Cocos to Galapagos

 Cocos to Galapagos:

We started out VERY slow, engine on and no wind. Only made 78 nm the first day out. Next day, we began to get hit with some squalls.   Fun time, sailing again but just ½ hr and then dead again.   Later at 1, squalls just kept coming through and we could dodge and shift between them avoiding the rain but getting the wind, finally we started to move.   103 miles that day and 127 the next and the eve before our arrival in Galapagos the winds came up so much that we were flying between 8-9 kts!!   We finally had to reef down the sails as we would get in durning the dark.  We finally arrived right at sunrise.   It was beautiful!!   Our agent was waiting for us in a panga and escorted us to a nice anchorage.

Checking in was long but because we had an agent, Senor Bolivar, that we had worked with already from 3 weeks before, our paperwork was in order and all went pretty smoothly.   Later on we met another boat that had not checked in through an agent in advance and they were forced to waste a week in that harbour before being allowed to move the boat on to the other islands.  In order to clear in we were visited by  customs, immigration and agriculture.  Agriculture gave us a real inspection and shake down.  They are vigilent about the possibility of tourists bringing new plants, seeds or pets to the islands.  Finally we got the water taxi into town.   The town is occupied more by sea lions than people!!

They were everywhere!   And what a smell!!   When we got back to the boat we had our own 3 sea lion occupation to deal with!!   One had even the audacity to be sunning on our sun cushions in the cockpit and what a ruckus when Ken tried to shoo him away.  They bark something like dogs.   









Our Galapagos welcoming party




Occupy S/V Dancing Walrus.  'WHAT YOU WANT ME TO LEAVE??'

 

 

 





 


 




More friendly Galapagos welcomes.




Sunrise over a neighbors boat





Sea Lion smile 'DOG BREATH DOESN'T DO IT JUSTICE''




Occupy San Cristobel, The benches had a sun shade above and the sea lions liked to be in the shade!




Volcanic Lake at the top of the island



Mom nursing a pup on the beach



Marine Iguana





Land Iguana




Local customers at the fish market



This sea lion looks for hand outs at the local fish market and so do the pelicans.  I noticed pelican poop running down the cutting table and under the fish!

Today we took a walk to a place where 2 walls of volcanic rock opened up and resulted in a  very deep crack  with a salt water pond at the bottom.   The pond had fish in it.  The pond at the bottom was a wonderful swimming hole about 40 feet deep. Most water like this is quite warm but due to shading from the sun this one was nice and cool.  Its a very wonderful place called Las Grietas which is less than a 20 min. walk along a trail just away from the main town.



Las Grietas



Scenery along the way...



Delightful swimming at Las Grietas, Joni's shadow on the bottom while taking the picture swimming above.



Ken's waiting for Joni after his swim.



View from the top





Great Blue heron along the way



Red Crabs everywhere along the ocean shore....

Cocos Island more

Cocos Island, Costa Rica:  2/27/12

Please watch the wonderful footage by Howard and Michelle Hall, videographers of the IMAX, who captured the beauty in a short film of diving Cocos. www.vimeo.com/12520722.  Thank you, Michelle and Howard

Day 2: Quiet day as we needed rest. We brought the boat around to Wafer Bay and hooked up our router so all of us could do internet. That pretty much says it all……Rest of the day done.

Day 3: Cloudy so we thought it best that Ken take on his big project….changing the seal on the starboard sail drive by scuba!!! Doesn’t  really seem like a monumental task but when you have to include disassembling the max prop and then reassembling it as the last thing you do, it’s hard even under the best circumstances (on hard ground breathing air, not in 80’ of water breathing from scuba and in low light conditions dealing with very tiny parts).  I dove into making our blog more readable and user friendly and Robin was helping wherever needed, always the best jack of all trades (and master of most) that he is!!! Ken will have more detailed discussion of his fix and post it separate on this same blog (it may be helpful to others that face the same repair)  and I hope you’ve noticed the fruits of my efforts by now reading this blog with ease.

Wally in Wafer Bay

Day 4: We started out this beautiful day by heading back to Chatham Bay and tying up to another ball there.  There are around 5 balls in each of the 2 bays where you are allowed to tie up (no anchoring anywhere here except in one other bay on the S.E. tip of the island).  We loaded our dive gear into the dingy and were off to our first dive of the day.  It is required that the dingy be manned by one person so that left only 2 of us to dive.  Many of the dives here are reported to be subject to strong currents although that was not our experience.   Robin and I went first and dropped almost right on top of a hammerhead which promptly swam away. I got a couple more glimpses of him but they actually seem kind of shy, curious but when they know you see them they swim away. The visibility was pretty good and we stayed pretty conservative and saw the usual suspects, LOTS of white tipped reef sharks, everywhere, sleeping, cruising, hanging together on the bottom or in and out of the current pockets with their friends, like a bunch of teenagers.

We saw lots of moray eels of different sizes, lobsters, etc. but I was on a mission to see the red lipped bat fish, one I’ve been dying to see for years. But not so lucky! Just to let you see what I’m after, have a look at this photo!!

 Next we came up and circled the little island, Manuelito, shown below, by dingy. Caves had been dug in by wave action but none right through.

Wally in Chatham Bay

 Next Ken and I saw something in the water and dingied out to it.  It turned out to be a turtle with 2 crabs on him.

                                Mr. Turtle with 2 crab friend

                               Turtle with wally on chatham bay

Then we decided to dive through the channel between the island on the right and the main island on the left, where we had seen the notorious tiger shark the previous day. There were lots of great swim throughs with up and down currents full of fish and yes lots more white tips, but alas no tiger..

                               Ken with white tips

 Day 5: We took the boat around again to a dive site originally discovered by Jacques Cousteau. A sea mount at about 80- 150’ that you drop down a buoy line to get to.  The buoy and down line had been installed by the dive tour operators and it was secured at the bottom to a very big boulder (over 10 tons) with a big chain.  Enough to hold most boats on a calm day like it was.  

It was a very quiet day on the island as the last live-aboard dive boat had left by then. We dropped into the blue…the most amazing shade with flashes of silver jacks circling under the boat. Grabbing the line hand over hand into the blue seeing nothing but blue for a few moments when suddenly the mount comes slowly into focus. It was a day of very little current so we had the chance to swim around.

 This first dive of the day we saw LOTS of white tips, a cow faced ray (like a spotted eagle ray) and about 4 hammerheads which swam up but definitely kept their distance. 2^nd dive we saw lots more action as it was getting later and feeding time had begun. Maybe about 10 hammerheads swam around, a lot less shy and definitely more curious. Some of them were quite big.  For anyone reading this blog that may want to dive this site the correct gps reading  for it is 05. 30’36” N,  87. 01’ 57” W. We had an offset of .20 nm at 140 degrees to our charts, CM93, though.

After coming up we circumnavigated the rest of the island.  It was gorgeous, with  waterfalls and coconut palmed beaches but mostly cliffs coming straight down to the water. We almost collided with an occasionally submerged rock well off the South end of the island which I spotted on the charts just in time.  Apparently there are several more so good charts are a necessity.  None the less, thank goodness for gps and charts! As the (sun was setting we had a group of dolphins escorting us back to Wafer Bay and a perfect day was ending with a rainbow no less!!

                                Waterfalls

                               Gorgeous waterfalls

 

                                And more waterfalls……..

                               Dolphin escorts

                                Rainbow over Dirty Rock

 Day 6: We took the dingy into shore to check out and hike to the waterfall that provides water and electricity on the island.  It was about a 20 minute walk.  The park rangers provided a free guide which they do for most everything if you ask.   Stephanie was our guide and a great English speaker. Thanks Stephanie!! The waterfall was fresh and wonderful and just the right amount of hiking on that hot, sticky day up through the jungle.  Cocos gets a lot of rain so everything is very tropical. 

                               Stephanie

                            Robin under the waterfall

After our hike we headed out again to Jacques undersea mountain spot and did our last dive. Much more current this time and a funny phenomenon, some kind of Tuna,  one silver the other blackish were parading around the sea mount in pairs as if someone had choreographed the scene for us. There were hundreds paired like this.

                               Tunas on parade

Hammerheads seemed to come a bit closer maybe becoming more familiar with us. But alas our time in Cocos had ended and it was off to Galapagos at 1500 hrs.

                               Bye Bye, Cocos Island….

Cocos Island, Costa Rica

Cocos Island, Costa Rica  05,32N 087,03W

Arrived on 22 Feb around 5pm to a glorious bay with the Sea Hunter tied up, a live aboard dive boat that brings divers from Costa Rica and stays for about a week to 10 days. Next morning, we awoke to a most amazing view in a bay surrounded by lush covered hills and rocky old volcanic mountains emerging from the sea. The mountain chain extends all the way under the ocean back to Galapagos.  The same magma hot spot created this chain similar to what is going on in the Hawaiian chain.  We all couldn’t wait to don our gear and jump in to see what we could see and organize ourselves for more serious diving. Anyhow, its also really pretty hot. There was a big school of circling jacks under the boat waiting for some scraps. We later found out they love onion skins or any kind of organic refuse. There was also a couple of white tipped reef sharks, the usual variety of reef fish and I spotted a ray in the distance. Not bad for falling off the back of the boat. We couldn’t wait to go for a real dive.  Robin took a pic. of a shark during a dive..............

Dive 1: I’m so sorry to say I forgot to fill Robin’s weight pockets with his appropriate weights so he missed the first dive after plopping in with all of us and then not being able to get down. Sorry Robin!!! We were patiently waiting for him below around 70’ checking out the rock boulders, and getting comfortable with our new environment. This is apparently a regular hangout for hammerheads but they were not around and the white tipped reef sharks were taking advantage of their chance to be the big shots on the block for once. Lots of them everywhere. We circled the rock island looking for hammerheads but none to be found. We ran into a couple of hawks bill turtles getting cleaned by jacks. The viz wasn’t so great. We had stayed so long deep waiting for some sharks to show that our guide got low on air and we went up after only 33 min.

Dive 2: We got out to the dive site and Ken realized his computer had gone dead so he didn’t dive. So we dropped down to about 70’ and went along the channel’s edge where a tiger shark was reputed to hang. Lots of white tips not paying any attention and viz not so great but suddenly, in my face a BIG shark belly!! White as snow, I saw his head just for a second probably the same time as he saw me and then veered up, thank goodness, to avoid me!! It all happened so fast and then it was over! So were cruising along and I looked around and could count only 3 when there was 4. We’re missing Robin! Ok, so another dive aborted, the name of the game for today…at least, I saw my first tiger shark and lived to tell the tale!!

We got to the boat and Robin was there, whew! He was wearing my old Aladdin computer , one of the least conservative but had come straight up and missed  his safety stop due to buoyancy issues and inexperience. OOOOPS!! So the computer locked him out for 24 hrs.  Now we had 2 computers down!! Got back to the boat to make a veggie curry and while making dinner was feeling kind of funny.   After eating we watched Incendies, a 2010 movie from Lebanon, and I started itching like crazy!!  UH, oh, skin decompression sickness.  Luckily, after a few hours it let up and I could sleep.   In the a.m. I felt ok but called DAN and they said “don’t dive that day” so seeing we only had one computer working and a sicky that became the new plan so here I am writing to you!!!

We moved the boat to get some wifi here it goes!! Also, Sea Hunter(the live-aboard boat that is currently here) has a battery for Ken so we’re all set for tomorrow’s diving.  We hope to go to a site discovered by Jacques Cousteau, an underwater pinnacle, that you drop down a line to and the action there is supposed to be amazing. Dolphins, sharks, rays, fish and even a whale shark was spotted only a day ago so keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Robin has just found a link to a short video of the Panama Canal crossing of our neighbor Matt's boat, Mojomo, same kind as ours, who left just one day ahead of us. One of his line handling crew members, Axel from Germany, filmed it with a Go Pro camera.  It’s only a few minutes long and really interesting so have a look!!  If you’ve seen it already in our Panama Canal crossing section, just disregard as I’m adding it just today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0-PHGGBcVg.

If you are wanting more info, here are a couple of links to the Cocos Islands and for the live aboard dive ship Sea Hunter which has some underwater shots and video:
<embed src='http://www.underseahunter.com/general/longtail/player.swf' height='406' width='610' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars="&file=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FaVFAGbz9-GU&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.underseahunter.com%2Fimages%2Ftripreports%2Ftri001629_tiger-shark_manuelita_-herreno.jpg&plugins=viral-2d"/>
http://www.underseahunter.com/tripreports.html?vessel=123&year=2011which is sitting next to us
and the Cocos Island official website http://www.cocosisland.cr/

Panama City, Panama to Cocos Island, Costa Rica

Panama City to Cocos Island, Costa Rica

After leaving the fuel dock we passed bird shit rock and some locals fishing.....

     We had an amazing first day out flying the spinnaker and getting 8-10 kts.  At the end of 24 hrs. we had made 161 nm. We noticed a small tear in the spinnaker.  When we took it down we engineered some repairs.  I am not sure if you can see it in this picture but here we find Joni wearing a small piece of the repair tape that was left over from the repair to the sail in the lower part of this picture under her breathing apparatus. Things do get a bit boring out there on the high seas!! Anything for a laugh!

Second day out the winds died and we had to pull the spinnaker down and put a motor on and that’s been the scenario ever since with only one night and early day of good winds where we were getting 6-7 knts. Winds mostly were very light but we did manage to fill the sails here and there and move along on ‘God’s Breath’.

Of course we’re having amazing sunsets every evening but so far haven’t seen the legendary “Green Flash” on this particular trip......

Now 5 days underway our trip has been rather slow.  The winds in this area are variable and light.  We have motored more than sailed.  We have only been running one motor at about 1000 r.p.m. which gets us about 3+ m.p.h. in order to conserve fuel as there will be no topping up the tanks again for 3 weeks until we move on from Cocos to Galapagos which is another 400+ miles to the S.W. of Cocos.

We have not seen very many boats or ships.  This is not much of a travelled route.  Late on the 18^th we saw a Lagoon catamaran sailed by a Japanese fellow.  He made radio contact.  We had our spinnaker up at the time and were managing about 3.5 knots.  He did not have a spinnaker and was motor sailing.  I asked where he was headed and he said to the Marquesas.  I teased him that he did not have enough diesel fuel to motor all of the way there.  He said that he had about 1000 liters.  He motored past us after dark that night and we did not see him again. 

Our guest Robin Berthet has been busy on board fixing things.  He brought with him from N.Y. 2 new cupboard doors that he installed over a 2 day period.  He also did a lot of engine room work.  We had an overheating issue on the port Volvo engine that had been an off and on problem since we bought the boat.  We finally isolated the problem to an anti-siphon valve which was easily repaired after several cramped and sweaty hrs. in the engine room. Robin’s even been doing most of the cooking, delicious veggies as he’s a vegetarian, as Joni decided to take advantage of her good fortune and do a long awaited fast.

No sooner was that repaired than the lower seal on the sail drive began to leak water into the gearbox starboard so we had to shut that motor down and just use the port motor which was now running fine without overheating.  Yesterday, Robin tried to get one of the outside radio speakers to work.  After a few hrs, it was determined that the speaker would not work.  A new one will have to be ordered from West Marine and delivered along with a few other needed parts by our next guest who plans to join us in Galapagos after Robin flies home.  Because we were moving so slow Robin decided to cool off in the water behind the boat while hanging on with his toes.......

Almost every night, there are amazing stars, and lots of shooting stars. It’s a phenomenon sailors are fortunate to observe out at sea where there’s so little ambient light and right now, a new moon.  It’s almost startling to see a completely dark night so well lit up by the stars.  Even light mirrored off the calm sea reflecting the light of a single star as bright as the moon!!  Its actually Venus or the Evening star and our guiding star going west most always ahead of us. It’s a fantastic opportunity to catch up on our stargazing!!

Ken thought he saw a drone hovering high in the sky off in the distance which then came directly above our boat and hovered there for about ½ an hour and then just took off. It had red and green nav. lights but its flight pattern indicated something very different from a normal plane because of its ability to hover in one spot for hrs at a time. Must be how they monitor boat movements these days.

The most amazing thing we’ve seen on our dark nights is the amount of phosphorescence in the waves coming off the bows, in the breaking waves, in the trail behind the boat, in our prop wash as we move through the water and even in the toilets as we flush them at night w/o lights on! If there’s a lot, any little motion in the water will light up the water with glistening, glimmering, shimmering tiny dots of light. One night, we were visited several times by a lone dolphin whose trail of phosphorescence extended out at least 50 feet behind him. We could see him dive deep down below the boat and then come streaming by across the bow. It was a beautiful sight and made me wonder how it must seem to the dolphins, living inside a world of shimmering lights like that!

We enjoyed many visits by dolphins ..............

 

and seabirds (boobies)..............

I have had fishing lines in the water every day but so far I have not caught anything.  We are moving very slowly and the water is rather flat which usually means ‘no fish today’.  We have lots of fish in the freezer that we caught on the way down to Panama from Key West anyway

We now have 120 miles left to go (10:00 a.m., Monday the 20^th).  We are doing about 4 knots motor sailing.  At this rate we should be at Cocos before dark tomorrow, Feb 21st.

9:00 a.m. Feb. 21 we saw ‘land ho’..... 

The island appears in a misty haze some 36 miles ahead.  What a beautiful sight after so many days at sea!  We are used to making 150 to 200 miles per day but this trip in the ‘doldrums’  so close to the equator is known to be windlass and therefore slow and it has been.  Our first day out of Panama saw 161 miles but since then very slow days.

The hitchhikers seemed relieved at the sight of land also...........

There are 2 Costa Rican dive boat operators that bring divers from the main land to the island.  Here is pictured one of them............

Daytime can be quite warm.  We all stay under the helm hardtop in the shade and not spending much time in the salon as it gets to the mid-90’s by noon in there.  Last night I got a little chill outside but generally evenings and night are quite nice.

Panama City

Panama City:

Thursday, 16^th Feb., 2012…………

Nice sunny day, we untied from the mooring ball at Balboa Yacht Club, Panama City and headed around the point to Flamingo Marina to fill up with diesel fuel for the 500 mile+_ crossing West to Isla de Cocos, Costa Rica.  This picture is of the Bridge of Americas at our mooring field in Panama City at the Balboa Yacht Club.......

This picture is of the pier and to the right the yacht club.....

Before leaving Robin helped string a new halyard for the main sail giving one of those rare opportunities to take this picture.............

We sailed around a long peninsula that was created when a causeway was built out to an island to get to the fuel dock.  This is the view of Panama City from this point.....

After waiting outside the fuel dock for almost 2 hours we were finally allowed to come in for fuel.  We topped up both tanks with about 72 gal. @ $3.70 per gal. and were underway by about 11:30 a.m. heading West across the Gulf of Panama (over 30 miles) and out into the Pacific.....