Week 1: Galapagos to Marquesas

By Nicole
Hi from the high seas! It's day seven of our passage from the Galapagos to French Polynesia. We're 880 miles or so in, with a couple thousand to go. But who's counting?

In a mass exodus that left the anchorage nearly deserted, eight boats (including us) left the Puerto Villamil, Isla Isabela within three days of each other. And since the SE trade winds haven't started their annual migration north yet, most of the boats set out on a SSW course to try to find them. At about 7 degrees south, right where the weather files said they'd be, we found them (hiding amongst the clouds, drizzle and squalls). Since we hit that 7 degree mark a few days ago, we've been seeing consistent winds from the SE in the 15-22 knot range -- nice! The winds are giving us some of our best sailing days yet, although conditions are generally overcast (very Seattle-like), chilly and squally. It's a good thing I didn't put our long undies in the deep storage! It's been a boisterous ride, bouncing and riding confused seas, but we're making good time so far. I just won't be baking any chocolate cakes for a bit ...

Each morning, we check into the Pacific Magellan SSB net with five of the boats we left the Galapagos with (plus a slew of other vessels en route from Panama to French Polynesia). It's great hearing everyone's voices and getting position reports from the boats closest to us. I assigned each boat a different color flag icon on our chartplotter, and after the net each morning, I move the icons around like game pieces. It's fun seeing where everyone is in relation to us. Anyway, it gives me something to do. You may remember Bravo and Nana from our time in Chiapas, Mexico (we traveled inland with them). Well, Bravo is about 188 miles ahead of us headed for Hiva Oa too, and Nana left Colombia for Gambier a few weeks ago. I'm continually reminded what a small world it is. Another boat, Murar's Dream, is flying along ahead of us ... we know them from Mexico too!

All is well aboard, although a little sunshine to go along with these trade winds would be a treat. At least we're not getting sunburned, right? We did see the sun the first few days out and had some incredible sunsets. Watching an especially clear sunset the other evening, trying to catch a glimpse of that elusive green flash, the sun appeared to set and then pop back up before setting for good. Really it was just the swell obstructing our view, but Aaron thought maybe it was a glitch in the Matrix. :)

I'll leave you with a haiku I wrote yesterday:

Just like skipping stones
Flying fish launch from the waves
Glide skim glide skim splash!
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At 3/28/2013 2:49 PM (utc) our position was 07°42.00'S 099°46.00'W

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