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American Spirit II - Day 35; Off to Galapagos; Friday, February 7, 2014



At 11:00 AM all the (40)boats in the Rally started for the Galapagos with 'race start.' American Spirit II was over the line a few seconds early, so we had to do a 360 and restart. Oh well.

About 10 boats, including American Spirit, were flying Spinnakers. To go with our boat name, American Spirit, our Spinnaker is Red, White and Blue. For our British friends 'reviewing' this log, those are the colors of our national flag.

At 12:55 AM Nexus, a 60 foot catamaran, spotted a whale blowing between them and an island. We were about 3 miles to starboard of them. Some boats get all the luck! How cool is that?

At 4:25 PM we caught our first fish! A Blue Fin Tuna, about 4 pounds. Joel reeled him in. And corresponding with our policy on board of 'filet and release', the fish was quickly dispatched, the filet bagged in a zip lock and the 'meat' put in the frig. What I found most unusual with this fish was that it was a huge, dark bleeder. Yuck! For those of you who haven't ever landed a fish while trolling, in order to minimize a mess in the cockpit, and to put the fish 'down' in as fast and gently as possible, we squirt alcohol into the fish's gills, which effectively puts him to sleep, dead sleep.

At about 5:00 PM we got our last look at the Las Perlas Islands, off our aft, port quarter. Good buy Panama!

We flew the Spinnaker all day, and at sun set, when the wind came up, a lot, and a large, breaking wave coincided with a big gust of wind, we decided to have a Chinese fire drill. My rule number 1, which we violated, is to douse a sail before you are forced to. After about 20 minutes we had things 'sorted out' and back to normal.

All night long we were 'dodging' ships heading to or from the Panama Canal. On my first watch of the night, the 9:00 PM to midnight shift, I had three ships come close. Two of those ships set off the collision alarm on the boat. I'm sure the same alarm was going off on those ships. To avert a collision, both of those ships altered course to port and passed under our stern. The closest was 1.3 miles away. That seems like a lot of distance, but at night when those ships are lit up, they seem much closer than they really are.

How do you tell if a ship is on a collision course with your boat? Its simple, but very confusing for many people. Each large ship on the ocean has two range lights on it, both white. The forward range light is located on the bow; the aft range light is located on the after superstructure of the vessel. The forward light is lower than the aft light. How you view these lights dictates which direction a ship is traveling. For example, if the 2 lights are lined up one on top of the other, then the ship is coming at you and a collision is imminent. If the forward and lower white light is to your right, and the taller and aft white light is to your left, then the vessel is passing from your left to right. These ships also have a green light on their starboard bow and a red light on their port bow. This also helps you identify what direction a ship is going, when they get closer. If you see both the red and green bow lights, that means the ship is heading towards you. It gets more confusing when you have multiple ships heading toward you at the same time. Most of the time the ships change course without us having to call them. But sometimes we have to call them and find out what their intentions are, i.e., do you see us; are you going to change course to miss us; etc. And under the International Rules of the Sea, when a ship makes a course change to avoid a collision, the course change must be 'exaggerated.' Meaning, the course change must be so large that even a cave man would recognize it. If a 5 degree course change is needed to avoid a collision, then the ship will probably make a 20 degree change.

Brian Fox

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