Panama to Tahiti Leg

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Thursday 16/07/09 Thursday

Hi there,
Sorry we have been a bit slack with communication, but was about to send you an email but upon turning the computer on the screen failed. However Terry managed to retrieve and decided to test the mail system - hence you got in first with your email!!
Anyway we are rested and have taken fuel on board all 300 gallons (40 of which are in canisters) - quite a process via jerry cans however the agent etc were quite efficient.
We provisioned today and little more to do - limited but surprising what you can buy.
We are going on a wee tour tomorrow around the island and leaving Saturday. Terry dived down today to check the prop,but all AOK. Up the mast tomorrow first thing to try and fix the wind instrument which is not working. Otherwise we are in good shape.
We have spent a bit of time ashore wandering around - fairly basic however you can buy a good meal for 4USD each - fish, salad, rice and beans - not bad!
As you will appreciate everything takes forever - the process of checking in is onerous to say the least so you need about 3 days just to do that. However everyone pretty friendly.
they have water taxis operating for 50cent p/p during the day and one dollar at night so you don't bother to put the dinghy down! Besides the friendly sea lions apparently just tip them over. We have our furry friends come time to time to sleep on our transom.
Will send you the blog update when we leave ok.
Lots of Love
Lois and Terry

Saturday 11/07/09 AC has arrived in the Galapagos Islands!!

Alpha Crucis dropped anchor in Wreck Bay (Puerto Baguerizo Moreno), San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands, at 1915 local time (GMT-6 hrs) 13 days out from Panama.

We are now in the Southern Hemisphere having crossed the Equator earlier today hard on the b... wind. We are almost exactly half way between Gibraltar and Auckland.

Cocktail hour was delayed in the interests of a safe night entry.

Love

The Jolly Rogers

Friday 10/07/09

Day:12, Position:0035N,8857W, Miles to go:098

Wind Speed:20, Wind Direction:180, Weather:Fine, Sea State:Moderate

Dist to go is ATCF. We will have to put in a board to Port sometime between now and our arrival as we are about 60 nm off track to the NE. Expect to arrive Wreck Bay mid afternoon tomorrow... or so we hope?

Since our last report have made reasonable progress considering we have been hard on the wind all the damn way on a port tack. Have had 1 reef in the main, full mizzen using the head sail to adjust for a compromise between direction, speed and comfort.

Pretty much we have maintained a speed of nearly 6 knots except in squalls or periods of increased wind when we have reduced sail to increase comfort. (In this context maybe "reducing discomfort" would be a more appropriate description}.

Yesterday, for a while at least, we were entertained by local (we assume) birds attempting and finally succeeding in roosting on the pulpit. This was viewed as a great photo opportunity. As the headsail was partly furled they managed to approach from both aft and forward attaching themselves to the stainless steel rail. One even landed and stayed on the port life-line. Maximum complement was 3 on the pulpit and 1 on the life-line. We are talking about very lively conditions.

These are relatively big birds. About twice the size of a standard Auckland Seagull. They have blue faces... truly. Hopefully we will find out what species they are after we arrive in the Galapagos.

Once Lois realised their capacity for defecating over the foredeck and beyond the relationship changed from friend to foe. Unbelievably they would not move until prodded with a boat hook. Armed with boat hook, bucket, brush and soapy water Lois valiantly removed them and cleaned up the resultant residues. Attaching supermarket bags around the landing zones in joggly seas was no mean feat but was accomplished just on dark. Meantime I had to keep watch over Lois of course and take care not to spill any Whisky... It was well into cocktail hour you understand.

Looking forward to a couple of days of being upright.
Love to all
The Jolly Rogers

Tuesday 08/07/09

Day:09, Position:N0259,W08255, Miles to Galapogas:466

Wind Speed:15, Wind Direction"200, Weather:Fine , Sea State:Moderate

Destination is now Wreck Bay, Isla San Cristobel, Galapagos. Day numbers are from Panama, not Las Perlas.

The day before yesterday we wandered around in very little breeze only making a 24 hr run of 29 miles toward our destination. Very boring and a little frustrating! To add to that in the early hours our Genset stopped. Bother... As Lois had had a challenging watch prior to that with moderate/severe squalls all on the nose I decided to hove to until she awoke mid morning. Then we started on the Genset. Fortunately it was only (ha ha) a broken vee belt so the whole operation including other maintenance took only a couple of hours. Meantime Lois catered of course and cleaned ship.

Because of slow progress and mild despondency due to a serious likelihood that we will be unable to make Tahiti in time to rendezvous with Nicole, David and family and other friends we thought we just have to cheer up and pretend we are starting our voyage to the Galapagos from that point. Only 550 miles or as we say - half a Tasman . After all we are safe, warm/hot and well supplied with food, wine and whisky. Who knows we may get great winds once we are in the Southern hemisphere trades.

So at about 1400 hrs yesterday we took the advice of our onshore support duo, Murray and Matt and motor sailed South, or actually SSE towards Ecuador in the hope of stronger winds albeit southerlies. Have made good progress over the last 28 hrs making close on 6 knots into it! Not in the best direction you understand but being in a better place to change tack for a more direct route (yeh). We have the slightly stronger winds but the real outcome.. Well you will just have to wait for the next installment!

Love to all of you and yours
The Jolly Rogers (trying hard)

Friday 03/07/09

Day:05, Position:N0609,W08059, Distance to go:0747

Wind Speed:12, Wind Direction:225, Weateher:Raining, Sea State:Light
Dist to go is to Isla Isabela in the Galapagos if indeed we stop there.
Thanks for all that great info M&M.
Have winds of 10/12 knots on the nose. Grib shows SW with Sthly further down the track. A high is shown between the Galapagos and Ecuador.
We just managed last days run of 144 nm under motor with light head wind. This was from San Jose in Las Perlas.

We will motor until tomorrow pm and take stock of fuel etc then and will let you know.

Welcome back to NZ Murray and back to Aus Matt.

I bet the farewell to Darcy Whiting was huge. What a wonderful icon to NZ Sailing he has been and will remain.

We have just been circled by a large unmarked military style helicopter and they didn't respond to our call!!
Love
T&L on AC

Thursday 02/07/09

Las Perlas, Gulf of Panama - 2 July 2009

We left Las Perlas at 1.20pm today bound for Tahiti! We are motoring into light head winds!

We spent last night in the one of the southern Islands of the Las Perlas group (Isla Ensenada De Bodega 008 15.5300 N 079 07.8899 W) in readiness for our departure today. From what we have seen of these Islands in the last two days they looked really unspoilt. Where we were anchored last night there was no sign of life ashore -just jungle. In fact you would almost expect some natives to come running out of the bush!!

We left Panama City on Monday afternoon after fuelling and spent that night at Tobago Island just 7 miles from Panama! We made our way to Las Perlas a further 30 odd miles to spend some time relaxing and doing our final few jobs - we certainly needed it as our last few days were chaotic and frantic!

We enjoyed our visit to Panama City immensely catching up with both Willie and latterly in the last week Mary Coffey. We had a little birthday dinner on AC for Willie on the 23rd which she really appreciated. Willie being a 'martini girl'…. We introduced to her some nice raspberry vodka martinis to commence the evening - it was nice for us that we could do that for her! Willie, who is lecturer (mainly on cruise ships) and writer since retirement from the Canal, gave us a copy of her latest book about the people you meet whilst cruising - we feature in it - probably about the closest we will get to being famous!

Mary had a great dinner at her fabulous colonial bungalow home for us in the latter part of last week - such a treat! She also spent a couple of days driving me to various supermarkets for provisioning. We had such fun together -lots of laughs - it was so good to catch up! Mary was born in Panama - her parents American - and she speaks fluent Spanish and drives like a very confident Panamanian - which is no mean feat! If you decide to drive in Panama City you have to be extremely confident otherwise you don't make any progress!

During the days I was provisioning Terry was attending to the Genset which has been causing him some grief with fresh water and oil leaks (separately) lately but is working ok now. He had to rebuild/modify the header tank!! The new voltage regulator, which arrived Thursday, we finally received Saturday due to a customs strike, is now installed and working fine. Boy Terry has been working hard in that very hot engine room - poor thing -but as you know he has amazing tenacity to get the job completed!!

Then of course to cap it all off we had a storm come through on Sunday and many yachts drifted where we were anchored -all of which didn't have anyone aboard at the time! To watch as events unfolded was amazing especially so when one yacht was headed for us. Luckily we got our anchor up quickly despite the 40 knot wind however that alone wouldn't have been sufficient, Terry had to drive up on to the anchor to avoid the yacht which missed us by only a metre -quite scary - boy that got my adrenalin going.

Anyway have managed to catch up on some sleep now - although the last couple of nights we had quite a lot of thunder and lighting so we were up and down checking things - there will be more of that to come as it the season! Terry has now rigged a few cables that perhaps may help if we get struck by lighting - let's hope that doesn't happen!

So when we head out we are going to head for the Galapagos in case the winds are light and we may have to pick up more fuel and same with stopping at the Marquesas. Ideally we would like not to stop at either. But if stopping means progress then we will do it.

So we are on our downward leg towards the Land of the Long White Cloud!! May it be a smooth fast ride!

As per normal Murray will post the blog updates and both he and Matt will give us their advice on the weather. Great to know we have their support!

Sorry about the lack of photos - difficult without a computer!

Love Lois and Terry