On our way to the Galapagos!

Saturday February 24th

BlueFlyer was actually ready to leave on time for the start! We had changed the twin jibs for the big genoa, the fuel tanks were full and the 2 forward water tanks were also filled with drinking water that we bought from the marina office. The water available on the marina was not drinkable. We put 500 ltrs in from 20 ltr bottles, hot & sweaty work.The 3rd aft tank was filled later by the desalinator when out at sea.

The tender, which had got oil on it, was to be cleaned by the marina, but they were all so busy cleaning boat hulls, that we did it ourselves with detergent given to clean all the oily warps. The boat is now in its bag on the foredeck out of the way. The oily warps are in the big fish bin in the anchor locker right up in the bow. We have put 1/2 the remaining soap in the bin and will add water when we slow down enough to get it.

As the start was delayed by 1 hour, and the marina GRP man came over to see the damage on our stern, we delayed our departure and had the gouges on the transom filled in and faired off. At least water wont get into the GRP material.

All the clearances papers were ready for collection as we were leaving so we picked them up as well. There is a real love of paperwork in all the South American countries we have seen so far.

Despite all the predictions we have now had 18 hours of fine sailing with a 10-12 knot SW breeze, and have only used the engine to retrace our course during the night to avoid miles of fishing nets laid out about 80 miles offshore. The nets are lit and have radar reflectors, but you still sail into them unless you are very cautious. Pilot whales were seen in the afternoon yesterday, and again, just now, at 8 in the morning.

There are 2 yachts and a small freighter off to starboard. Although we are travelling at about 8 knots through the water, there is a very strong counter current of about 3 knots against us, so we dont know arrival times any more. The chartplotter, in its wisdom, says 5 days from now. I hope we speed up. Putting on the engine would make no difference to our speed over ground, and we are saving diesel all the time we are sailing. This is important as we do not have enough on board to motor the whole way. Our position now is 02 00.8S, 082 07.5W, or about 75 miles west of La Libertad in Ecuador. We have actually travelled 117 miles through the water, but last nights net diversions took up a lot of mileage and time.

By the way, our crew now consists of Hugh & Val, Daire (a friend of Fiona's from Wicklow) and Marcel, a young Swiss guy who sailed the ARC 2 handed and has been on several boats since that.