the most of it, getting 6 knots most of the time, and going in the right direction. I've learned to use the main sail on downwind sailing, after years of thinking that the genoa was the only sail for downwind. I found the genoa to be a very rolly sail, it rolls the boat with every wave or gust it seems. It also collapses and flogs really easy, loudly, and I'm sure expensively. After Bruce commented on the very rolly ride that comes from a genoa sheeted hard to a whisker pole, I thought to experiment with the main for downwind sailing.

I have excellent gybe preventers, nylon 3/8" double braid from the cockpit, through brakes, to blocks on the forward toe rail to a stainless hook stowed on the lifelines. On the boom, on either side, a 3/8" dacron double braid fixed to the outer end and a bowline stowed on a cleat near the mast end. To hook up a preventer I simply undo the brake in the cockpit, go amidships and take the hook off the lifelines, take the dacron line off the mast end boom cleat and snap the hook into the bowline. Then I come back to the cockpit, pull tight, set the brake and now the boom is prevented. To really suck the boom and main down tight, I let the mainsheet go and over-prevent, then pull the mainsheet in. Done.

My Cap Horn windvane seems to either be temperamental, or has a long learning curve. Off the wind with a big main set is a challenge for any helm. Especially me. But with the windvane control lines jammed so the tiller is neutral I see that the main drives the boat into wind and the windvane has to react and correct. With a bit of patience I can re-jam the control so the tiller has a bit of weather helm when the windvane is vertical. That way the windvane corrects from a neutral rudder, not an amidships rudder. Of course, I could just reef the main and ease the weather helm, but I'm greedy, I want my course and I want top speed, so everyone on this ship, windvane included can work at 110% or suffer the floggings and privations that my depraved mind often imagines.

But that's not the real answer either, what is required is a balanced rig so the rudder can easily be turned by the Cap Horn Windvane. The really nice thing about sailing in these warm trade winds is that I can have the time to learn to sail a balanced rig. In Tofino I get trade winds from the NW and I get out to learn how to sail. But it's cold and who has the patience to fuss with the sails, sheets, halyards, wind vane etc etc etc when you are cold and maybe wet. You got your longjohns on, you start to sweat if you work too hard, you got your rainpants and rainboots on, it just goes on and on. Here in the warm tropical trades, clothing is light and easy, and I have about 1700 miles on this tack with these winds to learn how to make this boat sail with the wind slightly abeam, fast, on the windvane. Do you think I'll learn by then?

11 Jan,

This can be frustrating sailing, light winds, lumpy seas. I have the main out one side and the genoa on a pole out the other side. The wind comes in gusts to about 8 knots or less and on less occasions the waves deflate the sails and slam them around. So the boat gets moving with the 8 knot wind, then the wind dies and the waves slam the sails for a couple of slams, then the wind moves the boat and what a tiring bit of sailing. I've got to learn to sail downwind in light airs without slamming sails or motoring. When the wind does come in, the boat launches forward, the windvane is very accurate and you can hear the happy bow wave gurgling off the hull as you type on the computer. But wait, in a couple of minutes the wind dies, the boat slows and you can hear the nasty sail slamming again. How much easier it would be to simply maintain enough wind to get 5 knots on course and keep those sails full and still.

We had a glorious tropical day today. It was warm and sunny so I had a seawater bucket shower on the aft deck, and a bottle of homemade beer courtesy of Dan Lemire. The winds were about 10 knots from the perfect direction for a broad reach, and the windvane steered the sails perfectly. In the afternoon the winds got Prism going as much as 6.5 knots and the windvane was wobbling a bit, so one reef in the main and complete control at 6 knots on course. But since then the wind has been fickle in direction and strength, keeping me busy with sails, poles, windvane, and listening to expensive flogging.

The wind problem was solved with twin foresails. I had the genoa boomed out to port using the end of the boom as a pole, and the genakker poled out to starboard with the pole. It worked great and sailed us 60 miles overnight. The windvane kept us dead before the wind and what a great relaxing night. I slept my watches away, awakening every half hour to find everything calm and both sails filled and no traffic. We haven't seen any traffic of any kind for a week now, nothing, not a freighter yacht fishing vessel or even an airplane. Nothing at all. So that's why we haven't been able to keep in touch with Tracy or Linda.

This morning, we started out great with a more easterly course to make up for the south of course overnight with the twin foresails. But by noon, the wind was dead and since the batteries are so bad, I decided to motor for a couple of hours to see if there is wind out there, and to correct to the East. The next Islands on the way are Revillagegado and I want to leave them to seaward and pass inshore of them. But this south setting course will have us hitting them and that's not a good idea.

14 Jan, 0200 PST.

Next stop, the Doldrums. Last night the wind blew light from the North and with a tight gennaker and main I was able to hold a course of about 110 Magnetic and so went across the north of the Island and left it behind around dawn.

I certainly hope we have hit the NE trades, as this is the latitude of them and it feels like them. Very light breeze from the N or NNE and warm. You can walk around outside all day hot in a tee shirt and at night a long sleeved shirt is all that is required. This evening the winds are from the NNE and hardly causing a ripple on the sea, certainly not a single whitecap is in sight anywhere.

I have Prism doing a fine speed of 4 to 5 knots on a course of around 110 Magnetic. The genaker is upfront, pulling very good and the full main is set just to flutter at the leach. The Cap Horn windvane is behaving better and better all the time as my experience with it increases. I've learned to read it's problems when the course is not kept as fine as I want. Perhaps it is correcting to windward a lot, ease that main, or tighten the weather helm windvane control rope. But tonight I've got it steering a very fine course and the genaker is kept full and pulling close to the wind.

Our course has to be close to get as much easting as we can. Soon enough we have to turn due south and cross the Doldrums, which looking at the weather maps that we can get, seem to be just a couple of degrees wide. They are around 5 degrees North and only a couple of degrees wide, and then we are into the SE trades. It will be hard, south of the doldrums to get east enough to land at the Galapagos, so above the doldrums, where the wind is blowing NNE is the preferred sailing to the east. Right now it's great, the wind is light and warm, the sails pull in the right direction at a good pace, the wind vane holds the course very straight, and there isn't a single boat in sight.

There hasn't been any traffic at all, whatsoever, since just south of the American border. Then we saw one freighter. Since then, nothing, not even a plane overhead. That is the advantage of this offshore route, there is no traffic to worry about.

Bruce and I have a good schedule going. I start the day at 0000 and stand watch until after dawn. I usually make breakfast soon after Bruce gets up and then he starts the watch whist I go to sleep in the forward bunk. My sleep can be interrupted to sail Prism, since Bruce is not a sailor, but a watchman. Most often though Prism is sailing herself and I get to sleep until 10 or 11. Then I get up and make lunch. Bruce sometimes goes for a nap, but often we do chores or maintenance, or listen to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in Nashville, a mutual favorite. I get the ship ready for darkness and then make supper at sunset. After supper Bruce might nap until 8 PM and then I nap until 0000. It works well and I'm the only one who can fix whatever happens in the night, I know all the systems and I know how to sail this boat.

Bruce is getting his sealegs and is doing some sailing. This morning the windvane wasn't quite set right for the very light breeze and so he had to babysit a little by assisting the tiller to weather every once and a while to stop it going too close to the wind and stalling. He also tried a bit of bird fishing, a pretty stupid seagull was determined to eat the green lure we are dragging. Later in the day I got some good photos of the bird landing just a couple of feet behind the boat, and Bruce jerking the lure away from the stupid bird.

Well, a bit sad but the wind has died away, and now the sails are flogging as the windvane tries to keep the course with little steerage. But hope springs eternal, and when the wind briefly fills in, then I consult the GPS to see the time remaining to the Galapagos. No use to make long term plans when the wind is very little, wait until it fills for 5 minutes before you dream it will never fade again.

Bruce Taylor has been reminding me of Larry Gibbons lately, and what started that was the video that Joe Power made of Larry Gibbons. One afternoon in Cape Dwyer, Larry was taking a nap with his door open. Alas he snores quite loud and Joe had his video camera along to tape the whole thing. Now as I sit here late in the night I can hear Bruce quite clearly snoring and sure enough, he sounds like Larry Gibbons did on the videotape.

I don't know if Bruce can be considered the birdman of the Pacific, but today, under his watch a seagull type bird made at least 25 passes at the masthead before finally landing and staying. Even now, half way through the night, despite a flashing strobe light beside it, despite shouts to vamoose, shining the 1 million candle power spotlight, a very rolly ride and occasional flapping of sails, the seagull is still perched there. I think it usually sleeps on the water, since land is about 150 miles away, but last night a shark probably tried to eat him (or her) and so it has roosted here for the night. It blocks off the strobe light to any traffic ahead of us, but we haven't seen any traffic for a week or more. I told Bruce that half the world can't see us anymore, but Bruce said half the world was not looking for us.

Porpoises or dolphins came by again today and they seemed to be fishing and busy all around. They did take a few minutes out of their day to play with the bow, not very serious but some surfacing close by. See the attached photos.

The sailing has been automatic for the past day. The sails are set for a close haul port tack and the wind comes and goes from the N or NNE. The windvane is doing a great job, keeping the Genaker just filled when the wind is here and patiently maintaining steerage in the gentle puffs when the wind is not here. It is steering a very close course, very accurate. The sails flog a bit during the gentle puffs since the waves are rocking the boat and spilling the wind. But we are making a few knots at least and up to 6 knots on a generally ESE course, and that is the course we want.

15 Jan

First thing this morning, clean up bird shit from the corner of my nice Genaker, I'm sure that bird poop is very corrosive to thin nylon, and off the deck. Then the stupid bird left, thank goodness. A day of generally NE winds, light and the Genaker does a fine job of it. Unfortunately the Cap Horn has been very erratic today, wobbling through the sea, and not rounding up into wind as required. It has led to 3 or 4 quick releases and save the day from an accidental gybe. Very poor performance, but I think the cause might be a bad block, and tomorrow I'll be changing it.

Today we saw dolphins or porpoises frequently and this evening whenever they came near they had a bioluminescent trail behind them.

Bruce and I did the GPS math and found we were about half way today. We saw a freighter around 10:30 PM and hailed it on the VHF. He did see us on radar, but he couldn't help us by sending an e-mail.

18 Jan 0200

Saw another freighter today, makes sense since we are on the Great Circle Route from Panama Canal to Honolulu. He saw us on radar as well and answered the radio, but he had to get the captain to get permission to send an e-mail and he said that was a bit of a problem.

The changed block has vastly improved the windvane, it steers a straight course and so we are going alot faster as well. Tonight the wind is giving us a course of about 110 true and this oints right straight at 10 degrees North by 90 degrees West and that is just above the doldrums and due north of the Galapagos.

Island Prism has been doing great the past couple of days, sailing generally on course and fast. We did sail a bit south of course with the genaker flying, can't get as close to the wind and therefore as East as possible, but we did go fast. The winds have been stronger since dawn, so the genaker came down and the big genoa went up and now we can point into wind more and still have good speed. So now the course is more Easterly, and around 5.5 knots. The wind has not raised any whitecaps, so I'm very happy with speed and course.

Bruce and I are getting tired of the meals, generally a can of meat, rice and that's it. I'm out of beans for bean salad, out of canned vegetables, seems the same old same old. I'll have to get more imaginative for my meals, but I have been enjoying couscous and balsamic vinegar lately, with sundried tomatoes and olives. My tastes are a bit more simple, rice beans couscous and a bit of canned salmon or tuna. Maybe I should switch him over to the simple fare, he could use some beltline to provide the shortfall of calories.

Next stop, the Doldrums. Lots of lightning spotted this evening off to south, the direction of the doldrums. Whenever we are becalmed it's a bit disappointing, especially since our entire lives have been dedicated to schedules and production. Sitting around with the sails flopping and the heat sweltering just irrates, and the scheduled arrival date in the Galapagos seems violated. So when the wind begins to blow again, what a relief and of course the course is re-plotted, the new ETA calculated. And the optimistic cry 'Next stop the Doldrums' subject, of course, to the wind staying with us at this speed and strength for the next 7 days. Seven days to the Doldrums and the thunder and lightning show ahead. I'm not very happy about the lightning, I'm quite scared of it and hope that none of it strikes me.

Saturday Jan 19, 0350 PST, about 250 miles south of Acapulco. Another day of perfect winds, blowing about 10 to 12 from the NNE, giving us a course of 110 Magnetic and speed of about 5.5 to 6. There seems to be a favourable current however and the GPS gives us +7 knots groundspeed. Perfect course and great speed. The Cap Horn steering gear seems fixed right now, the new blocks replaced yesterday worked. When the windvane holds a tight course, only wobbles 5 degrees or so, then the sails fill up and pull and the boat accelerates very well and goes above 5 knots. For the past 3 days we have had these 10 knot winds from the NNE, there is rarely a whitecap to be seen, but Prism has been tearing along above 5 knots. There has sometimes been a wind chop as well and Prism just powers through those, hardly slowing down at all. These new sails and the new bottom seem to make all the difference, Prism is a very well performing sail boat right now.

The dolphins come back every night, and when the moon goes down before dawn they give a great show. They leave contrails of bioluminescence, so it's easy to see how many there are and exactly what they are doing. This morning they also had a new trick, they can set off a bioluminescent 'bomb', it's a mini-explosion of underwater light. There is no other way to explain it, they seem to call out in their high pitched underwater sonar and this sets off an explosion of light, and they do it back and forth to each other, or as they come close to the boat. What a light show, contrails zooming all around the boat with 'barks' of light along the way.

Saw another freighter just before dawn, it came a little closer than others. Everything worked like it should, the Sitex 'Radar' set off the alarm when it came in range. I didn't try to hail it, it was a Chinese freighter and I didn't think it would send an e-mail for me, being Chinese and all.

20 Jan.

A quiet day for wind, rarely got over 5 knots and just now starting to feel the contrary current. Overnight was fast with lots of easting, but a bit wet due to a leaky front hatch, cursed thing. So we closed up the front hatch, lack of ventilation was the next issue. I want to work on removing weight from the front of this boat, it seems heavy and gets wet with the least amount of waves. The entire boat is now very salt laden, the inside cushions and bedding are sticky with salt. I haven't used the fresh water in the tanks to clean any salt and it has just been tracked into the boat. I was hoping to get some rain by now, but no rain in the tropics at this time of year.

I got some weatherfax, finally after a couple or three days of nothing from Point Reyes. New Orleans is coming in strong right now, and it shows some winds for us due to the T-Pecker starting up. I thought the T-Pecker might blow up since a Low pressure went through lower Mexico the past couple of days. It does seem to be blowing right now, at 3 AM and we have gained speed and contrary waves.

This afternoon, right after lunch, a Hughes 500 single engine helicopter on floats appeared from the North at about 500 feet. It was painted red with a yellow diagonal stripe, search and rescue colours, but for who I could not say, it circled and left eastbound. Didn't hear anything on the radio or see anything else. For the record.

We are about 1000 miles out of Galapagos now, and the wx fax shows generally ENE winds to the doldrums, a very narrow band of doldrums, and then S or SW winds to Galapagos. Instead of staying up here in the north, battling contrary currents, trying to get easting, we might head more south. I'm thinking get to the doldrums fast, motor through them, and gamble on S or SW winds to take us right to the Galapagos. That way, no contrary current up here in the north, no beating into S winds to get to Galapagos after the doldrums, and today’s forecast of a narrow doldrums. So that's the new plan, but tomorrow will see if we effect it.

T-peckered.

The weather fax did show 35 knot winds blowing out of the Tehuantepec Gulf yesterday. Jimmy Cornell does warn, and so does Charlies Charts that gales will blow out of the Gulf frequently at the end of January and affect waters as far out as 100 miles. Well we got T-peckered and we were about 420 nautical miles offshore Salina Cruz, the Tehauntepec Gulf port. We had at least two weeks of gentle NE winds, lovely level sailing, no waves, fast with full Genoa and full main. We had been making some Easting but not a big amount. But the T-pecker winds hit and soon I reduced to Storm trysail and a hankie of a Genoa. The staysail is too tall for this boat, I can't tighten it up enough and it flutters bad. So at first we were forced a bit south of track in 30 knots of wind, on a close reach, but by late afternoon we were on a broad reach with the aft port quarter to the 8 foot waves. The wind continued all night and our course became due south and our speed was close to 5 knots. By morning the wind and waves had abated abit and the wind came around from the NNE, so we could resume our SE course, with shortened sail and at a good speed.

But that ended the idyllic tropical sailing and started the beating into the 20 knot NE trade winds. That is not a very happy point of sailing, especially on this boat. The boat has to carry enough sails to make good speed into the wind and waves, so she is leaned over, and she pounds into the waves. Some waves take the abuse well and just slow her a bit and brush easily aside from the bow. Others insist on being blown aboard on the windward side, from the bow to the stern. These waves then leak into every possible crack, crevice, window seal, skylight, main hatch, etc etc etc. Often times the rest of those waves simply land on anyone in the cockpit or main hatch top stair. What a mess it leaves below, the forward bunk soaked, the bathroom soaked, main hatch and galley soaked. It's not the cold that's the problem, but the sticky scratchy feel of dried salt on everything that makes your skin crawl. With no rain to wash away the salt it just accumulates and gets thicker. But hey, it's not 20 below. The other type of wave hits the boat with a solid smack that reverberates the hull front to back and makes you wonder if boats slowly get broke up by waves or suddenly one wave breaks her back wide open. Well, pump that bilge for comfort whenever those thoughts get washed up in the waves.

After a couple of days of rough sailing, with no interior ventilation, lots of salt water mopping up, meals of Triscuits and Jerky, we reached the edge of the doldrums late this afternoon. Except for the remains of the Northeast swell and wind waves, it was perfect. A nice light NE breeze, pushed us along on course at 6 knots. Prism has been sailing very very well, Cap Horn steers a course plus or minus 5 degrees. The big genoa and main draw great and when they are both working the boat gets up to 6 knots and the Cap Horn keeps her there.

It seems that the T-pecker pushed the Doldrums south a bit, so we are still sailing in light NE to E winds at 4 degrees, 40 minutes North. Since our course is about SSE to S we are crossing what should be the Doldrums at about 4 or 5 knots. The weather fax shows the doldrums to be about 60 miles wide, right about here, so I think we are getting a free ride, at least part way into the doldrums. On the other side is forecast SSE winds, changing to W winds. That would work fine, we would start out sailing East towards Galapagos and with the W wind curve SE and sail right into port.

Hope springs eternal and plans made aplenty, when the fair wind fills the sails. Especially in the doldrums.

Next stop the doldrums. Eventually that wind did push us into the doldrums and without further ado we started up the engine and motored due south. The dividing line between the two oceans and their respective weather, and it seemed very narrow at first. Within 6 hours of motor starting we had a light wind from the west. It seemed the doldrums were over since the weather fax had been calling for light Westerlies to blow on the south side. But such was a false hope of the doldrums and the northern limits of the southern ocean. The winds have proven fickle and light since then and are still such at 1 degree north, a full 180 miles south of the doldrums. Basically we have had a single 12 hour daylight period of strong southerlies, which enabled us to set full sail and get our full 6 knots at the destination. Otherwise it has been motorsailing with some small wind assist or none.

It's not hard to see how the sailor of yesterday came to grief in these waters. The GPS shows the currents clearly to us and they are strong and variable. You can see when there are currents sometimes because the waves get lumpy and confused. On the many days of calm, you can't really tell what the currents are doing, unless you have today's navigation miracle, the GPS. Sometimes the currents are .8 knots before us, but not always. There hasn't been a real sun or moon shot available because of the clouds, so if you had to rely on celestial navigation, you couldn't be sure of your location.

But it's easy for us, we simply open up the laptop and start the program and viola, a tiny boat symbol on a chart of the Galapagos. Calculate the time to get there, calculate the fuel available in the tank, then put the engine on, put the autopilot on and kick back to watch the scenery.

Bruce saw Wendal Island on the afternoon of Jan 29th, about 30 miles off the Port beam. Our first sighting of the Galapagos and the first land since Isla San Benedictio back on Jan 13th. Quite the modern miracle of the evolution of intelligence, that a beginner like me can sail this boat over two thousand miles to this exact pinpoint on the map. This voyage wasn't a miracle of my intelligence, but the miracle of the evolution of our intelligence.

The scenery has been a bit on the light side, nothing really to report but a couple of distant jumping dolphins and a brief shark fin sighting. This evening some sort of web footed seagull bird is spending the night on the aft rail. It took him a couple of tries and a couple of I can only imagine painful wire strikes before he got to the top of the man overboard bag and a somewhat stable perch for his webbed feet. Almost every night for the past two weeks some bird or another has tried to perch on the masthead or the forward rail, but this is the first successful aft rail roosting. This isn't too bad for me, I'll be able to clean up his poop in the morning from the deck, right now my expensive mainsail has streaks of corrosive bird poop after one bird spent the night on the masthead. I figure they are afraid of whatever swims below the surface on dark nights, else they would sleep peacefully whilst bobbing around on the water. It can't be very comfy trying to balance and sleep on a rocky boat, but how to sleep comfy on the bobbing ocean with sharks, dolphins, giant squids with slimly tentacles, and many other chicken breast salad liking creatures lurking in the dark waters. I'm not going to chase away this bird, just clean up his poop for him tomorrow morning.

Flying fish all over the place, I got hit in the arm by one. I usually throw one off the boat each night, dead of course. What rotten luck that poor flying fish had to hit this boat. He couldn't hit the side of a supertanker and fall back in the water with a bloody nose, no, hit the low deck of a small boat, and flop to death. It seems that Bruce has a hobby of knowing the names of animals when very young or in groups. So is it a school of flying fish or a flock of flying fish?

Last night at midnight PST Bruce had two boats in sight. They seemed to be fish boats and we passed between them and onwards. That is a total of 11 boats sighted, not a lot of vessel traffic since leaving the busy waters of San Francisco Bay. Neither of these two showed up on the AIS transponder system but they did show up on radar.

We changed the ship's time to local Galapagos time, two hours before PST and got an extra couple of hours of sunlight this evening. It makes my watch of midnight to 8 AM a lot longer, since the dawn at 0400 always got me energized again. It will be harder to stay awake from 0400 to dawn tonight. Tomorrow will be a busy busy day, got to get the anchor back in position, get the zodiac blown up, fix the throttle linkage on the engine, practice the immigration Spanish. Tomorrow should be the last day at sea, day after tomorrow in the morning we should be putting the anchor down in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos.

Tuesday Jan 29, 0111 PST. Abeam Plaza rocks, Galapagos Islands. This is the waypoint that Jimmy Cornell in his cruising routes of the world lists as the end point of your voyage to the Galapagos. From here it's a mere couple of hours down the coast to Puerto Ayora and customs and immigration. And that is where I'm at right now, under power with main sail set to catch the slight head wind breeze and give an extra knot of ground speed.

We crossed the equator today, I had a shower of Dan Lemire Beer and then a salt water shower, very refreshing and warm too. After that the wind piped up a little bit from the South and so we motor sailed since then to here.

In fact the motorsailing continued for another couple of hours and at 08:10 local we dropped the hook into the sand of Bahia Academy and so ended successfully the 30 day 2900 mile trip across the equator. I was pretty proud of how Prism did but there is always room for improvement, in this case a lot of room since a lot of pissy ass snags constantly wear at one's patience. All hatches leak in rain and heavy seas, the toilet leaks and backfills, the toilet door is broken, some brightwork is very dull and a lot of little things add up to a certain level of annoyance.

Next voyage might be to Ecuador, apparently they have a marina there that specializes in owners working on their boats and they have many semi and skilled workers starting at $15 a DAY. Fact or fiction? Perhaps I'll take the 6 day sail to find out.

Bruce is gone, he caught a flight out today and onwards to -30 degree Edmonton, can you imagine? He was great crew, if not for him I probably would have put into Marina San Carlos Seca to fix the various annoying problems. He didn't complain much when I seemed a bit confused or made some really bonehead mistakes, like loosing the main halyard in the T-pecker gale. He wasn't a model of patience with the Doldrums, he thought we should just motor straight at the Galapagos and I wanted to motor due south away from the Doldrums in search of wind. But as luck would have it, the wind was due south in just a few miles and we had a great day of sailing from it, a close reach at 6 knots direct to the Galapagos.

Well, that's a load of reading for you right now, I'm here in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos for 15 days, maybe depends on El Puerto Capitaine and his discretion and so I'm going swimming with the sea lions tomorrow I hope.

I'll keep you posted. Jimsh