Panama to Ecuador – The Journey
Monday, November 12, 2012
We’re preparing to set sail expecting at least 5 or 6 days
at sea with a stop at Malpelo Island off the coast of Colombia. Malpelo is said to be the “Galapagos of
Colombia”. The pictures we have seen
show a group of barren steep-cliffed rocks but everything else we have read
about them say they are a haven for sea and bird life. They say it is a deep and difficult anchorage
so we may just end up sailing past them, but I hope we have a chance to stop
and at least anchor for the night.
The preparations for the journey include some last minute
maintenance jobs and food preparation.
We always like to have some meals ready to eat in case of rough
seas. That way we don’t have to spend too
much time in the galley and we minimize the amount of dishes and cleaning up we
need to do. We’ll be sailing through the
night so we will be taking shifts – two and two. The
grab bag is packed and ready to go, we have reviewed our emergency procedures
and abandon ship procedures going through each crew members role so we are
ready for a worst case scenario.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
This morning it is raining – thunder and lightning. The crew prepare to get underway. We hope the rain will slow down a little and
it does. It is around 9:30 AM when we
set sail from Isla Contadora. Slowly,
the rain clouds disappear and we have a nice day for sailing. The winds are steady at around 8 to 10 knots
for most of the day and into the night and we are running with a current, which
helps us with another 1.5 to 2 knots. We
motored for an hour or two when the winds died.
We needed to charge the batteries anyway. Today we spotted lots of turtles. No whales, no dolphins – only turtles.
We had the fishing lines out and caught a huge tuna. What a catch!
This is the biggest tuna we have caught so far.
After watching an episode of Boardwalk Empire (we are just
about finished Season 2) the nightshift starts.
Jens and Anna take the first shift at 9:00 PM. Christian and I take over at 1:30 AM and keep
watch until 6:00 AM. That seems to work
well for everyone and we’ll probably continue this way for a while. It was an uneventful night with clear skies
and good winds.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
We’re coming to the end of Day 2 and we are just about half
way to Isla Malpelo. It has been a
smooth and easy sail thus far. It
started raining pretty hard in late afternoon.
We had noticed some small birds would come by the boat and look as if
they were about to land, perhaps seeking refuge from the wind and rain. But then they would set off again only to
return with a few more birds in tow.
This continued during the afternoon and the hour before sunset, we
noticed them actually coming in larger groups and landing on the railings. Before we knew it there were about 50 or 60
of these small birds, all looking for a place to roost for the night. The wind had created some pretty big waves
and the boat was rolling and listing constantly. These poor little birds were slipping on the
chrome railing as their little feet weren’t big enough to wrap around it
completely. They spent a lot of time
looking for the perfect place. They ended
up clinging to the binimi, the ropes, the winches, and the plastic rail. One little guy decided that Anna’s head would
be the perfect place to spend the night.
Another spent the night on the plotter. As the sun set, we had about 30 birds on
board. They seemed to be quite
comfortable and didn’t mind being in such close proximity to us. It was nice to spend the night with a few citizens
of the seas.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The birds stayed with us till morning light and then one by
one they flew off. Hopefully, fully
rested and ready for another day at sea.
We reached Isla Malpelo around 8AM. We tied up to the buoy normally used by the
Coast Guard. The islands are very steep
and it doesn’t look like it would be possible to get to shore. The military hail us and tell us that we
can’t stay there. So, we rest for a
couple of hours before pulling up and heading out. The winds have changed and we have to adjust
our course accordingly.
 |
| Isla Malpelo, "the Galapagos of Columbia" |
Friday, November 16 to Monday, November 19, 2012
Strong and steady winds these days but from a slightly wrong
direction which means we have to tack regularly and hit the waves at the wrong
angles. We travel at 5 to 6 knots
consistently. For the most part the days
are uneventful and there is not much to see.
We come across some small fishing boats now and then. The highlight was the whales on Monday
evening. It looked to be a mother and
her baby. It was very nice to see them
because they are normally only in this area from June to September. The
crew is getting a little worn and exhausted as it has been tough sailing making
it difficult to sleep. The weather has
been good though – cool with some clouds but no rain.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
We have reached Isla de la Plata at around 9:30AM and picked
up a mooring. Finally, a little rest and
relaxation. Isla de la Plata is a nature
park and; yes, you will get a kick out of this, it is called “the poor man’s
Galapagos”. How many more versions of
“Galapagos” will we run into? We’ll
visit the island for a tour after a bit of rest. There are three or four large turtles
swimming about the boat. Anna and
Christian jumped in the water to swim with them. The water temperature here is a wee bit
cooler than it was up in Panama. It has
dropped to 24.7 degrees. We have been
spoiled with temperatures around 29 and 30 degrees. The cooler water is due to the Humboldt
Current, which is coming up from the coast of Chile. Jens and Anna took Squirt to shore to talk to
the park rangers to see if it was ok to spend the night on the mooring and if
we could visit the island. Normally you
would need a park permit, which you would get at the mainland. But they were kind enough to let us stay and
agreed to take us on a walking tour of the island if we came back at 3PM. This worked out perfect for us. It gave us all a chance for a little nap and
to tidy up the cabin a bit.
At 3PM we went to shore and had a fantastic tour of the
island. You’ll have to wait to read my
blog about Isla de la Plata to see more about this. We got back to the boat and made dinner,
watch an episode of Game of Thrones and went to bed. Oh how nice it was to sleep in a cool cabin
(20 degrees) in a bed that wasn’t jostling you around all night with just the
sound of the wakes on the beach to lull you to sleep.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
We are getting ready for our last leg of this journey. Another 24 hours of sailing should take us to
Salinas, Ecuador. We have been in touch
with our agent and he will meet us at the Puerto Lucia Yacht Club tomorrow
morning. I’ve cooked our dinner so we just
need to warm it up. We are about 56
nautical miles from our destination, if you go in a straight line. However, given the wind conditions it looks
like it we will be tacking. We have one
more night shift ahead of us. We’ll soon be to Salinas in Ecuador and getting
ready to do some land explorations.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
We have arrived. We
made good time last night and actually had to take some sails down so we
wouldn’t arrive in dark. It is much
colder here than we expected. We are all
a little ignorant of Ecuador and somehow assumed the weather would be similar
to the Caribbean. Warm and balmy –
shorts and t-shirt weather. However, the
temperatures are 21º c during the day and can go as low as 8º c at night. We are just now waiting for our agent to meet
with us to start the clearing in process and then we will arrange to moor up at
the Puerto Lucia Yacht Club. We have a
list of practicalities to get done – first on the list is laundry and grocery
shopping. Nine nights at sea makes for a
lot of dirty laundry and a very empty pantry.
This has been the longest that Jens and I have been at
sea. We covered over 750 nautical miles (including the tacking),
crossed the equator, saw whales and turtles, and visited a couple of
islands. Overall, we had everything well
under control and SY SEGWUN performed exceptionally well.
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