Passage preparations

Before every long passage Mike goes up Madrone’s mast to inspect all of the rigging

After a month exploring and enjoying the Galapagos, our thoughts have started to stray from the sea lions, marine iguanas, penguins, and boobies and instead begun to focus on the next port. That has put us into passage prep mode, so we’ve been alternating admiring the wildlife all around us with getting ready for Madrone to head back to sea.

Provisioning – We eat well on board, largely thanks to Angie’s cooking and provisioning. Leaving for a trip is always preceded by multiple trips to a variety of shops. While that takes a lot of time, Mike is always thankful when another delicious meal appears before him!

Angie heading into town on a water taxi for one of the many provisioning trips

Repairs – Ocean passages are hard on a boat. After some rough upwind sailing, one of our forward hatches sprung a small leak. The theory of fixing a leaking hatch is simple – just remove and reseal it. The practice is, of course, not quite so straightforward. The old sealant was tenacious and took two days to scrape, grind, chisel, and sand off. In the end, though, we won and the hatch has been resealed; fingers crossed that it doesn’t leak.

Removing all of the previous sealant was quite the task

New sealant for the forward hatch- hopefully this will stop the leak

Maintenance – In addition to fixing things that break, systems on the boat need time-based maintenance. The most recent project was changing the oil in the gearbox of the windlass transmission. Our Maxwell VWC1200 windlass is a workhorse – it’s strongly built and ultra-reliable. But who designs a windlass where changing the oil requires removing the entire motor and gearbox from underneath the deck?

Getting the new oil ready

Ready for installation

Re-installation requires some boat yoga

Refueling – Back in the US, it’s typically easy to drive the boat up to a fuel dock and top off the tanks. Here in the Galapagos, we arranged for diesel to be delivered by panga in large jerry jugs. We then pumped it into our tank using the fuel cleaning pump and filter we keep on board. We even had a few gallons extra to share with our friends aboard BellaDonna before the panga came back to retrieve their empty jugs.