INTO THE WILD

There are obstacles to overcome as cruisers visiting the Galapagos Islands. It’s well worth the effort.

- Tom , Harriet Linskey

BEFORE we found the Galapagos, the Galapagos found us. En route from Panama and still 100 miles from San Crist6bal Island—the port of entry for the dozen or so islands of Galapagos National Park and Galapagos Marine Reserve a trio of red-footed booby birds installed themselves on the starboard bow of Ocean, our Dolphin 460 cruising cat. The ambassadors from the archipelago preened, fished, jostled for position, and slept. When the curtain of dawn revealed the islands on the horizon, we watched our escorts fly ahead.

GETTING THERE

The 830-mile passage we made from Panama to the Galapagos has a reputation among cruisers as fluky and frustrating. We asked for a weather forecast from Commanders’ Weather, a passage-routing service we’ve used the past 10 years. The meteorologists replied with a picture of, well, a whole lot of stuff going on. Along our route, we also downloaded weather GRIBs from PredictWind.

In Part One of the passage, boats departing Panama generally get about a day’s worth of tailwinds as the Caribbean’s northeast trade winds pass over Panama and fan out into the Pacific. These winds are variable in strength and direction.

In Part Two, the baitle of the winds begins: The calms and squalls of the Intertropical Convergence Zone ITCZ) wander drunkenly for hundreds of miles between the northeast and southeast trade winds.

In Part Three, the longest leg of the passage, cruisers often face 10to 20-knot headwinds and chop from the southwest. And the currents of this passage are variable too.

Day One: We made about 6 knots under screecher on a starboard tack in light northerly winds. We got a sampling of freaky currents in the Gulf