It's gray outside. Really gray. The sea is gray, the sky is gray. Even the birds that land on the boat are gray. Except for their beaks. The beaks are bright blue, and their feet are bright red. We've seen the blue-footed boobies, and these sure look like boobies, but in true Galapagos fashion, they seem to evolved into some other colour scheme. Perhaps it's the scheme for 2015.
By our reckoning, we should be the very first boat to arrive in the Galapagos in 2015. We only have 75 miles left to go, (50 miles before we should spot the first island to the east, called San Cristobal) but we have a policy of never entering an unfamiliar harbour (and frankly, we don't even like to do it to places we know) at nighttime. So, we'll limp along, and get to Puerto Baquerizo at daybreak on January 1, 2015. That'll make the game "where were we....?" a lot easier.
Ron has done something kind of cool for our chartplotter, which sits up in our cockpit. We use this to chart our progress, see where we are in relation to anything around us, and view the radar. A few months ago, he was able to hook up the chartplotter to our onboard router, which also has a built in hard drive. This hard drive we can load with movies, shows, or videos which we can then watch in the cockpit while underway. Talk about a godsend for staying awake at 3am. Last night I watched a few comedy specials...just me and the birds cackling away.
It's hard to believe but 300 miles away from anything, yesterday afternoon I had to disconnect our windvane and actually take the wheel, in order to steer away from a large fishing boat heading straight for us. Gives actual meaning to "two ships passing". The ocean is huge and empty, so why do two random boats decide to meet up at the same place, at the same time?
Fingers crossed, next blog posting will be at anchor.
Time: 8:30am, December 31, 2014
Position: 00 43'.0205S, 088 23'082W
Skies: cloudy
Winds: 7-13 knots
Speed: 4.3 knots
COG: 268 degrees
Ground Trip Log: 495.4 nm
Over and out
No comments:
Post a Comment