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American Spirit II - Day 58; Leaving Galapagos; Sunday, March 2, 2014



Up at 6:00 AM to get ready for meeting with Immigration at 8:00 AM at The Rock restaurant and bar - to have passports and papers stamped to clear out of the country. While sitting in the cockpit having a cup of coffee after sun rise, I watched a marine iguana swim by on its way to the rocky shoreline. A dive boat going out of the anchorage at a high rate of speed missed the iguana by 5 feet, but it didn't bother it in the slightest. It just kept swimming with its head above water.

After I left the boat, Mike saw a large turtle and 2 eagle rays swim by the boat. I made it back to the boat by 10:00 AM. At 11:00 AM a Blue Footed Bobbie landed in the water next to the boat. More T-shirts are sold in the Galapagos with the Blue Footed Bobbie on it than any other shirt. We then got ready to weigh anchor. After letting out 100 feet of chain on the bow anchor, we pulled up the stern anchor, 50 feet of chain and rope rode. Then we pulled up the Bruce bow anchor, took it off the anchor chain, and then attached to the chain the new CQR anchor that Mike had brought with him on the plane. Once that was done, we had to store the Fortress and Bruce anchors in our rear cockpit lockers; along with 300 feet of rope. to do that we had to empty out one of the lockers first to put the Bruce in the bottom of the locker. The 50 feet of chain, which weighed about 50 pounds, for the Fortress anchor was put in a canvas bag and stored in the bilge in the center of the boat in the main cabin.

At 12 Noon our leg started for the Marquesas, 2,980 miles away. As usual, the start was a racing type start, with all boats competing to be first or in best position across the starting line. We started in the middle of the few hundred yard long line, about 30 seconds after the official start.

Once we cleared the anchorage we started making water with our water maker. We had almost no water in our water tank because while in the anchorage at Santa Cruz, we were hesitant to make water because boats could have discharged waste into the water. We even put 10 gallons from 2 jerry jugs into the water tank because we were so low. Another thing we had to do was empty our holding tank once we left the Galapagos. While in port, all the boats have to store their waste (toilet) water in special holding tanks on board. We have a 21 gallon waste tank on our boat. Once in the open ocean, we empty this tank using our macerator, by opening a valve and discharging the waste overboard. You can tell when you're discharging by the long brown stream behind the boat on the starboard side. Yuk!

One boat, Celebrate, was still in port waiting for customs to clear a new auto pilot. They'd been waiting for a week. Another boat, Ko-Ko, had an auto pilot malfunction and had to return to port after the start. We don't know their status and will email them to find out if the Rally Control doesn't advise us via a SSB email.

Forty five minutes after the start we put up our Code Zero turquoise blue light air sail and started gaining on the fleet. The wind was 11 knots and our speed was 5 knots thru the water and 6.8 knots over the ground due to a helping current.

At 2:30 PM 6 dolphin 'jumped' by the boat. They didn't stay at all, just kept going from right to left.

At 6:10 PM we passed by 2 net fishermen. Fortunately, we didn't need to be escorted out of their fishing grounds like we were on our way to the Galapagos.

Dinner, at sunset, consisted of freeze dried Turkey Teriyaki and chilled fruit.

From 6:00 PM to 11:30 PM our speed averaged 5 - 6.5 knots. Pleasant. A number of the larger boats encountered lightening winds 18 miles ahead of us at 10:00 PM and started motoring southwest to the trade winds. It may take 2 to 3 days of motor sailing to 'find' the trade winds. Usually these start blowing from the southeast at 1 or 2 degrees south latitude. Each degree of latitude is 60 miles. Its possible that we will have to go to 8 degrees south latitude to find the trade winds. That would not be good, as once you go below 5 degrees of south latitude you enter a Bermuda triangle type weather area that my sailing books is best to avoid.

At 11:37 PM a light squall and rain shower swept by the boat, forcing me to put the cushions under the dodger, zipper up the center window of the dodger, and close the hatch cover to the main cabin below. It passed in 15 minutes. There were 5 boats within a 3 mile radius of us.

The boat hydro generator was creating a nice phosphorescent wake behind the boat, visible for a couple of boat lengths. The Milky Way was very clear.

The watch schedule for this leg is myself from 9:00 PM - Midnight; Joel from 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM; Mike from 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM; then myself from 6:00 AM until breakfast time at around 10:00 AM.

Brian Fox

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