Ship’s Journal from Mallorca to Fiji

Update 25 March 25 1630 LT (GMT -6)

When we finally exited the last lock of the Panama Canal I was quite tired. The pilot who had been with us all day was picked up by a pilot boat underneath the iconic Bridge of the Americas, the gateway to the Pacific. The line handlers still had to be dropped off in a marina around the corner. The delays we incurred during the day meant that we wouldn’t make the marina before sunset. I had never been in that marina before and the line handlers said they always get ferried in by tender. Our tender had been freshwater flushed, tied up and covered for the trip. But it made sense to keep things simple. And while we had to anchor anyway, it also made sense to anchor for the night and enter the biggest Ocean on the planet with a fresh and well rested body and mind. 

This part of the Pacific isn’t offering us the Trade Wind sleighride we’ve had since Gibraltar. The winds are light and variable as we are entering the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, what used to be called the Doldrums. I’m grateful for our engine and the extra fuel we carry because having to sit it out here in the heat and humidity would be hellish! What’s constantly on my mind is the forecasted Westerly wind that we will incur closer to the Galapagos. This boat really does not like to be driven into the wind. So very counter-intuitively we are maintaining an almost Westerly course instead of aiming straight for the islands. This will allow us to make a sharp angle South when the Westerly wind picks up. The currents here create weird and eerie patterns in the sea. But more concerning are all the logs and other debris it drives together like long barriers which we have to cross. There is also quite a lot of plastic in this part of the Ocean unfortunately. We just hope that at night we don’t hit a big log. 

Yesterday we hooked a 2 meter Sailfish. We had it reeled all the way in and quite docile, the majestic creature was swimming next to the boat. Feeling a mixture of awe and fear and -knowing we couldn’t store that much fish anyway- we decided to set it free.

Every night there has been lightning in the distance but last night it was nearer to us. Lightning and thunder were still far apart but there were one or two loud crackers. 

Today I offered a full program.

This morning we were visited by a mega pod of about 100 dolphins.

Around 11am we picked up a ghost FAD (Fish Aggregating Device) . This is basically a couple of jerry cans and drums tied together with lines and all sorts of plastic. Underneath it, algae starts to grow. It attracts small fish and later bigger fish after which the fishermen will circle their nets around it and pick up whatever swims underneath it. It’s an illegal method in many parts of the world and when it loses its anchor it becomes a ghost FAD. As we approached it, a large (about 90cm) turtle swam away from it. Luckily it wasn’t tangled yet!

A few hours later we encountered more fishing buoys. Either from long liners or drift nets. We also saw a fishing vessel which had no AIS signal… all very suspicious. 

Enter Donny the Dolphin, our new friend. This lonely dolphin approached us with high jumps. When it was at the bow we saw it had a remora attached to it. It looked like it was trying to scratch it off using our bow. We thought we should help it get the creature detached. We stopped the boat and I got in the water with a mask and snorkel. Donny checked me out and came closer and closer. At one point he was 50 cm in front of me. I couldn’t reach the remote though. Then I saw the remora unlatched. The fact that Donny didn’t use the opportunity to swim away made me realise that we were trying to be heroes for no real reason. It’s different if an animal is suffering from a man-made danger, but this was nature doing its thing of course. But what an experience to swim close to this wild animal in the ocean of oceans!