A quick update on our (hopefully) last full day here in the Galapagos. If nothing unexpected happens, we will weigh anchor here somtime tomorrow morning (Mon, 02APR) and head for the Marquesas. The weather over the past week has been a bit "unseasonal". Boats that left about a week ago were drifting backwards in light airs and contrary currents or were close reaching against SW winds (as Bill pointed out: "that's not what the Crosby, Stills and Nash song says!", referring to "Southern Cross"). We are very lucky in that we can benefit from the reports from those first departees (thanks Sophie, Astarté and Stolen Kiss!). The current now seems to be back to normal (i.e. a solid westerly set down to about 6S) and while there is still plenty of tropical shower activity around, we hope that we will have enough sailable wind to make it to about 6S, where something that resembles trade winds appears to set in. Thanks to Greg and Clementine from Eol we now also have a means of accessing Meteo France's current forecast model, which is a big help.

We had a very nice last week here in Cristobal. Nicky had a great time playing with Matthiue and Lea from the French catamaran "Eol". Now he has a real incentive to pick up some French so he can stay in touch with them via email until we can hopefully meet again somewhere in Polynesia (they will spend another month in the Galapagos). We also had a very nice dinner aboard Malamock, the boat of our French neighbors Alain, Veronique and Mathilde, their 13-year old daughter. Alain (a professional welder and shipbuilder) had built Malamock himself and sailed/lived aboard her for almost 30 years while going to all the places "off the beaten track". A wonderful boat and family, making us realize how much we can barely "scratch the surface" of what's out there to explore during our two years of sailing (no regrets and no complaints though!).

Nicky was lucky and he got to spend another day with Danielle and Maytal on Cristobal when they came to visit from St. Cruz (he had met them during the 4-day tour he and mami went on last week). Last night finally had a dinner of all the German speaking boats in the anchorage (>10), discussing times and frequencies for a daily check-in on SSB. While the 3000nm/4-week leg to the Galapagos certainly is a long one, we look forward to be moving again. Stay tuned...