Location: Underway to Galapagos!!
Ok, picture this. We leave Panama for the Galapagos. Two days out, the blade of the prop breaks off. Shoot! On the upside, we live on a sailboat, so we can get home using some fresh ocean breezes. So we’re fine! We sail back to Panama, where Travis meets us with our new four-bladed friend (special thanks to Trav and the office for working miracles to get us a new prop so fast! We’re absolutely HOONIN’ at 8-10 knots with this puppy!) . You may be saying to yourself, “yeah yeah yeah, we know this already,” and you’d be absolutely correct. This is all old news. But here’s the joke: we left Panama again yesterday, so basically, we’re all just living the boat version of Groundhog’s Day. You may be saying to yourself, “Yeah, but now you have a new prop, so that no longer applies,” to which I would reply that you’re right, but up until the moment, we get further than we did the first time, which is to say. We’re just a boat full of Bill Murrays who think they have figured out the key to breaking the cycle, but until the day is over, it’s all just a repeat. So here we are. One day out from Panama, motoring along with no wind (ok, that’s a lie. We sailed for a few hours today), getting back into the swing of passage life and eating some of Nella’s awesome Med toasties and carbonara. Tomorrow afternoon will be the real test. Maybe this patch of the Pacific is a giant hole in the space-time continuum, and we’ll end up back in Panama again in a week. But I doubt it.
We’ve all become better people over the past week (and by that, I mean sailors), so I’m confident we can wind our way out to those far-flung rocks full of beautiful and crazy finches, hammerheads, tortoises, and marine iguanas. In fact, this delay was actually perfect from a marine biology instructor’s view today. We talked about marine reptiles and specifically the marine iguanas! They are only found in the Galapagos and dive down into the cold water to munch on algae. Obviously, this is problematic since they have to hold their breath while they’re feeding, and they missed the memo on opposable thumbs, so, in a genius move, they actually swallow little rocks to make themselves heavier so they don’t float away while eating. How cool is that?!?! I’ll leave you with that thought for now and get back to watch (we have seen a Wahoo, shark, and possible ray today on watch, so I don’t want to miss anything!).
Stay tuned tomorrow to see if we have broken through the cosmic cycle of events.
Special shout out to Carla, who shared some cool crocodile facts with me!
Also special (early) shout-out to my mom, whose birthday is on the 31st. I’ll be thinking of you!