Land ho!

We are in the wonderful Galapagos Islands, and kissing the ground (some, aka Donny, kissing it more reverently than others!). The crossing did go well though, the basic stats being: 1015 nautical miles, 8 full days, 1 crossing of the equator, 2 fish caught, 5 fishing lures, one new rod, and mounted rod holder lost, 2 battons lost, one dinner lost, top speed 11 knots, min speed I think we were moving backwards...

And now, a tale of 2 voyages, or really one voyage with 2 very different perspectives.

Brooke

Setting sail it was a beautiful sunny day, really everyday was wonderfully sunny unless there were a few clouds to give some extra respite from the heat of the noonday sun. Luckily right away we got “Wendy” our wind vane to work and the “look Ma, no hands” steering went perfectly. This meant long nights of star gazing and looking into the phosphorescent waters contemplating the meaning of life instead of having to steer the whole time, very relaxing! Or daytime activities of reading, writing, or catching fish! Got one tuna and one huge mahi mahi! This of course led to some of the most delicious meals, especially those cooked by Onno who is an amazing chef and a magnanimous host that was always out to make us feel as comfortable and happy as possible. There were beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and in between I got to work on my tan. Though there was a lot of rocking and cooking was not always the easiest, I got to work on my balance and cooking under pressure when it was my turn to prepare some of our fresh catch of the day!

And pulling into San Cristobal we had a dolphin escort for some of the time, the island basked in the late
afternoon sun, there were tons of birds on the water and we even saw a shark. Dropping anchor we immediately had friendly people coming to our boat to help with checking in and that night after a drink of celebration we fell asleep to the gentle rocking of being at anchor.

Donny
Setting off from Las Perlas Islas it was a beautiful day with “relatively” calm seas. After a scary few hours of thinking Wendy, our wind vane auto pilot was not going to work, we finally got her dialed in. Now time to fish! (See our future blog on Fishing) Deciding not to go with the traditional technique of hooking a fish on the end of a line and then reeling it in, and went with the less known ancient method of throwing all of our expensive new gear (mostly rated for small pond fish) at the small Volkswagen size fish in hopes that they would feel bad for us and jump aboard our boat to return the gear. We are still working out a few kinks in the method.

At around the same time of our fishing experiments the winds really started to pick up creating the first small bump in the road for myself. This “bump” came in the form of 20 foot swells** that towered over our small vessel on a “road” that stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction of shades of blue and white mountain tops continually crashing and crumbling upon themselves before building back up to become the next tall peak. This is also when Wendy, our autopilot, smartly decided that the waves were too big for her and she would sit this one out, leaving us to make all the minor steering adjustments for ourselves. It usually went like this: “Damn, we’re 20° too far to port, turn to starboard. Damn! we’re 40° too far to Starboard! Go back! Go back! Wait not that way! Holy *&$^%! Go right, I mean port, I mean starboard! Did we just go in a full circle?” It was while I was calmly making these small adjustments during my shift at 2:30 AM that the waves finally got to me and my tuna (that we finally did catch) made its last attempt to escape from my stomach and return to the sea. It was successful (many times). While I was sad to see the wonderfully tasting fish leave, I was even sadder to see it was accompanied by my Dramamine. Although I am not a big proponent of taking any kind of drugs, the Comer family was brought up popping motion sickness tablets like Skittles. Whether it was to help with balancing an inner ear condition or for putting two overly energized children quickly asleep for long car trips, is still under debate. However, even in those days it was clearly understood that all motion sickness medicine is useless if it is not taken at least a half an hour before the symptoms appear. As there was no break in the waves for the next seven days the three packs of Dramamine that I had bought were now worthless, the seasickness was upon me.

So for these next 161 hours 43 minutes, and 21 seconds, I spent 95% of my time lying on my back. Even the briefest of movement required 10 minutes of planning, deep breaths, the actual movement, then 10 more minutes of deep breathing. If the activity I wanted to do was down below (I came to know this area as the “Machine”), it was even worse. Here I would bounce front to back and side to side; stubbed toe – 20 points, banged knee – 40 points, head on the shelf – Jackpot…Jackpot! It was even more exciting when we were playing multiball (more than one person below), as the point system increased. Although meals Onno or Brooke prepared looked good, they could not compare to my diet of crackers which was about all I could keep down. But I guess that’s fair since setting foot in the galley of the Machine for cooking or cleaning was not something I was prepared to do anyway- don’t cook, don’t eat.

While up on deck was 100 times better, it had its own game. With the constant movement (the sun would not freakin’ stay still) and not much cover, the object was to see how small you could get your body to take advantage of the two feet of shade that was available. Sometimes I would come out a winner, while other times a bright red calf or shoulder would show the proof of my loss.

In the end the Galapagos was a beautiful site for many reasons and the feel of solid ground beneath my feet was a more than fantastic sensation. My thoughts of joining the navy or hopping aboard a pirate ship have diminished a little, although with each day distancing me from the memory of those awful feelings I begin to remember only the good parts of the journey and think to myself….I could probably do this again.

**All for there measurements therefore noted were taken with specially calibrated instruments designed for and of use only by the author and may or may not coincide with findings or not findings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association as their data is obviously too small. Also may contain yellow food coloring #9.