Mexico to Galapagos - Day 25 - We've arrived

[Mar 26]

Total Distance: 2113 nm
24 hr Distance: 54 nm (DMG: 49)
Distance to go: 0!!
Lat/Long: 0°53.77'N / 89°36.91'W

We finally arrived at 2:45 am after a very long day. It was touch and go for most of the day as we sailed into a headwind, hoping to be able to get a good angle towards San Christobal, our destination. We almost turned downwind towards Santa Cruz, to beg for fuel there. We didn't - only because we weren't sure if we'd get hampered by officialdom, as this was not our pre-arranged point of entry.

In any case, our fuel situation was dire. Our guage was showing a little over a quarter tank. But our tank is shaped like an inverted triangle (pointy side down), so we knew that there was less fuel in the bottom 1/4 of the tank, than in the top 1/4...we just didn't know how much less. So we did some measuring of the tank and the fuel level, and converted cubic inches into gallons and discovered that we only had 6 gallons left. Not the 10 gallons we were hoping for. We guessed that would give us at most 25 miles of motoring to the finish line.

So we sailed. We pushed hard until there was just not a breath of wind, and we started to drift further away from our destination. We turned on the motor reluctantly, because we were more than 25 miles away. Sheesh.

But, needless to say we made it. Our speed slowed to 3.5 knots for a terrifying hour while we bashed into the remaining swell and current, but after a couple hours, we were able to go five knots, and made it into harbour at 2:45 am. We had an almost full moon to guide us into the harbour - you may remember that we left Mexico with a full moon - almost FOUR weeks at sea. We used harbour waypoints provided by SHE WOLF in the Equador Cruisers Guide, and they were spot on. We were surprised to find at least 25 other boats here. We dropped our anchor at out outside edge of the anchorage, and fell into a well-earned rest!

Some interesting notes about this passage:
- point to point distance was 1650 nautical miles. We travelled 2110 nautical miles. Lots of upwind sailing.
- our digital charts for this harbour are right on - not what we expected, but we're very pleased
- Overall, our average trip speed was 3.7 knots. This does not include the times when our speed was 0.
- total passage: 25 long days