The Final Stretch and Feathered Guests

With only 100 nautical miles to go until we arrive at Puerto Ayora, a town in central Galápagos, we’ve started to slow down to time our arrival for first light tomorrow morning. I’ve already been in touch with the agent to begin the formalities for clearing in and ordering fuel. Yet again, Starlink proves to be an absolute game-changer for this kind of thing.

Believe it or not, I finally had to put on a long-sleeve top last night! It seems to be getting colder the closer we get to the equator! It remains completely overcast and drizzling, so it's no surprise the seabirds have decided to hitch a ride.Their preferred place to relax seems to be the worst spot on the boat. They like being right at the front where the motion is strongest and then stand on the lifelines, which are 6mm stainless steel wire. It looks exhausting trying to hang on with webbed feet, getting covered in spray, and trying to balance while you’re asleep. They must know something I don’t. Perhaps they know if they were any closer I'd hit them with a stick and shoo them away.

I've just realized that I still need to do the Panama Canal blog! I will do that in the first few days after leaving the Galapagos when I run out of things to say about never-changing trade winds, gentle swells, and how hard it is to think about something to write about. To explain how constant the trade winds are, we have a setting on the autopilot that will steer to any wind angle you set. So currently, we have it set at about 30 degrees and haven't touched it for days, and we've gone in a completely straight line, which means the wind has constantly blown from the exact same angle. To put it another way, if the wind had shifted 40 degrees either way, our course would have changed by the same amount as the autopilot would have kept us at 30 degrees from the wind.

It's completely overcast and has been for days with the sun just poking out once or twice.

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