Day 10 from Panama
Posted: under to Marquises.
Starting day 10 today and making excellent progress. Celebrated the halfway point on day 7 with steaks on the BBQ, Paul and Rich donned fancy dress with two shirts and two pairs of shorts each in a half ‘n half fashion and we were even allowed two drinks at happy hour instead of the usual one.
Yesterday was a record day clocking 245.9 miles over a 24-hour period meaning an average speed of 10.24 knots! Fantastic for reducing time at sea but not quite so fantastic for the comfort levels below deck, in particular when it comes to the attempts of cooking in a galley at a constantly changing tilt. Today has been very gusty making the sailing a bit more exciting although it didn’t stop the bread making this morning followed by a quick batch of puff pastry ready for the salmon en croute for dinner with hollandaise sauce (no tinned delivery food on this crossing!).
Fishing has ground to a halt recently, partly due to the increased speed of the yacht making it very difficult to reel anything in until all sails have been put away and partly due to a very full freezer already brimming with plenty of skipjack tuna. One particularly large tuna was landed a couple of days ago by Helen who reeled it in as if it weighed the same as a feather much to the boys’ bemusement.
We now have just under 1000 miles to go. After only 10 days at sea (having completed just over 2000 miles so far), this is one impressive feat for Concerto and some of her best sailing since we’ve been onboard. Average speed for the whole crossing so far stands just above an impressive 9 knots so we’re hoping it stays this way for the remaining few days.
Clare
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Jul 03 2011
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