Good news caught 2 mahi mahi and cooked them up with a mayo, dill, mustard sauce. Then crushed Ritz crackers over the fish and backed it for 15 minutes at 450 degrees or at least tried to keep 450 in my tin box oven. Turned out real well and got request for seconds. I will have to try for more fish tomorrow. The weather today was sunny, windy, and the swells were very small only around 3 to 5 feet. We did have a few issues last night and again this morning. Two days ago we used our little generator to charge up our batteries and make water which overwhelmed our charger. We discovered this morning when I tried to charge my labtop that the inverter stopped working. So after a few hours of tracing wires, reading manuals we found a melted contact and fixed it. Now it works and we can charge our batteries again. It seems that everyday we find or create new problems and spend time solving them. It is tough to be 100% off the grid and even harder when you can see land.

Current Location: 4deg 40.66min South, 101deg 59.18min West

Enjoy Your Evening,

Jacques

The ocean is an amazing place when you are miles from the nearest shore. I sleep sometimes wondering, when I get back to the mainland if the world will have changed a great deal. For the last few days I have been looking out in to the ocean as far as you can see and see nothing but open space and blue water. I am stranded on my little Island called Dragonsbane. Here in the ocean time stand still and the dates of time have no real meaning anymore. For the first time in my life I can truly say I/we are alone and our fate lies in our hands truly. One mistake can orchestrate a domino affect that could have deadly results but I walk the razors edge with a smile. Here now in the ocean that is so blue like bright frozen ice which we sail across it like butter in a hot frying pan. I don’t care about money, work, technology, TV programs, sports, or what people’s opinions may be of me. I have found peace in the world and I had to sail 1500 miles out into nothingness to find it. I wish I could transfer the feeling of what I am experiencing but I think it would be different for each person. It’s so hard to experience days of zero stimulation from the world I was surrounded by back in the USA. All stimulation cell phone, radios, TV commercials, texts, internet, traffic, dumb people, and so on are not possible here. Its everything that I thought it could be and it is a priceless commodity to hold. If you think about it, you may realize that you may never find a place like it on the mainland where home is. Today we live in a world with no boundaries, connected to each wireless dreading that something may be missed. I just wish that we could have one day a year where everybody just turns off the power to everything for one hour and listen to nothing but silence. I think it could add days to everybody’s life. I, for now have learned to turn it off and not feel a sense of panic.

Current location: 4deg 14.9min South, 99deg 15.9min West

Yup! Life is a Hell of a Thing,

Jacques

I only had a few hits on the fishing rod today but the last one is one to remember. I was working on sharpening my knifes down in the galley when Adam screamed for everybody to get up on deck. Not sure what could be so important as Dragonsbane was sailing normal and we didn’t hit anything in the ocean. I rushed up on deck and looked in the direction of his pointing finger and saw a big pod of whales swimming by. Then my fishing reel took off like a bat out hell and was screaming. I rushed to it and increased the drag. I looked behind the boat and I had caught a whale, not a little whale but a very big and blue whale. I was surprised and for once hoped that my hook would pop off. I pulled really hard and it did pop off. I thought that I would never catch a whale until today. I think that could have been my chance but I am trying not to catch things bigger then my boat. Although I could have said “you should have seen this fish I caught, it was so big you couldn’t even fit into the boat”! So that was the real excitement for the day and we all started our French Lessons today. Nothing like being in a new country and not understanding anything that is coming out of there mouth. All I really need to know “is where is the bathroom”, and “I want a huge BEER, please”. Other then knowing that you are just trying to show off!

Current Location: 3deg 39.1min South, 96deg 37.0min West

Good Luck and Goodnight,

Jacques

Fishing?

I woke this morning a little sad that I lost my favorite clone lure to some big fish yesterday. I had a 150lbs test leader that passed through the lure to the hook and some big fish bit right through the line. So in retaliation I have changed all my mono leaders to stainless steel wire 500 lbs test. I hope that this will be last of these kinds of problems! O wait, one minute! After I awoke and dropped my line off the back of Dragonsbane trolling around 7 knots I hooked into a real nice TUNA! Reeled it in and filleted it up ending in 8 lbs of raw meat. After cleaning up my mess I grabbed my rod again to deploy the lure back out behind Dragonsbane, BANG!!!!!!!! “SON OF!!!!!!!!!!!” I hit the rod tip into the wind generator and it cut my line which had my other favorite lure and bent the rod tip. I was so mad I just about through the whole works in to ocean and gave the Fish Gods the middle finger. Told the fishing gods I was going to through hand grenades into the ocean if this keeps up, but I would more then likely put a whole in Dragonsbane and I have to fix that to. But after I calmed down I got another clone that has not been very successful and tossed it out into the ocean. About a hour later I had a really big hit and the line was peeling off the real which is my second most favorite sound in the whole world. I was alone in the cockpit and yelled for someone to get on deck and take in the jib! I set the hook and tighten the drag on the reel. No one was on deck yet so I grabbed the jib and pulled in the sail. My dad made it on deck at this point, I gave him the helm and reached for my rode. I started grinding in on the huge fish behind our tossing and turning wake and just as the Tuna broke the surface my line popped off. “SON OF! STUPID, DUMBASS!” Why do I fish I hate this stupid sport, dam, dam, dam, But did you see the size of that thing! Ok put the lure back in the ocean. Spent the rest of the day making Sushi, and had fresh pan fried pepper tuna with corn. Yup Life is good even if I am loosing my mind fishing!

Good Luck Fishing,

Current Location: not where the fish are but, 3deg 3.99min South, 93deg 46.84min West.

Jacques

Ok, so I read my fishing guide book again and purchased varies fishing gear from many different stores on Galapagos Island. I had to buy some lures in one store, then walk across town to buy more fishing line in another, and then put together bits of old fishing gear to make new lures. I did purchase one manufactured Lure and it was the only one that got some action. I didn’t see the hit but a fish of some kind put a big gash in the side of my new lure and I have nothing to show for it “DAM IT!” Anyway I have engineered 3 handlines and my ocean master fish rode/reel set up so I can have 4 lures trolling behind Dragonsbane at once. It should be pretty interesting if I hook anything big with all that gear in the water but I don’t care. I want a really big TUNA!

The rest of the day was spent trying to harness the wind which was only around 4 knots all day. We did get a few small squalls with buckets of fresh rain which was nice. I took a rain shower and as soon as I had enough shampoo in my hair it stopped raining. But it rained enough to get my fishing guide book water logged again. We are slowly getting back into our routine and only have 2,812 nautical miles to go!

Current Location: 2deg 42.72min South, 92deg 17.58min West.

Love Fish, just don’t try and catch them! They are smart!

Jacques

We left Santa Cruz, Galapagos Island at 12pm today. We are happy to find 10 knots of wind and making a average speed of 5 knots. We have 3,011 nautical miles to go and a whole lot of time to fish, read, and think. But as a whole my experience in the Galapagos was good. I saw lots of sea turtles, sharks, hammerhead sharks, sea lions, iguanas, penguins, really big tortoises, blue footed boobies, and a million other kinds of birds. The climate was warm about 80 degrees everyday and in the afternoon when all the shops closed from 12 to 3pm for nap time, it got up to 90. At night the cool breeze from the Southern Pacific Ocean was like air conditioning and cooled us all down to about 75 degrees, “good beer drinking weather”. The skies were cloudy most of the time but bright and the sun would shine through to turn the harbor water ocean green and light blue. The Islands were covered with short shrubs and big bushes that grew tall with vines that choked out anything around them. The growth on the island was so thick that no one could really walk anywhere with out chopping your way through. There where some cactuses covered in bright yellow and blue flowers that showed how hot and dry it gets here. The really nice thing about the Galapagos is that other then the sharks there is not a lot of thing that can kill you. But I really thought that the area would be really untouched from man but a lot of the islands shows signs of man abusing it. I only hope that the Ecuador Government does not continue to exploit the Galapagos more then they already have. I feel that they should only issue a few permits each year for people to visit and that’s it, but time will tell.

Take Easy!

Jacques

Tomorrow we will begin our 25 day voyage to the Marquesas Islands which is 3000 nautical miles away. I hope to have good wind and weather. We have provisioned Dragonsbane with food, water and fuel. I am sad to leave the Galapagos Island because there are so many great people and travelers here to talk too. Everybody has a great story and the Island is so safe and the local people are wonderful. I wish I could have let you all see the things I have seen here. I am really starting to understand the world and all who live in it. I only hope that after I make it around the world I continue home. The world is big, dangerous, beautiful, peaceful, and lovable, but to travel through all of it is indescribable.  Be grateful for the life we live in the USA, and the thing we have because the majority of the world tries to duplicate it but falls far short of ever being like the USA. I wish all my family friends the best. As always I will post via SSB radio everyday with my position, emotions, and thoughts. Wish us all Dale, Adam, Dragonsbane, and “The Dude” luck.

Enjoy life and Travel More!

Jacques

In our last voyage from Panama to Galapagos this was the 2 fisher men in the middle of the crossing 400 plus miles from land

Folding sails underway as we sailed

Taxi ramp where you had to take a water taxi for Sixty cents one way from your boat to the port city. The Taxis are in Yellow.

Boarding from water taxis into the ferry boat.

All the crack in our ferry boat as we traveled from San Cruz Island to Isabella Island. This was a result of the Ecuador Navy pilot boat hitting us before we left. A few people got hurt but we left anyway.

On our way to Isabella Island on the same Ferry with lots of cracks in the front hull.

Picture of a Pink Flamingo in the Flamingo Lagoon

Really big tortoise , saw lots of these guys

Iguana on San Curz Island. this one of last few of this kind left

This sea lion had no free as most animals here don’t free man.

A few local fishermen cleaning and selling fish. The Sea Lions and Pelicans are taking table scraps

The blue foot Boobies! I love boobies!

The Sea lions sleeping on the boats! Oops

The swimming Iguana’s

I circled the wiring in our hotel room for our hot water in the shower. Every tiem I touched the shower head I got shocked! I realize now why South Americans are so short!

We rode in this little truck with a homemade benches bolted to the frame.

Horses on the trial to the Volcano. We hiked up the 10 mile round trip.

Looking out over Isabella Island, Galapagos

Dale and Adam walking i the lava fields

Lava rock

Walking through the Volcano

Volcano

Lava Fields

great view of Isabella Island, Galapagos

The Volcano on Isabella Island, Galapagos

Adam and Dale walking in the lava fields

Looking out in to ocean from the top of the live volcano

Standing next to the creator of the last volcano eruption in 2005

We will be heading out to the Marquis Islands on Sunday 4/29/13. It is 3000 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. It hopefully will take less then 25 days. It should be good sailing and fishing, but we will see.

Take it easy!

Jacques

So far this was one of the most challenging dives I have completed. I was told that there were strong currents and that the experience was a must. So having 12 dives under my belt I jumped in full ass! We started our adventure at 6am, we were picked up by the dive boat off Dragonsbane and found out it was only me, Adam, and a nice guy named Bob from Canada who had 389 dives. As we zipped along the coast of San Cruz Island for about 45 minutes to Gordon Rock dive site, we were thrown forward and the engines stalled out! We hit a Manta Ray that was 20 feet long and it stopped us cold. Our dive master and us were very sad to have hit such a beautiful ray. I felt so bad because I felt like I just added to the problem of negative human interaction that you hear about in Galapagos. The dive master said it will more then likely die of its wounds.

After a sad start we made it to the site and geared up all at once. We sat on the gun whale of dive boat together and the dive master counted 3, 2, 1, we all dropped in at once. The current is so strong there that it will sweep you away if you took time jumping in one at a time. We circled up and were given the signal to dive. Submerging to 35 feet we saw a hammerhead shark right below circling. Then, the current took us for a slow ride but pulled us down to about 65 feet. We saw Eagle Rays, turtles, millions of little fish, and a school of Wahoo that had to be in the thousands as we swam through them. After 40 minutes of diving we surfaced and had the challenge of getting back into the dive boat that was going up and down in 4 foot swells and surf.

On our second dive we went to where the current really ripped hard. We all splashed in and went down quick to a rock wall where the current was pulling on you hard enough that you had to hold onto the rock. We dove for about 20 minutes but didn’t see too much and then we got to an underwater gap between two rock formations which made up Gordon Rock. The gap we passed through was about 18 feet wide and 45 feet deep as we held on to the rock bottom. As we crawled across the rock bottom and looked over a big rock bolter there was a school of 9 white tipped reef sharks 8 or 9 feet long swimming in circles 2 feet in front of us. I held onto to the top of the rock boulder as hard as I could. The current was so strong that it blew past as if my whole body was out the side of a car window going down the highway at 60 mph. The hoses from my scuba tank chattered like a flag in the wind. Then it stopped. changed direction 180 degrees and was now was pushing me into the school of sharks that where only inches from my face now. This went on for about 10 minutes. Next, the dive master Hugo, who was giving Adam his secondary air due to Adam running low on his own air tank, let go of the rock wall and shot right through the sharks. The sharks closed right around behind them and now it was my turn. I took a big breath waited for the current to spit me out through the sharks and out the gap. I let go and made it 15 feet but 1 foot short of the next wall. The current dragged me across the rock a few feet but I was able to get a grip and hold on. The second current pushed me out and I was low on air. I could not believe how fast I spent my air gong through those currents. It was a great time and I can’t wait to go again.

Doing Things Whole Assed Works Out Better Than Doing Them Half Assed! Jacques

But first I would like to share a few pictures with you. If you have read the last 10 days of voyage post you should understand the frozen moments of time via photos below. Enjoy!

Jacques

The Fishermen 400 plus miles off shore in a little boat trying to self me a fish. Crazy SOB’s!

Adam Cooking

Just crossed the Equator!

Picture of us as we crossed the Equator with a shot of RUM! I almost made it behind the helm before the camera went off!

Our view off the back of Dragonsbane First day Of Landfall Galapagos Islands