round we go!!

6 days and 22 hours after leaving Panama City, I walked up to the bow to take a rest and spotted the tips of the volcanic islands of the Galapagos Islands. We all screamed out our best and deepest 'Land Ho' and threw around the required high fives and fist bumps. It was 1:27 in the afternoon and although we can see land, our anchorage is on the opposite side of the large island. It's also a difficult anchorage to enter, so we'll spend the night at sea and come in during daylight. Last night, we crossed the equator and threw a little party. As custom goes, each boat crossing the equator must please Neptune (the god of the sea) and it's usually done with champagne. Alex succeeded in hiding the champagne, so we didn't find it until we needed it and we almost didn't find it before crossing the equator. We had a few drinks and each gave a little speech to Neptune prior to pouring out a bit of champagne which was pretty funny. We tried testing the claim that water flushes in the opposite direction (clockwise vs counterclockwise like in the toilet) in the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere. It was clockwise prior to crossing the equator, and no matter how many times we tried to make it go counterclockwise after the equator, we couldn't get it to work and were obviously disappointed. I spotted a sailboat around 9am putting me in the lead with 2 boats spotted and since the contest ended at the sight of land, I clinched the prize of an ice cream cone. Alex and Panu were bummed and claimed my polarized glasses and recent Lasik surgery were performance enhancing and, therefore, I should be disqualified. Completely bogus claims, so I'm taking the ice cream. The islands look absolutely amazing and we're preparing the boat for anchorage. We covered 111 nautical miles and averaged 108 nm for the week. Tomorrow, we should be on land checking out the islands and hopefully testing out the surfboards at San Cristobal.