More Doldrums!

Hi from the doldrums again..

I am writing this by moonlight in the cockpit of Loquax and it is 3 in the morning on 2nd of May and a whale has just surfaced alongside and half scared me to death! Still, as we said in the last e-mail, we are now in the South Seas!

We transited the Panama Canal and anchored at Flamingo Bay near Balboa - named after the guy who first traversed the Isthmus of Panama back in about 1500. Anyway we had to spend a few days in Balboa to wait for a friend to get through the canal - we were line-handling for him (you need 4 line handlers, one for each of the 120 foot heavy lines that keep the boat steady in the locks.)

Once he'd got through we spent a frantic couple of days in the most torrential rain doing our last minute shopping - the Pacific crossing to the Marquesas is about 4000 miles and you'd be astonished how much 4 people eat in the time that takes. Last thing we had to do was fuel up at the Balboa Yacht Club. Interestingly the yacht club no longer exists as a building (but they still charge $25 to join!!) and all you get is a fuel dock and some mooring buoys - the clubhouse burnt down. The rumour is that it was deliberate in order to make way for a magnificent (and competing) new one. I don't of course subscribe to this theory but having experienced the general disinterest in helping visiting yachts I'm not sorry it got razed!!

Despite everything we got fuelled up and filled to the brim with water (nearly a tonne) and diesel (100 galls in tanks and extra Jerry cans) then pushed off for the Las Perlas Islands about 40 miles from Balboa to meet another yacht, Theta Volantis, for a barbecue on the beach before embarking on the first leg of our trip - Galapagos Islands 1000 miles away.

Did you know ...

The Galapagos Islands were discovered by a passing Bishop (the way these things are) in 1550 or there about. They were originally known as the enchanted islands because they kept being discovered and then lost again.

... not a lot of people know that!

In truth the islands were there all along but the currents (where the cold Humboldt from the South meets the Equatorial West flowing current) cause such eddies and counter currents that no two boats will ever go the same route, no matter that they go the same speed in the same direction. It must have been almost impossible to find the islands in the old days since even with GPS Navigation that tells you were you are to the nearest 100 yards it is still very unpredictable. What with calms and adverse currents it took a staggering eight days (about twice as long as it should have!) to get to within a hundred miles of the islands. Then just as we thought we were winning everything contrived to shove us over the top of the entire group!  In the end the closest we got was the outermost island - Cullpepper Island..

Cullpepper is a deserted island as far as we could tell. Home only to dolphin, whales, turtles and a million sea birds (mostly boobies and gulls) that festoon the sheer 1000 foot cliffs, making them a spectacular back drop of guano! As we arrived the sun was setting, turning the white splattered cliffs a brilliant rose red. We wanted to anchor and have a rest as well as watch the dawn cone up over the ragged rocks but even when we were within a hundred yards of the cliffs the water was still over 200 feet deep!!  By the time it was shallow enough to anchor we were so close to the cliffs we could have taken a line ashore.   In the end we had to be satisfied with some photo calls by the birds before we reluctantly set off on our travels again.

So next stop Hiva Oa on the French Marquesas Island, another 2900 miles without the opportunity to replenish the diesel we'd used up trying to make Wreck Bay on the Galapagos.  So after two weeks at sea we had the prospect of (at the current rate of progress) another four to go!!

Everything Coleridge said about the doldrums in the ancient Mariner is TRUE!!

The journey out from the Panama Canal takes you through the widest part of the doldrums - an area where the trade winds from the north and from the south meet in (strangely) a huge area of calms! This seems to give rise to spectacular electric storms as lightning leaps from cloud to cloud over the moonlit glassy sea.  Actually the first three nights in the doldrums were very restful. It was so calm we could have been at anchor.  However by the middle the third week at sea we were getting restless and not a little discouraged by averaging a miserable thirty miles a day - bearing in mind we still had nearly 3000 to go and we were low on fuel and water. Still Sally appreciated the doldrums hugely, charmed by their glass-still seas and she and Sophie were fascinated by the wildlife (mostly pilot whales and dolphins but also with the odd 4 metre shark around.)  But in the end even Sally was whistling for the wind with the rest of us!

We drifted on until, on 29th April at exactly mid-day, we crossed the equator under engine at 93'50 West. We were immediately overwhelmed by a plague of green monsters (not from the deep, but Suzy and Sophie who'd got into the green food dye to celebrate the event.) There was feasting on the penultimate packet of Pringles and home made fudge etc followed by a water fight on the fore deck and spirits were high for the whole of that day as we confidently expected the immediate arrival of the South East Trades to waft us to paradise (well Hiva Oa.)

We waited  and waited but nothing happened.  We were still becalmed. The girls got us all doing Yoga on the foredeck and we played some games but it became clear that our difficulties were not going away.  By the 30th April we were down to our last 10 gallons of diesel (about 30 miles motoring) and we were beginning to ask ourselves just how many pints of water we were supposed to need each day!

Anyway our worries were solved at 5.00 P.m. on 30th April when the captain of a container ship  - the Tokoradi - very kindly (and I'm sure at much inconvenience) altered course a couple of miles to see if we were OK. The girls and I launched the Zodiac while the ship slowed to a halt 200 yards up wind of us then, powered by the Honda outboard I lurched my way across the rolling Pacific Ocean to fetch supplies of water and diesel.  It was a ridiculous sight, me wearing a life jacket in a 10 foot dinghy festooned with yellow Jerry cans in the lee of this HUGE ship as we motored slowly along while I tried to direct a hose pipe of water into each water container in turn. Finally it was done and the crew of the ship lowered no less than six  25 litre drums of diesel to me.  They waved and shouted cheerfully as they got under way leaving me feeling a mite isolated in the ocean where they had been!  I plunged back to where Loquax was keeping station down wind.

The captain waited until he knew I was safely back on board before gathering way and motoring off to who-knows-where.   We have water and fuel enough now for the rest of the journey and all is well again.

So, as you'll see the ocean is a funny old place, especially when you make plans like "we'll just sail over to the Marquesas next week" - the sea may have different ideas.

So this morning (Sunday 2nd May at 0300 am) we are hundred miles south of the equator and we have at last arrived in continuous light winds form the South East. Could this be the Trades at last?

Meanwhile the whale has wandered off oblivious to our passing and I'm alone again for another hour or two before Sophie comes on for her watch at 5.00 am.

All the best,

Peter Sally, Suzy and Sophie.

PS A big thank you to Inmarsat whose C-telephone tracks our position every day. Knowing that someone else knows where you are makes a huge difference as you drift aimlessly about on a piece of water the size of the Pacific.  Of course we have a short wave radio which we use to talk to other yachts but it is very reassuring to know that we can press a couple of buttons on the C-telephone and send a world wide distress call if things ever get really difficult!