Category Archives: Costa Rica to Galapagos Passage

Another beautiful Sunset

Traversing the Pacific to Galapagos

Now…catch up on previous events.  We hope you have enjoyed our live blogs.  This blog is from November 2018.

Matt and I so desperately wanted to leave Costa Rica.  Not because it was a bad place to visit, but because we wanted to get out of the rainy / lightning zone and because we had been there 5.5 months longer than originally planned.  Once we ensured all of our new equipment was in working order, we set our goal for traversing the pacific.

First, we had to clear out of Costa Rica and that entailed a 160-mile sail from Quepos to Golfito.  We considered doing the journey in one trip, overnight, but considering we did not have our “sea legs” just yet, we broke it up into 2.5 days.  After a 2 day stop in Golfito, we did a light provision and began our journey across the pacific.

The plan was to head for the Galapagos and if the wind took us toward Isla Cocos, we would make a “random” stop.  The schedule was estimated at a 6-7 day sail to Galapagos, with an additional 2-3 days added if we stopped at Isla Cocos.  Matt and I took 3 hour shifts (meaning 3 hours on and 3 hours off) the entire way.  We motor sailed most of the trip because the winds were very light.

Matt was able to live blog during the first 3 days so I will not duplicate his efforts.  However, below, I did add some details that were left off the blog and I added updates on the last part of the trip.  Matt could not update the blog after the 3rd day as the SSB failed for some reason.

Overall map of our track:

Crossing: Costa Rica to Galapagos

Crossing: Costa Rica to Galapagos

TOTAL TRIP STATS:

  • 809nm – Miles Traveled
  • 11.0kt – Max Speed
  • 6.kt – Average Speed
  • 6-1kt – Wind Speed

Each 24 hour period breakdown is below along with some additional highlights that missed the “live blogs.”

24 HOURS

  • 147nm – Miles Traveled
  • 9.5kt – Max Speed
  • 6.1kt – Average Speed
  • 6-8kt – Wind Speed
  • 562.27 – Distance to Destination

We had a beautiful brown footed boobie land our boat and traverse the pacific (or at least part of it) with us.  Not sure why they call this a “brown” foot boobie when his feet were clearly yellow, but they do.

Brown Foot Boobie

Brown Foot Boobie

We also had a gorgeous sunset to start the night voyage.

Sunset Traversing the Pacific

Sunset Traversing the Pacific

48 HOURS

  • 296nm – Miles Traveled
  • 9.9kt – Max Speed
  • 6.2kt – Average Speed
  • 6-2kt – Wind Speed
  • 465.95 – Distance to Destination

A couple of hitchhikers made their way onto Sugar Shack.  At first it was entertaining as we watched them prune and play with each other.  But then, we watched them barf and poop all over the boat which was disgusting.  So we did our best to keep them away,