Well, we were beginning to think that that our fishing skills were just not up to the task. 10 days the line(s) have been out and all we have done is snag seagulls and lose lures! Well, that all changed yesterday, when I bagged a yellow fin tuna! It put up quite a fight to land it, and we we all in a fluster as I dragged it on to the back deck. After filleting, the back deck looked like the scene of a massacre. A few buckets of sea water sorted it though.
And delicious it was too with fried potatoes, plantains and coleslaw. Looks like enough for 4 meals for two people. I think about 5 kilos or 10 pounds in weight. The line is back out. I am hoping to fill the freezer before we arrive in the Marquesas.
Another glorious days sailing today. Force 3 winds on a flat sea and a cloudless blue sky. It really is plain sailing here. We don’t want it to end!
Here’s our updated position:
We have started to slowly head south. Now only 115 nautical miles from the equator due south of us, but we probably wont be crossing for a few days yet.
We saw another boat today, a huge tanker heading to Panama. The first sign of life we have seen for about a week.
Hi from Azimuth on day 9 of our passage from Panama to the Marquesas. But first … here is an important news flash.
At approximately 1am on the 9th April 2024, Mrs Ailsa Pearce of Nottingham, UK was violently attacked by a killer squid whilst on night watch. When interviewed, Mrs Pearce explained that she was quietly on watch listening to a podcast (probably about Donald Trump) when she noticed a squeaking noise, and something rustling behind her seat. On investigating, Mrs Pearce was faced with a giant killer squid approximately 20cms in length. She went on to explain that the squid had somehow managed to climb aboard Azimuth (their boat), worked its way across the deck, in through the windscreen window, slithered across the chart table towards where she was sitting and was about to attack her at any moment. She managed to wrestle said squid in to a saucepan, and return the killer back to the sea from whence it had came. She reported that the squid “picked me up with its mind powers and shook me like a dog”. Unfortunately there is no pictorial or video evidence of this shocking event. The only other possible witness to the event, a Doctor Dominic Pearce of Nottingham, UK was asleep at the time. When questioned about the incident he replied that “I was asleep at the time, and did not hear anything of the shocking event. Its hard to believe this could happen” he did go on to report that Mrs Pearce had been under a lot of stress lately, had only had limited sleep over the past few days and may have been prone to wild hallucinations. Its hard to understand what was going through the mind of this squid as it launched its attack. Whilst Mrs Pearce is suffering from Post traumatic stress syndrome and has had to be heavily sedated with the use of Sauvignon Blanc, it is expected that she will make a full recovery soon.
Strange things can happen at sea!
Here’s where we are this morning. Making slow and steady progress. Just passed 1000 miles!
Hi everyone. Well its been another delightful day on the high Pacific seas. Today we have passed North of the Galapagos Islands. A real shame we couldn’t visit them, but the cost to take your boat there is prohibitive, something like $3000 dollars. And when you are there, you are only allowed to anchor in one place and have to visit the islands on guided tours. Its all about protecting the marine reserve, which we totally understand and respect, having called the ocean our home for almost two years now. Maybe we will come back around this place again in the future and have the funds to visit next time?
Here’s our location at 1700 local time today:
We have sailed 915 nautical miles since leaving the Perlas Islands.
Today has been another amazing day of sailing with flat seas and light winds that have blown us about 120 miles. Last night at 3 in the morning, someone turned the wind off for 3 hours. We were totally becalmed, with nothing to do but gaze at a star filled sky and watch the phosphorescence in the slow wake behind the boat.
I have been fishing everyday and so far have caught nothing but that seagull. This afternoon I thought I would up the ante and got a second reel out so that I had two lures in the water. Both lures went crazy about an hour ago, and the reels were spinning like mad (like something out of the jaws movie!). I applied the brakes slowly, but in both cases the lines snapped! Lures lost 🙁 So we are down to the last few lures now and not very hopeful we will catch any dinner. Still its been a learning experience, and an interesting moment of utter panic whilst I tried to work out what to do! I think we had something pretty big on the end of those lines, the breaking strain was at least 60 lbs!
I leave you with some shots of this mornings sunrise. It was pretty special.
Hi again from Azimuth, bobbing along in the Pacific Ocean. I’m not sure we have had a more perfect day of sailing in our lives! Its magical out here. Blue water, light seas, force 3 winds on the beam and a current under the boat that is whisking us 175 miles north of the Galapagos Islands at 7 to 8 knots. Life onboard is very relaxed. No boat problems… touch wood. Just enjoying the blue water sailing life.
Here’s where we are:
We have sailed 768 Nautical Miles since we left the Perlas Islands, so well over 3000 to go yet!
Azimuth has now become a permanent bird hotel!
They don’t seem to care about us at all, you can go right up to them. And no that’s not me about to attack them with a winch handle. We still have plenty of food onboard before we need roast seagull!
We have the fishing line out the back but no luck yet. Except yesterday one of our flock of birds managed to get itself tangled up in the line when it got curious about the lure at the back of the boat. We had to reel the poor guy in and untangle him on the back deck. He was not happy! He jumped off when free and set on his way again, hopefully not too scathed by the ordeal.
So if someone had said to us 25 years ago that on our silver wedding anniversary we would be lurching around on a 58 foot yacht, 375 miles from the Galapagos Islands, 550 miles from the coast of Panama, 325 miles from the coast of Ecuador, oh and 180 miles north of the equator, we surely would have replied “your having a laugh aren’t you?” Turns out they would have been right! We have both decided its a pretty cool place to celebrate and reflect on 25 years of wonderful marriage!
So here we are then, looking out the window at fluffy white clouds in a blue sky, being tossed around as we attempt to sail upwind to the North of the Galapagos Islands. Were doing 8 knots right now though and that’s in stark contrast to the conditions we had only 2 days ago, totally becalmed and at the mercy of the wild Pacific Ocean, see picture below!
With no wind for almost 24 hours, all we could do was drift with the current and watch the jelly fish amble past!
Finally the wind picked up though and now we are racing along again. It started quite sedately with Force 3 winds on a flat sea but now has become quite boisterous. Still we are not complaining about 15 knots this close to the Equator.
Yesterday, Azimuth gained a passenger for several hours
Word must have got around because as it got dark about 5 of his friends attempted to land on the pulpit too. They squabbled with each other for about an hour and then 4 managed somehow to perch together in harmony whilst a fifth bird made our upturned dinghy is home for the night. He wasn’t bothered at all at seeing me as I went up to the mast at 4 in the morning to put in a reef!
Google Earth is working again on my laptop! So here’s where we are now:
I leave you with a picture of the happy couple on their silver wedding anniversary!
Reading glasses hey, its the only way these days that we can see the screen for the selfy!
Hi there guys. Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. Been a bit busy of late with a new problem onboard. Azimuth like all boats has a pump that gives us tap pressure on the fresh water system, without it the taps don’t work any more. You can have a 1000 litres of water onboard, as we do right now and there wont be any way of getting at it!
So thats what happened yesterday. The pump started making a high pitched noise, and no water was coming out. Its the not the first time I have had to attend to this pump. But generally it has been pretty reliable for the last 5 years, and its original to the boat, so 26 years old. Well, this time the problem was a little more tricky. Inside the pump is an impeller that does the pumping. This had sheered off its mounting in the middle. Out comes the epoxy to attempt a fix. I left it to cure for at least 12 hours, and then tried to reassemble the whole thing at about 4 this morning when I came on watch. There hasn’t been much wind for the past couple of days, so we have been moving very slowly, but still the boat is rocking around and that makes fixing things extra difficult.
So fingers crossed, having spent 3 hours reassembling the thing, I turned on the pump to prime the system. It sounded good at first and then after a couple of minutes, the sound changed again to its high pitched whine, and lo and behold, the fix was a FAIL!
Arghh! That’s not good. Not sure what the hell to do now? its a pretty serious problem to have no easy access to water. Our friends on Coral Moon on the radio told us they had a spare, but it was very different to our current pump and also 12V too, where everything on Azimuth is 24V. So I am sitting there trying to work the problem, when it comes to me. We have a deck pump onboard. I could try that?
It took me all day to dig out all the stores to put together all the right fittings to replace the old pump with the deck pump. It involved a lot of replumbing and also some create fittings repurposing, but I managed to cobble it together. We switched it on and voila I could see water flowing through the hoses and the system pressurised properly!!! I am so relieved and happy. I class this as one of my all time greatest fixes at sea to date! First thing to do was have a shower!
Chaos on board! And the replacement pump installed.
Well for some reason, I cant get google earth to work today, so no picture of our location. Sorry.
As of 1138 local time, our position is:
3deg 46.666 minutes N, 82 deg 52.021 minutes W
Catch you again tomorrow, and fingers crossed nothing else breaks!
Hi All. Here’s a quick update on our position on Day 2 of our crossing.
We have travelled 203 miles. The average speed is 6.5 knots and last night we posted a speed in an epic surf down some large waves of 14.3 knots!
It has been a beautiful sail so far. Yesterday the winds were light until darkness fell and then then blew with a fury for a few hours, peaking at 35 knots. Thankfully this is all downwind sailing so far and, so pretty much all night we were whisked along, averaging 9 knots. The wind died this morning, and we have a very slow day. A chance to catch up on some sleep and get in to the rhythm of the journey. It usually takes a few days to adjust!
Here’s our current position as of 1500 local time today.
Hi there everyone! I’m writing this onboard Azimuth about 30 miles into our journey, bought to you by the power of Starlink. Here’s our current position as of 1300 local time:
lat: 8° 8’58.26″N, lon: 79°12’45.36″W
Distance travelled: 30.4 NM
Average Speed: 5.3 Knots, Max Speed: 7.5 knots.
Right now we are just ambling along going almost dead down wind, doing about 5 knots. We are just South of the Perlas Islands off the coast of Panama. These have been our home for the last 10 days and very nice they were too. Officially we left Panama about 10 days ago, so we have been “hiding out” with our friends on Coral Moon, waiting for some wind to blow from the right direction Today was the day!
We were anchored off a very nice eco resort island for the last two days, and so last night we took the chance to have a few beers at the beach bar and a nice meal with Mark and Donna so we could talk about the upcoming passage and plan stuff together. It was a lovely evening.
Here’s some selfies of the moment we all left!
And finally a last image of land for another 4000 miles!!!!!
