The Pacific
by Iona Taylor – Deckhand aboard Sea Dragon.
“It rolls the mid-most waters of the world, the Indian Ocean and Atlantic being just its arms.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
On Tuesday 27th February we left the back drop of the urban metropolis of Panama City, weaving our way through the anchored cargo ships and tankers on our journey north-west up to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We were blessed with a beautiful hot clear blue sky and out of the lee of the shore we found enough breeze to give us a 24 hrs of sailing.
The wind gradually increased to gusts of 30knots making helming slightly difficult. We made the decision to stick in a few reefs, unfortunately this resulted in a pretty ugly rip around our 2nd reefing pennant- although easily repaired we were limited to a fully reefed main until the wind dropped enough for us to take it down to repair.
photo credit Iona Taylor
Our sailing was fairly short lived and by mid afternoon on Wednesday we dropped our sails and stuck the ‘donkey on’ for the next few days of very light/no winds.
Under engine the heat became pretty unbearable but came with the one blessing of . . . SWIMMING IN THE PACIFIC! The water was absolutely breathtaking- warm, completely flat calm and still and incredibly clear- we could see the refracted sunlight heading into the depths of the ocean.
photo credit Iona Taylor
Throughout our motoring and sailing we have been accompanied by a number of sea turtles bobbing along beside us, with one couple getting busy out in full view!
We were also blessed with a fairly regular display of different varieties of dolphins which has continued throughout our week- never a dull moment on Sea Dragon!
photo credit Jen Pate
Our sailing has continued after 2 days of motoring (with 2 swims) and we are now into day 6 onboard with some pretty decent winds. We have adopted a Boobie named Sully who has quickly become one of the most tame and well behaved crew members, although he is currently off on holiday (we are keenly awaiting his return) and just this morning saw a whale pass us by in the distance !
photo credit Iona Taylor