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27th-28th Feb - Rehashing the dinghy cover

Ocean Breezes left the beach on Sunday at the highest full moon Spring. We had a bit of a gathering, waist high in the water. "Nowadays" had turned up and OB had pulled out a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate the relaunching of the good ship "Clean Bottom". All he kids (now 8 of them) paddled about as the high tide touched the overhanging trees and bushes.

I hoisted the 25hp outboard onto the back of the boat ready to try to repair the broken handle, and put the 2.5hp onto the dinghy. Its a little put-put but works perfectly well to get about. But it wouldn't start. I tried and I tried. I sucked all the old 3 month fuel out and replaced it with good fuel. Still no luck. So I rowed to the beach with my toolkit and took a look at it. The screws holding the engine in were all rusted so It wasn't looking good, but then I noted a little access hatch under the carburettor. I managed to unscrew the float chamber and looked inside - it was filled with jelly. The fuel had turned bad. I cleaned it out, along with the needle jet, put it back together and it worked like a dream.

As we had beached the dinghy we could see if we can fix the bodged dinghy cover, made by Mr "I-can-make-you-a-dinghy-cover" from behind the chandlery at the Panama La Plieta anchorage. We had threaded the edge with 4mm cord rather than the supplied elastic, and with the cover on and the cord tied really tight it looked like it might have potential. I ended up resewing various parts including a new hole for the bow handle as it was completely in the wrong place while Helen tried to make the Singer Sewing machine work, but after 2 hours of frustration she gave up. We both wish we had bought an electric all-singing-all-dancing one instead of this manual (electricity saving) hand crank Singer. (See Dominica spring 2004)

I used Chris's popper insertion tool to put poppers on the right place on the cover and on bits of hypalon patches to keep it down on the inside and the following day spent the whole morning on the beach bent over double roasting my back gluing on the popper patches. After about 8 hours of extra work our 200 dollar dinghy cover now fits quite well and looks rather good actually.

In the afternoon, after school and a wonderful lunch, Dana looked after Louisa and jack on the boat and the rest of us headed around the back of the Island to explore above and below the water. Helen, Lisa and the kids explored the beach and the rock pools, while the three Hunters, Walt, Chris and myself set off with spear guns in hand to spill blood and bring back a hefty meal for tea. The water was cold (ahem, relative to the Caribbean), it was poor visibility but we did see a huge turtle that buried its head in a rock, then when it sensed we weren't going to go away, it slowly raised its head turned around and swam away really fast. We didn't see any eating fish - only a few coral feeders. Walt found 2 small lobsters the size of king prawns. The girls laughed when we came back holding the 2 tiddlers. Walt was going to cook the 2 mouthfuls as a starter.

Jacks says : " I was upstairs and I did "Lion King" and "Pocahontas" on the computer, we can do games on it and we can do the Timon and Pumba games, we have to pounce on the birds and the bugs and we read stories. I also did arts and crafts, the stamping arts and crafts. They were a person a sheep and a tractor. "

Early in the morning I was up at 7am, helped Helen wipe down the boat with the morning dew and then I set to work mending the dinghy arm. The Venezuelan repair ala "Robot-Wars" style had broken the aluminium piece it was bolted to. I had to cut some new aluminium flat bar and bolt that to the remaining piece and then bolt the arm to the bar. It looks pretty strong now, but if it breaks again then I will struggle to fix it again.

Dana cooked dinner again when we returned, another great meal of spaghetti with meat sauce and a wonderful salad. We where all stuffed and there was left overs again for lunch the following day.

BTW:

A Tanka is a "poem" of sorts written in a certain style that demands 7-5-7-5-5 syllable pattern per line.

Anybody? - I cant for the life of me find any tables for local currents around Perlas or Panama - especially the peninsular NW of Perlas on the way to Coco Island. We plan to head northwest from here, via coco and bend south west to Galapagos. There have been reports of attacks and piracy around the small Columbian Island which is on the rhumb line from Perlas to Galapagos. We are hoping the ITCZ stays south of us so that we can make use of NE winds before we cross the ITCZ southwards at around 087w (ish).

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

1st - 2nd March- running out of water

Did I mention how peaceful it is here?.

We left Tuesday after school to go to La Mina, 10 mile north west in the Las Perlas archipelago. The wind was blowing 7 knots from the NW and we headed clause hauled Northwards at 3.5 knots with 10 knots of wind over the deck. The sea was flat calm and we had a lovely sail. we put a tack in and headed west towards the anchorage around 4pm but the wind died, the tide turned and we found ourselves doing 2 knots. So we motored the last hour to La Mina and dropped the hook along with Ocean Breezes in the dimming light as the sun set over the trees. The tide raced through the anchorage around 2 knots and with the wind picking up now from the north we had 10 knots of wind blowing over the side of the cockpit knocking our cups off the table during dinner.

Our day in La Mina was spent swimming off the back of the boat the kids enjoying the swimming in the 2 knot tide. They then attempted to row their inflatable toy dinghy around only to be swept downtide. I ended up putting on flippers and swimming to them and rowing it back for them. Sophie manage the long slog of the swim back herself.

I spent the whole morning changing the oil, filter, and both fuel filters as well as tightening the drive belt. I had to put the bilge pump on in the engine room as I sweated almost 2 litres - does sweat rust ? I then discovered the metal band that secures the upper seal on the leg drive had snapped. This "Safety seal" was important as it is the seal that would stop the engine room filling with water if the main leg drive seal were to break. I'm now thinking of the solution to replace this metal strap.........

The water maker order has slipped 5 days, but has now arrived in Panama and Omazey is bringing it down on Saturday. I predict we will run out of water on Friday night. We could try and conserve water, or we could probably jerry can it from the Island Contadora, but OB said they would give us 50 litres. Touch wood the water maker will be installed Saturday night and we will be up and running Sunday. I want to run it for a few days, to not only fill the tanks, but give it a good test before we set off across the Pacific.

It looks like most boats are starting to leave Panama now. Reverie are leaving 3rd, Omazey on Saturday, Mahi Mahi soon, and we've just heard that Scud have caught us up and turned up in Contadora.

We are listening to the 8143 9pm net now for weather and reports from other boats crossing to Galapagos. Its all still and calm with hardly any winds. I'm keeping an eye on the ITCZ, the Intertropical convergence zone or the "Doldrums" as the position of this will tell us where the northly winds (to the north) and southerly winds (to the south) are.

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

The little Zoo in Contadora

5th-8th March - An Omazing Birthday

Still Peaceful, but now getting a little too peaceful, we are waiting for the wind to go to the Galapagos and its been still and calm for 2 weeks now. Its the hot topic of conversation amongst everybody now. The winds are less than 5 knots from the SW. This means that you either have to let the boat drift in the 1 knot current or try beating into 5 knots of wind all the 900 miles. This time of year the winds should be 5-10 knots from the S or SE which would mean a perfect sail in flat seas with the wind on a close reach 45 degrees or more from the bow, which would mean a perfect sail to the Galapagos. It seems that a small low to the NW and a high pressure over Ecuador is causing the light SW winds. Then we have to cross the ITCZ, the "doldrums". At the moment it is around 6-9 degrees north of the equator (right over the top of us) so we are all waiting for it to either move north or south away from us. It is likely to head south so we will have to cross the doldrums at some time on our 1-2 week trip to Galapagos. We have plenty of diesel on board enough to motor about 500 miles if we have to, but from now we need to keep our consumption low and sail when we can.

So we have cruised a bit more of the Perlas Islands. We left Mina and headed to Isla Bayonetta, an incredibly beautiful anchorage with distant views to other islands over beaches and rocks. We have our little 2.5 hp outboard on as with the 4 metre tides here dragging the dinghy with a 25hp on is impossible, so we use our little put-put to motor to the beach or other boats. Its a slower way of life but more manageable. We visited a beach on the NE coast of Bayoneta. It was covered, absolutely covered in pink shells. It looked like a beach covered in rose petals. We met a couple of Germans on the beach who have spent 2 years in the Perlas and they had just caught 2 fish while snorkelling and they had a little fire which they were using to cook them, they had the livers and gills, cooked and set aside as an afternoon delicacy.

We then headed north up to the anchorage between Isla Chapira and Isla Mogo-Mogo where we met up with the crowd of boats, Omazey, Nowadays, Ocean Breezes, Reverie, Scud and Serannity to celebrate 8 year old Lucia from Omazey on Sunday. Omazey arrived from Panama bringing our new water maker and I spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning installing it. This HRO, Sea-Recovery "Ultra Whisper -400" is the bees knees, and is a huge luxury for us. We have been used to our old water maker making 25 litres an hour taking 35 amps an hour, and over the past year it has been slowly fading to only produce 10 litres an hour, requiring us to run it more and more and use more electricity. This new water maker uses only 22 amps an hour, and make 65 litres an hour. Yeah ! At 8000 USD though it should be worth it. But it does take the pressure off everybody, we can wash clothes and shower after swimming to our hearts content. I've given it a good run in and had the engine on pretty much all day to charge the batteries and make 600 litres of water. I want to give it another good run in over the next few days to ensure nothing goes wrong, and all seems good so far.

Lucia's Birthday was a classic day. Jonathon and Astrid organised a superb afternoon party of fun and games and Sangria. the 10 kids played apple bobbing, water balloon races, smash the piñata, British bulldogs, and even tug of war, which turned into a huge tug of war with everybody joining in. They had food, the usual spread of sandwiches, crisps and cake. Lucia had a wonderful day and it was a huge success, we stayed till sunset and ended up with a fire (to burn the birthday rubbish) and with a bit of music we danced and chatted into the darkness before heading back for grown up dinner.

We dispersed on Tuesday scattering to different parts of the perlas, we headed to Contadora to hunt down more fruit and Veg as Dana is showing a desire to eat healthily. Although she said she had no dietary requirements when she joined we are now all learning that our eating styles are a little different, she craves Fruit and Protein, so is eating through our 5 balls of edam cheese and apples. Although this isn't a problem, it may get an issue when we cant find these thing in the pacific in a few months. So we anchored in Contadora and bumped into "Jorga" and "SummerFuglen" (Norwegian for Butterfly) who we met in Curacao. We beached the dinghy on the vacant nudist beach to walk the mile and a half across the island to the so called shop. we stopped at the hotel where there was a children's zoo and a park and when we got to the shop, it had the left over of the weekly delivery of fruit and veg. We piled up with apples, oranges and bananas as well as a pineapple, some eggs, tomatoes and cucumber. We are planning to head back in the morning for another load.

School is going well, Helen is keeping up the impossible by teaching every morning. Jack is benefiting extremely well and now know his ABC, can count to 20, starting to spell, add and subtract - and he's 4 in May. Louisa is breezing through school now starting grade 3 in the Calvert system. Emma has suddenly twigged onto maths after a few months of struggling and Sophie is good as gold as ever plodding on in her dreamy way. Dana's is still fitting in, trying to adjust to the different style of life after running around in America working and living, to the different pace of life and close socialness of living aboard with 2 brits with 4 kids. She has a very positive attitude and is extremely organised, she has spent time organising the kids bedrooms with them, helping them keep things tidy, and she's even had a go at the boat dumping ground - the chart table.

So we are now heading down south to see a bit more of the perlas before hopefully leaving this weekend to Galapagos.

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

9-10th Mar - Disaster strikes !!

We did head back to the shop on Contadora in the morning. But first Helen decided to do school in the afternoon while we sail south and spend the first part of the morning on the beach with the children and "Jorga". Helen swam and although the water was crystal clear it was teaming with Jelly fish, she got stung all around her mouth as she swam through them. They weren't bad stings, and the effects die off after 24 hours.,

Dana and Sophie offered to stay on the boat to clean the topsides, while the rest of us headed walked the walk to the shop, stopping at the park to play on the swings. We stocked up another 2 big bags of fruit and veg from the other shop, a great selection of apples, oranges, avocado, cabbage, carrots and other great things. We even bought a huge bunch of cilantro, which Helen chopped up later and stored in a bottle of Olive Oil. As we stepped out of the shop we asked a pickup truck if they were going our way and they kindly gave us a lift back to the beach so we didn't have to walk the mile all the way back.

During the afternoon on our way down south with full sails up in 10 knots of wind on the beam, Dana had the experience of being hoisted up the mast to help thread the spare halyard down through the mast. She delighted in it, and was all smiles during the episode. I let her down safely, she admitted she felt a little queasy up there and promptly fell asleep in the cockpit.

But a disaster had already happened as we left Contadora. I smelt diesel. I looked in the starboard engine room and to my horror the vision that I had finally smudged from my mind was there in front of me again, - a flooded engine room. Not so bad as what the hurricane can do, or a leaking salt water pump. The primary Racor Filter, that we had serviced 36 hours previous was pouring diesel into the engine room and had filled it up to the top of the engine mounts. Helen shut the engine down and started the port engine, and I looked on the gauge to see how much we had lost. What was just under full, was now down at a quarter of a tank about 150 litres, 40 gallons, gone! Thank goodness this had happened now and not on the way to Galapagos. Instinctively I turned the fuel off and the bilge pump on and pumped it all into the sea. But then afterwards thought that maybe I could have salvaged most of it by pumping it back and filtering it. I now may try the habit of turning the fuel taps off after every engine stop, but then there's the issue of needing the engines on at short notice for man overboard or an emergency, so maybe Ill keep them turned on !?

So we altered course to San Miguel on the north coast of Isla D'Ray, where the pilot says that this little town has a supply of fuels to replenish our diesel, as we didn't want to head all the way back to Panama to refuel. We anchored at high tide in a very very shallow sloping anchorage, calculating the exact fall in tide to keep us floating but to get as close to the village's beach as possible. We all ventured in the put-put dinghy to the village before the 5 metres of water disappeared, to hunt for diesel. Dana's Spanish helped us and we discovered there is no fuel available at all on the island. The people where very off hand towards us, and the place looked like it was in a state of decay, broken houses and discarded items everywhere. There was a diesel refuelling ship, beached infront of the villages generator plant pumping what looked like thousands of gallons of diesel. We asked the boat and the generator plant man to spare 20 gallons, but they weren't interested. In the end we managed to find an engine workshop man and he had 30 gallons in drums which he sold to us for $2.50 a gallon, a premium of 50 cents, or 15 dollars, I wasn't going to quibble. I spent the whole evening on the boat siphoning it into the tank, giving it a good shock treatment of diesel bug killer, just in case. It looked like good diesel, with no water and just a bit of sediment at the bottom, which I left.

Do disasters always go from bad to worse?; The next morning I took a look at the engines primary filter which was leaking, a stack of a water separator glass bowl and the filter above it. I took it apart and replaced the rubber seals, and as I tightened it back up the glass bowl shattered into shards of glass all over the engine room. Now I had no filter unit, and glass all over the place. I don't have a spare, I now had to search for options to solve the problem. So I though while I meticulously cleaned all the glass up. I could by pass the filter and run it un-filtered. No good, especially with the potentially crappy fuel we may have just acquired. Take the filter from the other engine and run with one engine.....doesn't sound good. Replumb the fuel line to feed both engines through a single filter, yep, sounds good. But then it occurred to me that I had a spare racor filter/separator on the dinghy, that I had put on to clean the crappy Caribbean fuel for our 4 stroke outboard. We now have a 2-stroke so it is superfluous. It says it is a "gasoline" filter, and after a chat with Walt from "Nowadays" we decided that diesel though a petrol filter should be ok. So I installed it and we were good to go once more.

While I was doing engines, I replaced the belts on the port engine. It seemed to be stretching and loosening. I also mended the upper seal securing strap on the sail drive. I mended the metal strap that secures it by using the part of a hose clamp (jubilee clip) with the slots in it and used it to join the broken part together, by threading the metal through the slots. The clamp is back on again and working well.

After the first downpour of rain for a very long time (is this a sign for the change in weather to go to Galapagos?) we headed on a rising tide though a small gap in the islands to Isla Gonzales where we met with OB, Omazey, Reverie and Nowadays. A beautiful anchorage on the eastern side sheltered by little islets and overlooking a coconut palm fringed sandy beach. Dana kindly babysat Lulu and Jack, while Sophie and Emma went to Nowadays for a movie and Helen and I had a "evening out" on Omazey for a few GnT's.

Looks like a Saturday leave for Galapagos, weather looks good for a few days of wind to get us maybe half way, the rest we will have to see what comes.

We are going to spend Friday, today, doing last minute jobs - clearing the through hull, paddle wheel for the "speed through the water" log, drilling new davit ubolt points in the dinghy to make it more secure, and refitting the bow sprit that we removed for the canal transit.

Should be a mass exodus from Perlas this weekend.....

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

11th March - getting ready

A simple day today, school and tidying the boat ready to leave in the morning.

Did school, checked the engines, cleaned the log, lowered the bowsprit and tied down a few things.

In the afternoon Helen took the kids to the beach while I copied a few DVD's from nowadays.

In the evening we invited the anchorage around for a few drinks to talk about the details of heading off in the morning, SSB frequencies to check in on and potential passage plans. The wind picked up to 15-18 knots from the north during the evening. Perfect time to leave, Mahi Mahi, Plane Sailing and Scud (in the next island) left at 9pm with the freshening wind. We all decided to have another drink and leave first light as leaving in the dark was not advisable with the scattering of rocks around our Island.

This is it -we are leaving in the morning with Ocean Breezes, Reverie, Nowadays and Omazey. We are hoping for 3 days of decent winds from the north before we encounter light SE winds or even zero through the doldrums.

We are predicting 7 - 12 days depending on the winds.

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

12th march - Dana's Birthday - a good day to leave

Up at the crack of dawn and we left for the Galapagos at 0700 local time along with all the other boats from the anchorage. Dana had a lie in and awoke after we had all the sails up and we were on our way.

Mahi Mahi, Plane Sailing and Scud left 9pm last night and made 80-100 miles in 12 hours. Ocean Breezes, Nowadays, Omazey and Reverie left with us and we have all kept pretty well together through out the day, every one making good headway. We have all been chatting and keeping each other amused on the VHF, with other boats on passage joining in as well, Jorga, prism, illusions, Ace and others.

We had 13 knots of wind from the north and about 2 knots of current with us as we left. I had the Main Sail up and twin headsails (one up each luff grove in the furling track) the windward sail poled out with a makeshift spinnaker pole from a 7 metre length of Bamboo I found on the beach at Mogo Mogo. It seems to work rather well, but wouldnt like to trust its bending strength in much over 15 knots of apparant wind.

We timed the sail to pass around Punta Mala as the tide started to Ebb from the gulf and it paid off as we had over 4 knots of current with us around the point around sunset that night pushing us along at 11 knots over the ground. The sea was relatively flat and we couldnt have asked for better sailing conditions.

Dana had a very relaxing Birthday today. She enjoyed getting into the slower pace of passage making as we all lazed around reading books, fiddling with sails, playing with play mobile or just talking. Unfortunately she hasnt mastered her sealegs yet, and had to speak quietly to the bucket. She didnt eat much today, only managing a few crackers and some salad at meal times. It didnt help her having a yoghurt for breakfast - that didnt start her off on the right foot. I believe no one is ever sea sick for more than 3 days so she, can only get better.

We caught 2 Tuna early on in the morning as we left. One Jack and one Bonita. Helen sorted them out and had one for lunch, filleted raw and soaked in lemon juice to cook it in acid. We had the other for dinner baked, with garlic mayonaise and 3 veg. Dana didnt manage to eat our catch.

Everything went smoothly today, we are making better progress than expected. I plan to head west until we hit the ITCZ about 05N 84W then motor south through it for a 100 miles until we find some light SE winds and beam reach straight to Galapagos. All the others are taking the prescribed "head south" route, or a direct rhum line, but Im sticking to my plan and my gut instincts. My feeling is that we shall arrive on Friday or Saturday.

Dont forget to keep track of us with the tracking map "WHERE ARE WE NOW" link on the left side of the web page.

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

13th Mar- Disaster strikes again

The previous evening we clocked up 11 knots at one point but that was with 4 knots of current with us. Dana did the 8-midnight shift, throwing up everyso often. I cat napped with one eye open to make sure all was well.

After midnight the wind started to die and come round to the east. I had to Gybe the Main and transfer the bamboo onto the other Jib to pole it out. But the wind kept dropping and before too long we were wallowing around.

So at 9am we put the motor on and started motoring into the Doldrums, the ITCZ, a little earlier than we had anticipated. Most of the other boats had kept a more southerly route, some 30 miles to the south and were experiencing 15 knots of wind all the way through till noon. Nowadays stormed ahead and Ocean Breezes close on their tail.

So with nothing better to do on the flat calm almost glassy water I decided to Install an NMEA to SEATALK interface box on the autopilot so that I could get the computer to access more info such as the wind speed and direction as well as boat heading, rather than just its course and speed over the ground. Unfortunately something went wrong and the message "STALK FAIL" started blinking on the auto pilot control head, not just in the main one, but also on the spare, secondary one also. I disconnected all the work I did, but the message still stayed. We could not control the autopilot computer. Its the equivalent of the screen and keyboard failing on a PC. So I started to disconnect everything else including wires to try to pinpoint the fault, and after spending all afternoon fault finding, replacing the course computer, with a spare, I can only assume that both the head controllers had failed.

This was serious as we now had to hand steer for the next 5-7 days to Galapagos. Helen steered most of the afternoon as Dana was still feeling Seasick. When I got to the point that we will have to hand steer, I mentioned to Dana that she will need to start taking some medicine to cure the seasickness, and to start trying to get out of bed. I reckon some time "at the wheel" will cure the sickness.

So we shifted to a 3 hour watch, Dana first, then me, then Helen, then me, then Dana. I rigged up a rope pulley so we could control the wheel from a more restful place in the cockpit.

Still a glassy sea during the night and we are heading south a little to try to cross the ITCZ as quick as possible to pick up some SE or Southerly winds.

So its hand steering from now, and god knows how I am going to fix the autopilot in Galapagos.......

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

14th Mar - Thank you Friend !!

Pictures: The Bamboo Spinikar pole and Ocean Breezes - mid Doldrums.

Did I ever tell you the story about Our Friends's boat in the Hurricane last year. He very kindly mentioned for us to take any food and any boat spares, that would help us, from his boat that had gone up on the beach and floundered during Hurricane Ivan in Grenada. Previous to the Atlantic I purchased some spare autohelm parts including and ST600R remote control Sea talk unit. So I had my spares for the autohelm, but Ocean Breezes expressed a desire for the spare control unit so I let Chris have it in return for helping me distribute Friend's Food to other boats troubled in Grenada.

It was this thing that saved our skin here in the middle of the Doldrums. We motored hard for 40 miles south to intercept his position, and Chris, Lisa and their kids, Conor and Finlay kayaked over to our boat, while their boat bobbed around in zero knots of wind. We plugged it in and it worked fine and solved our autohelm problem. We celebrated with a cold Gin and Tonic in the blistering midday heat in the middle of nowhere.

Hand steering for 24 hours was hard work, but with 3 of us (and Sophie and Louisa helping steer as well) we managed it. Dana has sorted out her seasickness with Dramamine and is now eating albeit minimally, She was keeping her fluid intake up alright.

During the night we saw the most fantastic phosphorescence (or is it marine luminescence) our wake was alive with light, and during the morning shift we passed through a Huge Jelly fish shoal and the sea was alight all around with explosions of Jelly fish phosphorescence. In the morning we were still in the shoal and we could see the Jellies over 2 metre long sausage shaped things.

During our motoring in the morning while Helen was battling with school, we were constantly interrupted with hundreds of Dolphins putting on great leaping displays for us. The previous evening we also saw 2 common thresher Sharks wallowing near by with there long thin parts of their upper tail sticking out of the sea like sticks. They ran away as soon as we approached.

So this evening we are now motoring in luxury with our autopilot working, happy that we don't have to hand steer for 7 days, in zero wind, blisteringly hot heat of over 32'c and 70% humidity.

The weather forecast puts the ITCZ 50 miles south west of us so I anticipate another 24 hours of motoring before light southerly winds settle in.

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com

15th March - Beating into strong headwinds

4am: 16th - We are now 350 miles to go and the past 24 hours have seen a transition from calm seas and low winds, motoring - to motor sailing and now beating hard into wind trying to make our course to Galapagos. There is a 1 - 1.5 knot NW setting current pushing us north of the Galapagos. We have taken a gamble that the winds will back and change to a more SE or even ESE direction to bend us southwards during the last 2 days. The weather forecasts suggest this will happen and listening to the 4 boats ahead of us in their last day of travel this is certainly the case. cross your fingers otherwise we will have to be motor sailing the last day. We have 200 of our 450 litres of fuel, and we are at the point that we could motor all the way there now if we have to.

During the lunch time when the winds were non existent and we were motoring with one engine, the drive belt broke and so we swapped to the other engine, I had lunch, and within 2 hours the belt on the other engine went. So there we were wallowing in the pacific with no wind with both engines out of action drifting in a general direction to Hawaii some 6000 miles away. We calculated it would take us 3 months to drift to Hawaii, I think we have enough food. But I swapped the belt on the water cooler on the starboard engine and we were off again.

Helen managed school in the calm conditions in the morning and in the afternoon the wind picked up and we motor sailed on a direct course to Galapagos. It was during the night the winds picked up and started getting a little west of south, and started pushing us north of our rhum line to land fall. During the evening and the night the seas picked up and started making things very uncomfortable. During Dana's first watch we motor sailed keeping us on course, and at midnight I turned of the engine and freed up the sails and started sailing, I just couldn't bear the decent winds and not being able to sail. Helen took over at 4am with very rough conditions, and by the end of the watch she was getting fed up of sailing in general, and expressed that she wants to go and live in a house - understandably, this is not pleasant sailing.

All 8 boats with us, apart from Nowadays that has stormed way off ahead, are all within 60 miles of us. all with the same conditions. OB are 20 miles behind us, slamming hard in the uncomfortable sea.

So pray for SE or even ESE winds for us so we can make landfall without having to tack or motor.

ETA Sunday !!! watch this space...

rob@yachtdolphins.com http://www.yachtdolphins.com