Day 169, Year 1: A Walk on the Moon
Date: Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Weather: Partly Cloudy Morning, Clear Afternoon and Evening
Location: Puerto Villamil, Isabella Island, Galapagos

Today was spent climbing one of the five volcanos here on Isabella–Sierra Negra. This is a huge caldera that is about ten kilometers wide and it last erupted on October 22, 2005-just 5 months ago. We climbed as close as we could to be point where the eruption occurred and as we got closer we could feel the tremendous heat coming of vents underfoot and out of the many fissures. It felt like walking on the moon and was another phenomenal experience. We again lucked out by getting a top-notch guide, Matthias Espanoza. He worked for 18 years as a naturalist and dive master in Santa Cruz, and has presently retired to Isabella to work on his music. He continues to lead land tours and has hired a manager to run his scuba business back on Santa Cruz. He has served as a guide for John McCain in the past few weeks, and earlier for Paul Allen of Microsoft and Bo Derek. And today he added the Handley-Goldstone crew to this list. He has also worked with many scientists and most recently with the BBC. They are making a documentary about the Galapagos.

In order to get to Sierra Negra we had to ride in the back of a farm truck for 18 kilometers and then ride on horseback for about an hour and a half. The final assault is done on foot and takes another hour and a half. The trail leads to Volcan Chico on the external slope of Sierra Negra. We went in that direction and then Matias took us toward the point of the eruption. It was a harder walk than just going to Volcan Chico, but well worth it. There is still steam rising out of the earth where the eruption occurred and you can smell the sulphur in the air. The entire walk is quite dramatic. At first there were small bushes and grasses, but then you are walking entirely on the pyroplastic scoria that blew out and covered everything in a one to two mile radius when the volcano erupted in October. This looks like black cinders and they are very porous with iridescent pinks, blues, golds, and greens that make them sparkle in the sunlight. They are so porous that even the very large rocks are so light you could pick them up and easily break them apart. They would easily float on water. We went on this expedition with Doug and Sylvia from Windcastle, and Doug’s expertise as a geologist who has spent a large part of his career studying the volcanoes on the moon of Jupiter, Io, added greatly to our knowledge base during the day.

We ended the day with a phone conversation with the Concord Yacht Club using the satellite phone we have here on the boat. The Concord Yacht Club is a group of sailors from Concord, New Hampshire, and surrounding towns. We attended the monthly meetings for the past 15 years and it was great to talk with them. The conversation inspired Mark to write another Captain’s Ramblings that I have copied below.

Captain’s Ramblings 3
Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Tonight I called in during the monthly Concord Yacht Club Meeting. It was good to hear the voices of so many friends once again and remember the great get-together’s we have had over the past 15 years. The Satellite phone is an acceptable means of communication, but it does break up occasionally and there is the couple-second lag between my talking and their hearing which can lead to one person talking over the other. I hope they got as much from the brief conversation as I did.

Our sailing friends often ask questions more about the sailing conditions than the experiences we have had. Since the logs concentrate on the many delightful experiences, I thought I would talk a bit about the sailing.

Each part of our journey has had entirely different conditions. In the north Atlantic heading from the east coast of the US to the Caribbean we had very rough seas and high winds, but then we should have expected as much since we sailed this leg in late November, early December – not the best time for avoiding the winter low pressure systems that come blasting across North America. The highest winds we recorded were about 50 knots at the mouth of the Delaware Bay. But most of the passage to St. Martin was in 25 to 35 knot winds and seas of 8 to 15 feet. Sleep was fitful and broken often by dropping off a wave or being slammed by one breaking against us. The boat always felt solid and safe, but we did suffer some chafe of sheets and the Sunbrella covers on the roller furling Yankee and staysail. As the boat bounced from wave to wave the sheets would rub up and down against the furled sails. We found to solution to be simply not furling the sails all the way, leaving a small triangle of the clew of the sail unfurled and then tightening both port and starboard sheets to their winches. Wear and tear on the crew was also evident. But it didn’t take two days in St. Martin for us to feel revived. As Judy said, it is a bit like having a baby: very painful at the time but the result makes it all worthwhile. Once it is over you quickly forget the pain and are ready to do it again.

The Caribbean was a whole different story. Winds were consistently 20 to 30 knots. We put both reefs in the main sail and never took them out until we got to the Pacific. While the passage to St. Martin was mostly beating, the Leeward and Windward Islands were almost entirely on a beam reach. Then we turned west to head for the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). This was dead downwind sailing. We mainly used a polled out Yankee, but tried the asymmetrical spinnaker and tried wing-and-wing with the main on one side and the Yankee on the other. In the end, we found we could make better speed using the Yankee instead of the spinnaker. In lighter winds that may not be the case. We also found that the Monitor wind vane steering (which we have only rarely used) was capable of keeping us on a stead enough downwind course that we could go wing-and-wing so long as the Yankee was poled out and the main had a preventer to the toe rail. No matter what, downwind sailing is a rolling experience. Some say you get used to it. We haven’t yet.

>From Curacao to the San Blas Islands in Panama we had to go well north to skirt around the high winds and seas typical at this time of year around Columbia. Still winds were 30 knots or better, but downwind that is actually pretty good sailing. We jibed back and forth in order to keep the wind on our quarter and sailed most of the way with the Yankee and double-reefed main. Once we got far enough west, we turned south to have a delightful sail on a broad reach.

Once through the Panama Canal our whole world changed as far as sailing was concerned. Tides had only been a couple feed in the Caribbean. In the Pacific they were 10 to 20 feet. And the winds were gone. We were now in the doldrums as well as in the lee of Panama so we only got occasional winds and then typically less than 15 knots. And the seas – the swells here are large – blocking out entire ships on the horizon. But they are very widely spaced so that it is often difficult to tell that there is any swell by the feel of the boat. Windbird rides gently up one side and down the next, remaining level all the time as though on a slow moving elevator. So we have found ourselves motoring a lot. Probably half of the almost 900 miles to the Galapagos was spent motoring. We are thankful that Windbird carries about 180 gallons of diesel in three tanks plus another 20 gallons in jerry cans on deck. And still we motor at only about 1800 RPM’s in order to conserve fuel. At that speed (4.9 to 5.0 knots) we burn only about a half gallon of diesel an hour.

Many of the anchorages here in the Galapagos are exposed to the prevailing swell and winds (when there are any). As the swells come into an anchorage the period gets shorter and the anchorage becomes rolly. In Academy Bay on Santa Cruz nearly everyone anchors with a stern anchor in addition to the main bow anchor in order to hold the stern of the boat into the swell. The boat may still hobby-horse (pitch the bow down and up) which is not nearly as uncomfortable as rolling from side-to-side which is what happens when you are beam to the swell.

So now we are in the Galapagos. We have been here three weeks and plan to stay another week at least. There is just so much to see and do here. And then comes the longest sail of our voyage – 3,000 miles to the Marquesas Islands. We will start out with little or no wind as we work our way out of the doldrums. We will likely head south of the rumb line in order to get to the southeast trades as soon as possible. We are just south of the equator now and will have to sail or motor to about 5 or 6 degrees south latitude to pick up the trades. Then we should have east-southeast winds of 5 to 12 knots all the way to the Marquesas. However, several boats that are already making the trip have reported winds up to 40 knots – probably in squalls. At any rate, we are planning on about 25 days to get to the Marquesas, though we have bettered every planned time so far. Perhaps we can better this one too. Maybe 21 days. But with that many days at sea, what difference would a few more make! We have found that we actually like the routine of passages and this one is often described by sailors as the best passage of their lives. We are looking forward to it.

Mark

060404 Day 169 Galapagos Isabella–Sierra Negra