We are sailing into the sunset, jib up and two reefs in the main. Beautiful calm seas and a pleasant South Easter on our beam. We thoroughly enjoyed our amazing (and rather long) stay in Galapagos, but are ecstatic to be on our way and have the boat in one piece again! The last few days in Baltra have been beautiful as well, a much quieter anchorage with pelicans and Blue Footed Boobies diving around the boat and the rolling hills of Santa Cruz in the distance.
Local boat hole patcher, Victor, did an amazing job on the repairs, along with the electrician and mechanic who ensured that LAD is in ship shape condition again. Short mention of a minor catastrophe yesterday when tied stern to another Galapagos National Park boat (floating steel chunk research laboratory, Tiburon Marillo) in order to be down wind during the messy sanding process. We had a sharp and sudden change in wind direction, bringing our boat around and onto one of her corners with a series of nasty crunches on our starboard beam. It all happened incredibly fast and we were able to fend off, with human fenders amongst other things, any more damage. Thankfully we happened to have a boat hole patcher onboard at the time who finished up the repairs to the bow this morning and patched the new hole this afternoon (the guys want me to add that our bow-stricker is no longer stricken and it is now a bow striker again for the yachties reading this who will understand).
What really shocked us was not the isolated incident, but the ding in the context of a series of unfortunate events. From the freak collision with a sunfish in Table Bay (Cape Town) to the propeller falling off in the middle of the Pacific to a patrol vessel crushing our bow, one starts to wander. We are avoiding jinxing the trip any further, gave away many of the bananas on board and are happy to have not left on a Friday. Given the laws of probability, we are expecting a glorious sail to Hawaii! With a good month of sailing ahead of us, we will keep you informed of our adventures along the way. Warmest wishes to everyone from our crew and we look forward to hearing from you soon (zs6ajf@winlink.org).
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