Day 46: Ecuador to Galapagos – 20/02/10

Mike wakes me up just before 2 am for my watch.  The engines are off and the sails are back up and we are sailing along quite happily, on course, getting an average speed of 6 knots from 9 knots of wind – pretty good.  I go out on deck but immediately go back below and change my shorts for trousers – and yet again, a fleece even though the temperature gauge says it’s 26 degrees.

Everything is back to that damp feeling which we had got rid of during the time in the marina (constant air conditioning sorted it out).  It’s the mixture of humidity and salt laden air and is something I will never get used to.  Normally it takes longer at sea for this to happen but it has been so grey and overcast since we set sail this time, and there has been no sun to help dry everything out, although both Mike and Jim have burned slightly.  I keep telling them (and Mike knows this anyway) that this close to the equator, you can burn even when it’s cloudy, but like little schoolboys, they ignore me.

My watch is completely uneventful, just the way I like it.  For most of the time there are no stars and the moon, although up, is also hidden behind a blanket of cloud.  When it’s over and I climb back into bed, I find that it feels cold and clammy.  During the night I am so cold that I have to turn the fan off and when Mike brings me a cup of tea in the morning I find I am curled up in about three layers of sheet which I have wrapped around me during my sleep to keep me warm – and I still have a t-shirt on.  It takes me a while to realise that the air conditioning is on – Mike has given in and is trying to dry the boat out again.

When I eventually surface during the morning, it is a completely different picture.  There is blue all around.  Blue skies, blue sea and just the merest hint of patchy, thin white cloud.  The cockpit cushions are dry.  It feels wonderful.  Even better, although my stomach is still not completely better, it is much improved and I no longer feel sea sick.  How can I?  The sea is almost completely flat.

I am sitting in the cockpit when I suddenly hear a noise I recognise – the sound of blow holes – whales!  Sure enough, about five pass the back of the boat, sedately moving west.  By the time Mike brings me the camera, they are too far in the distance to bother with.  It is still lovely to see though.

Mike and Jim fix the teak step back onto the boat that their makeshift arrangement for the outhaul pulled off yesterday and fix the new contraption (a series of blocks) to hold the back of the boom in place which holds lunch up as the cockpit table is completely covered with tools.  Only Jim can get all the stuff back into the tool box as he arranges it methodically.  Mike usually just jams it all in any old how and then curses when the lid won’t shut properly.  Watch and learn, Mike.  Watch and learn!

After lunch (more of that beef, marinated then cooked and added to salad – and still no one is ill so it must be OK) both Mike and Jim go for a sleep so I decide it is time for a bit of nude sunbathing as I am beginning to get strap marks.  When we are at sea like this, we normally don’t bother with clothes at all because there is no one around to see us but with Jim on board, that’s all changed.  He says he doesn’t mind me going topless or nude (I notice he didn’t say the same to Mike!) but I just can’t do it.  This normally wouldn’t bother me.  I go topless in front of our friend Steve and don’t bat an eyelid, but I have known Jim for nearly 30 years and to suddenly strip off in front of him seems weird.  It’s the same stupid thing as being at Johanne and Steve’s house a few weeks after being topless in front of Steve on the boat – If I come out of the bedroom wearing only knickers I shriek and cover myself up!

Laid out on the cockpit cushions, looking around, there is nothing to see except blue.  Right on the edge of the horizon are two cats, Tucanon and Noeluna, but they are tiny white specks and they keep disappearing.  All I can hear is the gentle lapping of waves against the side of the boat.  I can’t adequately describe the feelings but it’s moments like this that make the misery of yesterday seem a long way away. 

Anyway, I don’t spend long sunbathing and I’m finished and all covered up and decent before anyone emerges from their afternoon slumbers.  When Mike appears I go for a nap.

Suddenly I am called up to the cockpit by Jim as Mike is fighting with a large fish.  Several times it feels like the fish has gone because the pressure disappears from the line itself but all of a sudden, when it is about 50 feet from the boat, it comes to the surface and Mike can see what looks like fins!  He’s not sure at this point, if he actually wants to reel this thing in!!!  Then the line starts screaming out again, despite the clutch being wound tight and then ….. nothing.  He starts reeling in and finds just the lure on the end – it has escaped to fight another day and Mike is more than somewhat relieved.

In the early evening, I sit and watch the sun go down.  It is a perfect evening.  A light breeze, small, evenly spaced waves and lots of blue.  I watch as one by one the stars start to pop out, Venus first, the brightest, then others.  I don’t think I will ever fail to be entranced by the beauty of this sight.

Photo:  Well what else is there to photograph?

I take the first watch.  The wind dies down so much I have to start one of the engines but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

Our position is:  1 deg 16 min S, 86 deg 36 min W

Distance so far:  2387 nautical miles