Panama to Galapagos - Mar 2007
We left Panama on 12th March in a calm sea, motoring for a few hours among tankers and dolphins before we encountered some wind. In fact the first 48 hours as far as Malpelo rock were not bad for wind, which was mostly from the north. However our next few days in the direction of the Galapagos were variable, with some sailing, some motorsailing, and some motoring. As we had stocked up on diesel for the purpose, we used it when necessary. Diesel costs in Panama are high for the region at between 2 and 2.65 USD per US Gallon (3.79 litres), but when we reached the Galapagos we were able to replace the fuel at just over 1 USD per US gallon.
We didn’t have much luck catching fish, only in our last day we caught two very small bonito (tuna). However two nights before we reached the Galapagos we had a dusk visitor, a pink-footed booby who slept on our pulpit all night. It turns out the pink-footed booby is relatively rare compared with the blue-footed booby so well known in the Galapagos.
We also saw spinner dolphins a couple of times, different sorts from in the Atlantic. One lot was particularly jumpy, doing quite a display for us!
Towards the islands there was a big increase in sea birds, and later a couple of sea-lions greeted us.
We arrived after a week at sea, in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, the most populated of the islands.