Our last day underway! By 2 in the afternoon tomorrow we should arrive in Wreck Bay, San Cristobal Island, Archipelago de Colon (Galapagos), Ecuador.

It was a beautiful night last night. Calm seas, light winds, perfect for sleeping. We had a whole squadron of sea birds fishing with us last night. I�m not sure if they were leaving thank yous or just getting sloppy but we had to scrape several squid off of the deck that they had dropped about.

Around 1AM the wind totally died and we started motoring but by 6AM it was back to sailing. We have had a good run today averaging about 7 knots close hauled into a good sized chop. We have had the auto pilot steering 35 degrees off the wind and as predicted by the gribs the wind has backed just enough for us to fetch San Cristobal. We are getting a little extra south in just in case things go bad (SW) in the night. We'll reef down to get the boat back to 5-6 knots tonight which should give us a nice 7AM landfall.

This passage has been more or less a rhumb line. We plotted a great circle (which was pretty close to the rhumb line) but the SW wind has kept us north of track fighting our way back south in the calms with the engines. If you could get south on the coast in these conditions and then sail west you might be better off. It is a risk either way because the winds and currents in this area are pretty variable.

About mid day one of the fishing lines began to run. A second later the other ran. A few minutes after that we had landed two 20 pound tunas. Yum! When it rains it pours. I think that 6 knots is about the minimum for trolling. We were running slow in light winds the last few days and got skunked. Today the 7 knots seemed to pay off nicely.

I shut the sea cock for the starboard AirCon inlet and this solved the bilge water issue we were having I think. The pump guard was dripping a little. It also could have just been left over water from cleaning the bilge out prior to departure.

We should cross the equator around midnight so we have cake and champagne standing by.

Nobu says: "I'm happy to be on Swingin' on a Star and my wish for the equator crossing is to retire early!"

Ed says: "Looking forward to my second equator crossing (south this time)"

Hideko says: "I have waited for this day, I'm starting to get tired of catching tuna! We want white fish now!!"

88 nm to go...