Daily Logs

Firefly - Back in the Northern Hemisphere

Today is Wednesday 22nd February and Firefly is 1250 miles from Grenada. Yesterday at 1425 she crossed the equator and is now back in the northern hemisphere. No major celebrations this time as we are all seasoned mariners having crossed the equator before, but we did toast Neptune with a beer shortly after our crossing.This part of the South Atlantic has been grey with an ongoing stream of heavy squalls - somewhat intimidating. Interestingly as we were approaching the line it looked sunnier on the other side and today is certainly a better day. We hope that we are now through the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) which is more generally called the 'Doldrums'. The wind has been reasonably good through this notoriously calm stretch and we have sailed through on average at about 5. read more...

Timshel - Panama to Galapagos Day 8 Arrival

Sorry about the delay in posting this - due to all the excitement of arrival etc. Having sailed slowly all day we realised we had enough fuel to motor the rest of the way, so we doused the chute and started the engine at about 16.30.Chugged along steadily, coming round the north of San Christobal then down the west coast, making sure not to run into Leon Dormido (which is also called Kicker Rock) on the way.Slowed down so as not to arrive in the dark and carefully motored into Wreck Bay at first light.The marks and lights are somewhat confusing as the Navionics electronic chart is clearly wrong, mislabelling the buoys that are there (an E cardinal called N cardinal)and including one that doesn't exist.The recently discontinued paper chart with depths in fathoms was nearer to being. read more...

Lexington - Captain Bob: evening out

We went to town tonight to have dinner.There are lots of small open air restaurants along the main drag. Often there are just a few customers and few workers. One that we went to in San Cristobal only had one person. Tonight we chose a place with a half 55 gallon barrel drum as the grill out front on the street. We all had fresh grilled tuna done to our order, rare.It was excellent with a nice salad and french fries. We talked to a couple at the next table who were from Austria. They were a young couple, boy friend and girl friend who had taken off 4 months or until their cash runs out to travel South America and California. He had worked in research in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and she had worked doing clinical psychology. Neither were in love with their jobs so they just quit to. read more...

Lexington - Captain Bob: tour, Tuneles de lava

We did a tour today by boat. Over the past several years tourism has flourished and changed life in Galapagos for the locals. The people running our tour had been fishermen but they are now involved in the tour industry. Our naturalist had gone to South Africa to learn English for 3 months. He also had extra training in ecology, snorkeling, marine life and birds. Life on the islands is very controlled. Most of the land is a national park. The area of the cities is limited. The areas that tourist can be taken in limited and controlled as to numbers. All of this is in the efforts to control any adverse effect of tourism. It would be interesting to know how good a job they are able to do. I would think that at some time the government must have taken land from individuals. The islands were. read more...

Lexington - Captain Bob: more photos

Mating pair of blue footed boobies and lava bridges. image4 image6 image2 image3 image1 image5. read more...

Lexington - Isabella

We are anchored in Porto Villamil, Isla Isabella.We signed up for a tour tomorrow to do some snorkeling and to visit the lava tunnels. We walked into town and checked in, walked around town and then went for a small free snorkel area. Jerry made friends with a sea turtle who would swim back and forth around him. I swam over to his area and got some real good video of the turtle. I can not post it now because we only have satellite access. We are back on the boat now. It is a little hot but there is g good breeze. There are a moderate number of flys so it is not perfect.Pretty darn nice though. The first is la photo as we entered the port area. Next is a nice churchThen Jerry, Ann and Dinger with the Main Street behind them. They are doing a little uRban renewal so the streets and the. read more...

Lexington - Captain Bob: onward and westward

We pulled out of San Cristobal tonight at about 4:15 pm. We are hoping to travel thru the nightand arrive at first light. That way we have the daytime to get oriented and decide what needs to be seen the most. We are motor sailing to make the right speed. It is about 90 miles. We are going to Isabella. A good percentage of the fleet is doing the same thing. I did a walking tour today. I figured out how to pull my GoPro photos up on my computer. I had used it to take some photos while snorkeling. Most were mediocre but some were better than average. I will not be able to post them until we get a real good internet connection. We will read some of the information on Isabella tonight. We already know we want to go see the lava tunnels. These are tunnels of lava flows, where the inside of a. read more...

Lexington - Captain Bob: walking tour

I did a walking tour of the interpretive center and Darwin Bay. It was a self guided trip with a lot of walking. I did snorkel in the bay. I talked to some young people that were doing volunteer work in the islands in return for a place to stay and only working 4 hours a day. The first photos are of cactus and their blooms, next an iguana, then a gun that was installed during World War II, then a statue of Charles Darwin, txt photos of Darwin Bay where snorkeled, next photo over land looking out to the boat,another looking out to boat(girl on beach added attraction), Ct Darwin and I Hope all is well with youMore photos this time since I have better internet image1 image2 image3 image4 image5 image6 image7 image8 image9 image10 image11 image12 image13 image14. read more...