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Nexus - Galapagos!



Nexus crossed the finish line at 18:29 in San Cristobal, Galapagos (or Archipelago de Colon as Ecuador has named them), and we are safely anchored in the harbor under quarantine until tomorrow morning. We had a beautiful sail here and are glad to be on the hook. We've prepared our defenses at the back of the boat to avoid becoming a sea lion hotel as we sleep and we've already been looked over by two prospective tenants. We will be visited by a boat full of officials first thing in the morning to check us in.

We had an interesting night sail, Russ was on the 2-4am watch, and after negotiating a crossing with a freighter, noticed a dim red light on the water ahead of the boat. Since it was only a red light, he was thinking sailboat tricolor and couldn't work out how far away it was. Then it went out! After a panic scan with the binoculars of all of the water in front of the boat, he noticed in the moonlight, an unlit, small 18' fishing skiff in the water just off the port bow which passed by close to the boat. Once behind the boat, the little red light went back on which was the fisherman's work lite. It was a single man in an unlit skiff placing some kind of small flashing buoys in the water, over 95 miles from the nearest shore. He had no radar signature at all, at any range, and was difficult to see even with his red light on. We might have run him over, but he probably would have simply passed between our hulls if he just ducked down. It took a while to relax after that! In the morning, Sheldon did his ritual Neptune impression and welcomed us to the seven seas club with a covering of various vegetable sauces which looked a lot like seaweed, and the appropriate incantations. Now we're off to explore the other hemisphere!

NEXUS on San Cristobal 2/11/2014 0 53'S;89 36'W

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