Sorry I have not kept you up to date on our travels, we have been very very busy and some of us have been ill with a nasty flu.

Before our departure we tried to get as much maintenance work done us possible, the winches were serviced and cleaned, various window leaks were siliconed, etc. Marcus did a great job getting the mainsail up almost all by himself, Sarah and I helped a little bit. Niklas fought with Fedex because for some reason they were holding onto the boys school stuff, he did finally get the curriculum's but had to go physically to get them.

I was struck with a strange flu that basically knocked me out for a few days, it was bed rest for me with a temperature of 39,5 degrees. Friday morning I did feel better though so we decided it was best to leave as soon as possible. Niklas and Sarah went to the fruit market and came back with ridiculous amounts of fresh vegetables and fruits, we had everything from spinach to pineapples. In the afternoon followed by a light lunch we lifted the anchor and set our course towards Galapagos.

We knew that we would have to motor for the first twenty four hours, what we did not know was that we would have a twenty not wind against us. The grib files had shown basically no wind at all. It was a very bouncy ride and when Felix all of a sudden developed a high fever I knew it was going to be a rough night. We were ploughing through the water in almost five knots, water was spraying everywhere, we were being, shaken, churned and stirred.
The boys were being very good, Max a bit sea sick as always the first few days, poor little boy, and Felix sleeping because of his temperature. Our newest crew member suffered also of sea sickness but she put on a brave face and functioned normally anyway, impressive. After a long night everyone was pretty tired next day, Sarah made some great vegetarian dishes and we all took things pretty easily.
We have had some rain and some very heavy rain, we have had many close calls for catching fish until today when Niklas caught eleven small tunas during his watch. We have had some excitement as well during the mega rain our AIS seems to have stopped working, we will have to see at the Galapagos whether we can fix it. Also our Main halyard chafed and the sail came down, both Marcus and Niklas had to go up the mast in order to reattach the halyard. While Marcus was up there one of the cleets broke and gave everyone a big scare, thankfully we had him also secured around the winch so no harm was done, it must have been a shock though hearing a big bang and all of a sudden falling half a meter downwards. The effort was finally a success so now we can use the Sail again.

This is our fifth day out on sea and we still have 480Nm to go, it will probably take us still a week to get to our destination. Everything is against us, the wind, the waves and the current. Our progress is extremely slow, yesterday we did only about forty miles. Our boat is definately not made for beating against the wind, we are stubborn though we want to get to the Galapagos even though it is proving to be as expected quite difficult. It is not a pleasant passage, I would say the worst until now but I am sure that it will all be worth it when we reach our destination and can fully appreciate the wonders of those isolated magical islands. Hopefully Neptune would grant us a bit easier sailing conditions, I guess we have to offer him more rum.

MF