Our Turn to Jump the Puddle

After watching all our neighbors get ready for their Pacific crossing for weeks and seeing them clean the waterline and bottom of their boat, run errands ashore, stock up on a bundle of 100 bananas, and do last minute jobs and prep work, it is our turn. Soon we will leave this magnificent archipelago and miss it! Especially the sea lions…

Mark and I are still taking it kind of easy, but marking something off the list every day. Laundry is done; water and diesel tanks (and extra jugs) are filled. Some food has been obtained. With the infrequent arrival of supply ships and small inventory of the little stores, buying all the food we “need” (read: can get) takes a while. Tomorrow, Sunday, will be taken up by general boat cleaning, testing our safety gear and instruments and top off our batteries. Monday, we hope to do more shopping and we will battle the most annoying job of them all: besides cleaning the waterline once again (a once a week chore here in Isabela), we will wipe Irie´s whole bottom, which is now brown instead of blue, and scrape the propellers and sail drives. We also plan to cook a few meals and arrange our paperwork for departure. 

Tuesday, May 7th, we hope to lift anchor, and stow it for 3-4 weeks. Yes, that is the amount of time needed to sail from the Galapagos islands to French Polynesia. Many weeks of nothing but big blue ocean. Our goal is to reach the Gambier islands, but if the seas are too uncomfortable (going that way means waves and wind on the beam – side - instead of from behind us), we will veer off towards the Marquesas and move with an easier, more comfortable point of sail. All the catamarans (all much bigger than us) on their way to the Gambiers have bailed so far and changed direction towards the Marquesas… We will keep the blogs (short ones) coming while we are underway. Wish us luck and happy sailing! :-)