Three flights and three days later, we finally made it to the Galapagos! And it's not everyone who gets a welcoming committee right off the plane.
There to greet us was my brother, and my nephew, Kit. We're now officially crew for Sailing Yacht Lucky Girl, provisioning and preparing for the a voyage from Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, to Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia.
Let's just break this down a little:
Name | Lucky Girl |
Make | Maxi 120 |
Length | 12 Metres |
Beam | 4 Metres |
Draught | 1.6 Metres |
Displacement | 12 Tonnes |
Crew | 6 |
Power generation | 530W Solar; 120W Wind generator (@15knots wind); 100W (@6knots) Towed hydro generator |
Reverse osmosis water maker | 30L/Hr @100W |
Charlie (Will’s brother), Helen (sister-in-law), and Kit and Roo (the nephews) have been living on Lucky Girl for almost 2 years now. They started off in Edinburgh, and made their way down the UK, across the Bay of Biscay and down the west coast of Spain and Portugal, and on to the Canaries, before crossing the Atlantic to St Lucia in November 2020. Since then they’ve been pootling about the Caribbean, somehow managing to stay positive about life. You can read their blog here…
To be fair to them, they’ve been planning their adventure for over 10 years. So it brings new meaning to the phrase ‘the trip of a lifetime’. Charlie is the skipper, and he tells me the voyage we’re about to do is the longest blue water (ie, without sight of land) you can do. I’m sure if you made a point of avoiding land you could spend longer at sea, but the point is – it’s a long way. Over 3,000 miles. And there won’t be a smidge of internet anywhere. So this will be our last update for a little while!
We expect it to take us around 4 weeks, and the provisioning for that kind of length journey is pretty hefty. It takes the art of preparation to a whole new level. To illustrate, we have now stowed onboard:
Water | 550L |
Diesel | 400L |
Flour | 18Kg |
Rice | 13Kg |
Granola | 9Kg |
Cheese | 7Kg |
Apples | 60 |
Onions | 40 |
Milk | 40L |
We have also been busy getting the boat as ready as it can be. Charlie and Lisa have been up both masts to check the rigging. Charlie and I scrubbed the hull from bow to stern, to make her glide as smoothly as possible through the Pacific. Charlie in particular has been a one-man fixing machine. When you’re far away from the supply chains and expertise we take for granted in the UK, you have to be good at maintaining your own equipment. He’s fixed the oven temperature sensor (which involved physically removing the whole oven from the galley… ovens are heavy!), restitched part of the Genoa (sail), replaced the alternator temperature sensor, tightened the anchor roller bolts, removed the spinnaker pole (to get it rewelded), replaced the ship’s (lead acid) batteries with lithium batteries (the old ones were dying. Batteries are also heavy!) and a whole host of other jobs, some remedial, some prophylactic.
Interspersed with crew duties, Lisa and I have also managed to see a little of this famous archipelago. The thing that strikes you the most about Galapagos, is how unafraid of humans the wildlife is. They’ve not learned to fear us, and so you really do see it all very close up. Yesterday we were visited by Penelope Pelican, who came and sat on our stern solar panel for a good hour, scanning the water for her dinner. If you leave your dive platform clear for too long, you’re guaranteed to find a sealion claiming it as their adopted siesta location. The sealions in particular like to make their presence felt – at any one time they occupy at least half of the benches on the local jetty.
And then there are the famous Galapagos Marine Iguanas. These guys are amazing. They swim like a dog, with their heads lifted serenely out of the water. And when they run on land, they lift their feet high like they’re on tiptoe!
We first saw a Galapagos tortoise by the side of the road, as we were on a run (yes – Lisa is keeping up with her triathlon training, even on the equator in 30+ degree heat…). They’re like something from the lost world!
We also managed to squeeze in a cheeky scuba trip, and we were not disappointed underwater either. Sealions, turtles, sharks, rays, eels, and lots and lots of fish. We surfaced with great big smiles on our faces.
Although we won’t have much in the way of comms for the ~4 weeks of Pacific crossing, if you would like to send us a little message then you can send (text only) emails to: lucky_girl@pank.org.uk or sms to +881652454442 or you can send us a message (for free) online at https://share.garmin.com/luckygirl - and you can also track our (leisurely) progress at that same site.
We really would love to hear from you!
