Off again
Posted: under to Marquises.
Its been a long time since an update partly due to the fact there is no INMARSAT data reception in this area and I do not have a modem for the Iridium phone.
We spent a great week in the Galapagos resting, sight seeing, and servicing. A highlight for me was watching 100’s of Marine Iguanas make their way from burrows to the sea at 6am one morning. Well worth the 11km round trip walk early in the morning as no-one else was there! We also had a resident Sea Lion on the swim platform for most of the week.
Unfortunately one morning a large ship dragged his anchor and hit Concerto causing quite a bit of damage to the bow area. I cant say much more as we are currently trying to recover costs but Rich, Helen and Pabs stopped the yacht from ending up on the beach with their quick thinking.
We left Santa Cruz to head to Baltra to refuel and make final preparations in a flat anchorage, as Santa Cruz is very rolly. We found a great snorkeling site on an old wreck in the bay with an angry Sea Lion, Parrot fish around 4 times the size of the Red Sea versions, and huge schools of silvery fish. There was even a large turtle sitting on the engines.
We made great time after leaving Baltra and had an average speed of 10.1knots as we beam reached in good current towards Marquises. It was not to last as after 30 hours our variable pitch propeller system broke causing us to have no control over the blades. We started the long sail back to Galapagos. Long story short we arrived in Galapagos, got the part re-welded, Rich and I spent around 10 hours putting it back together and we were off again. So now 40 hours in we have sailed 377nm averaging around 9.4knots with around 2700nm to go. Fantastic sailing and long may it continue, there is a chance of us arriving quite quickly!
Fishing going ok, I caught a nice Albacore Tuna just before we entered Galapagos waters, which we had on the BBQ, a great moral booster. Rich caught a large Mahi Mahi yesterday but it was worm ridden and Paul caught a small Skipjack Tuna which seemed fine so we’ll have that for lunch today! Weather is finally warming up after the cool climates of the Galapagos but still requires jackets in the evenings. Quite nice actually as it makes the interior of the yacht much more comfortable.
Gordon
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Jun 24 2011
Half way
Posted: under To Galapagos.
Today we became proper fisherman. We managed, after a fairly epic 45min battle which involved a large amount of boat maneuvering and a huge amount of physical effort to pull along side the yacht, a 5 foot long, very angry, what we think is a Striped Marlin. People pay thousands of dollars to try and catch one of these so it was a bit of an honour. The power and grace of this fish was incredible. He was pulling 3 of us around the aft deck with ease and nearly had the rod bent double, he really was huge. I’ll put up the pictures and video when we have proper internet. He was far too big for us to eat and is actually an endangered species so we got him as close to the yacht as possible before cutting the hook from his mouth and releasing him.
In other news we are passed the halfway point.
Position: @ 2000 03degrees 48.0N 084 degrees 08.9W course 231 speed 8.1
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Jun 05 2011
First 24 hours
Posted: under To Galapagos.
First 24 hours into the Pacific have been quite bumpy with the wind and waves on the nose with the weather forecast suggesting it is going to stay like this all the way to Galapagos. We are now around 110nm off the coast of Panama and pushing into to a westerly current that is trying to take us away from the Galapagos. Life onboard is quite uncomfortable but at least, now that we are leaving the tropics, it is getting cooler.
We bought some new lures in Panama City to tempt some of the fabled large Tuna onto our BBQ and today we tried them out for the first time. We had 4 bites with 3 successfully brought on deck by Paul including 1 Yellow Fin Tuna, 1 Skipjack Tuna and 1 Snook. Unfortunately all were very small so they were put back to the sea to grow until next time
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Jun 04 2011