The Southern Hemisphere!....and Arrival in Galapagos!

Date: 27th February 2023.and into 28th February

Location: Drifting 30 miles off Galapagos Islands.

Well. What a day. We all woke up early to watch the latitude number reduce to 00° 0.000'. Countdown and a cheer. Peter and Sally had crossed the equator previously in Milly but for us it was the first time, at least in a boat. Tradition has it that they must represent Neptune and initiate us to the world of equatorial crossers. Henceforth we shall be known as Shellbacks, leaving behind the world of Pollywogs or non crossers. Peter dressed up in a cape and took us through the initiation process. Humiliation is normally the name of the game but we got away with having to sing a song of the sea. The Mingulay Boat Song was well received. We were presented with a certificate that Sally had made and rum was thrown overboard to appease the great god of the ocean himself.

Just as we recovering from this big event and considering left over pizza for breakfast both rods screamed. I struck into one and could feel a small fish. It looked as though it had swum across the other line and set that one off too. In came a nice 3 pound yellowfin tuna. Dispatched with a knife I returned to the other rod. Well well, there's another one on there, a bit bigger. Thank you Neptune!

Most of the rest of the morning was spent tidying and making Mehalah ship shape and ready for inspection. Gilly of course worked harder than everyone making sure that all was prepared for the forthcoming ordeal when we will have 10 officials on board. I made water as we sailed along.

We were still concerned about the state of our hull so we had decided in the absence of any suggestion from our agent that Gill, Peter and Sally would go overboard to try and clean the hull. The sea was dead flat though we were rolling a bit. I rigged up long lines with fenders on the end to keep them from being swept away and in they went. 2.5km to the bottom. It was very hard work but after an hour they had done all they could. Hopefully it is good enough. However one of my bowlines had come loose during the procedure and we had a 'fender overboard' drifting back to Panama. Engine on and the chase is on. Caught second attempt Mr Fender was glad to be back on board. Back to motoring.

The final excitement of the day was the first sighting of land. After one false alarm there they were 16 miles away. Unfortunately to continue motoring would have brought our arrival to San Cristobal in the middle of the night so after a dinner of fresh tuna and mash we decide to drift for a few hours before making our way to Wreck Bay our port of entry early tomorrow morning. And that's where we are now. It is dead calm and impossibly quiet. Just a gentle slip slop as we drift at 1.4 knots towards the islands. Tomorrow morning we will be in the Galapagos Islands hopefully to meet up briefly with Meraki 2 before they leave for the Marquesas.

The Panamanian courtesy flag that we lowered earlier in the passage has been replaced by the Galapagos flag and the yellow quarantine flag that is required whenever we enter a new country. Fingers crossed for tomorrow's inspection.

EXTRA NEWS ON TUESDAY

We made it! Safely anchored in Wreck Bay surrounded by seals, sealions, shearwaters and watercraft of all types. No other European cruising boats - we are well away from home territory now.

The final few hours went exactly as planned  except that we didn't realise that Equador is on a different hour from Panama. So watch timing went to pot with some of us doing an extra half hour and others a half hour less. We are now on UTC -6.

This will be last the message posted from our not so efficient SSB radio address. Our email reverts to john@computex.co.uk for the time being. Pictures to follow. Waiting for the inspectors a couple of hours from now.