Galapagos to Marqueses Days 1 and 2

Bob with his latest catch - a tuna

Bob's birthday - banana cake!

As expected, we are having a slow, gentle start to the 3000 nm ahead. The area surrounding the islands is still in the ITCZ zone with light and variable winds. We sailed with the spinnaker the first 12 hours but then motored 1am to 12pm Wed. We've  managed some slow sailing from then and overnight. We're back motoring today trying to get further south where the SE trades kick in. We covered 122nm the first day and only 97 the second. We have started to download weather grib files from SSB which are quite useful. If we can get to 4 degrees south and 94 west we should be able sail, hopefully for overnight tonight. The trades really settle in by 5 south. The Marqueses are at 9 S.

Last evening we caught another tuna some of which we are looking forward to eating tonight. Around the same time we and other boats in our vicinity received a distress call on VHF. After checking the boat MMSI number we realized it was Maggie. Still don't know what caused that false alarm as we were busy listening to the evening net check in at the time. Also the AIS stopped working yesterday. There is a warning system display but it is behind our working navigation panel which involves removing a dozen screws-hasn't happened yet today. Between the net and the email with boat positions we know where our fleet is. There is not a lot of other traffic about.

Today is Bob's birthday. He made his own cake-a banana bread with all the over ripe bananas we have. (We purchased a whole stalk for $15) The tuna will make a fine dinner.