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LAS PERLAS ISLANDS
March 4 – 7, 2010
In 1515 the Spanish conquistadores Gaspar de Morales and Francisco Pizarro found out that there were some islands on their journey from ransacking Peru and the Incas. These islands the natives called the pearl islands. King Toe (Yes that is his name ) got wind of this information and offered them a chest full of their Gross National Product. The Spanish thugs thanked the king by killing him and enslaving the pearl divers. In the mass killings and wars for supremacy of the high seas, Queen Mary Tudor of England ended up with a 31 carat ‘peregrina’ pearl for her crown. It came from these islands.
Today these pretty islands are largely uninhabited. From the Balboa Yacht Club in Panama every day there was a skiff that would run the locals the 35+ miles to their homes. After a 6 hour glorious sail with an aft of the beam 20 knt wind, we arrived at the northern most island, Isla Pacheca, and wondered if we would ever take the skiff like the locals. The seas were moderate and the skiff is so low to the water they must always be wet; if not sea sick. We sailed another 6 miles down the east side of the islands to Isla Contadora which is the most developed island of the Archipelago. It is a favourite vacation spot for Panama City residents. It also had lots of yachts in its harbour so we decided to spend the night between Isla Chapera and Isla Mogo Mogo. This is where the TV show “Survivor” is filmed.
At first we thought it was going to be a rough night because it looked to not be very protected from the wind and currents. The moon was 3/4 full, the seas calm, the islands deserted, and the
Tunny tuna that we had caught one hour out of Panama was delicious.
The next morning (not too early as the skipper is usually the last one up ) we left for a pleasant sail to Isla del Rey, which is in the southern set of islands and the largest. I wanted to stay at Rio Cacique and dinghy up the river. Everyone thought it was a great idea so as the boys blew up the dinghy and I prepared a lunch. We couldn’t wait for the rising high tide and so we took off for adventure.
What we found was a sand delta with hardly any water flowing. I walked up the sand ( with sand crabs scattering in all directions ) till the mangroves began to crowd the edge of the river but still only inches of water. Laughing at our impatience we came back to the boat, had lunch, chilled out the rest of the day and decided to stay another day and go for the raft trip. There was only two other boats in the anchorage and the night was very peaceful. We had to wait till 5 pm for the rising high tide and so we spent the next day watching the hundreds of pelicans dive bombing the bay and having sea gulls sitting on their heads waiting to steal their catch.
It was kinda spooky the way they would come up to the boat and stare at you with their beady eyes.
At 5 pm I grabbed my camera and water bottle, Dean grabbed his shoes, and Adrian fired up the outboard motor. We were off again! This time, as predicted, the tide was backwashing the river and we floated up the river on a 3 knt current.
It was a comfortable ride full of all different kinds of noisy bird calls (although we didn’t see very many birds ), fish darting about, and best of all no mosquitoes! It was a relaxing trip and just the diversion for the 8 day sail ahead of us to the Galapagos.
VOYAGE TO THE GALAPAGOS
March 7 - 13, 2010
We got an early start ( for the skipper that means 8:30 am ) because I had volunteered us to be net controller for the day. We had cleared the islands and were out in the deep blue sea when the net rolled around at 10 am. Perfect! We should get very good reception. Only problem was that most of the rally had left 4 days earlier and they could not hear us and we could not hear them. I failed miserably at my duties and someone else had to take over.
We had 20 knt of wind, gusting to 35 on the beam, or slightly aft. We double reefed the main and in the process shredded the genoa so put up the storm jib. We figured out a night watch system so I could have my beloved 2 to 6 am watch. Mercury Rising has a wind vane and two solar panels and this is enough to run the fridge and the freezer. Dean and I love steering so we only ran the auto pilot when I was tired of dancing with the waves. All was well aboard ship. Suddenly in the middle of the night we had 10 or less knots of breeze on the stern so we motored for 30 hours. Dean put the fishing pole in use; mumbling something about keeping the pink squid ( I insisted that pink squids were best for the Pacific ) close to the surface of the sea because he was fishing for a Mahi-Mahi. I had gone below to start on dinner when….
whizzzzzzz…and in minutes we had the most beautifully coloured fish in the seas. She was huge, delicious, and enough to freeze for another day.
The most predictable point you can make about the wind is that it is unpredictable. On our second night when I went off duty at 6am the wind had just started picking up from 11 knts to 14. Within 2 hours we were reefing the main, putting up the staysail, and batting down below deck for the heel to starboard. Since most of the rally is in port, I volunteered to be net controller for the 4 boats still sailing towards the Galapagos. I strapped myself into the nav station, started my roll call, and got blindsided by a forceful wave. We forgot to close the hatch in the salon and water poured below deck and soaked the leather seating just to my right. I could not get up to close the hatch because I was the net controller and had to write down everyone’s location. Dean and Adrian were above deck checking on the sailing angles. Of course Mother Nature had to do it again only this time there must have been 20 gallons of water pouring down the hatch. I pretended to be figuring out the location of a boat and rushed over to close the hatch. Only problem is that I am too short to reach it and had to climb up on the soaked sofas. Jerking around trying to maintain my balance, I hung from the toggles and still could only close them partway. The roll call took 30 minutes and before I could finish my report the wind had calmed down so we could open the hatches. I was sweating profusely from the hot, damp cabin and the little breeze was a delight.
The next night was a repeat of motoring till 5 am and then having the wind increase 3 knts. I went off duty at 6 am and when I woke up at 9 am we were still motoring. Roll call was just us and I radioed my report to Rally headquarters without incident. The day was spent on a slow lazy sail and I beat Dean at dominos. It was overcast and cooler. The night was so cool I had to wear a sweater and jacket.
When Adrian came on duty at 6am we had crossed the equator. Adrian and I are ‘trusted shellbacks’ but Dean is a ‘slimy pollywog’; this is his first crossing of the equator. In this time honoured tradition Dean should be summoned before King Neptune and his court ( 1st mate Davy Jones and her highness Amphitrite). We are supposed to initiate him with a ‘truth serum’ of a cocktail of hot sauce, aftershave and raw eggs.
There is a beauty contest and he should dress up like a lady and we continue to make him do disgusting things…much to the entertainment of the shellbacks.
We decided on champagne and Dean made poached eggs and toast. He warned us we don’t know how disgusting his poached eggs can be. We made a mental note to cross the equator on the 180th meridian (International Date Line) and all of us will become ‘Golden Shellbacks’. There is a photo contest and so we brilliantly came up with a theme and caption and executed our choice for the competition.
For our last two days we experienced a rare phenomenon. You have a north equator current that usually runs from west to east and you have a southern equator current that runs from east to west. This is what creates the doldrums right at the equator. That alone doesn’t sound so good but at fewer than 3 knts it was benign. What did happen is that we would have positive current followed by negative followed by sideway pushes all times of the day and night. One boat in the Rally charted their course and, although they felt they had lost 1/2 knt of speed didn’t think anything about it. Upon looking at the chart they had a straight line south (almost 90 degrees) for about a mile. They couldn’t find any reason for the push but found it hard to believe that current alone could be that persistent.
At 7 am I was still on duty and we entered the harbour at Porto Isidra Ayroa on the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapalos. We anchored over rocks where the swell was more pronounced. The harbour was filled with Rally boats using a fore and aft anchoring system. We settled in and got caught up with the news of the rally.
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