The Eastern Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 208

Panama to the Galapagos Islands
Having crossed the Atlantic via the Milk Run some years earlier, we felt we were ready for
the Coconut Milk Run in the Pacific. Nicky had crossed his first ocean at age four; now he
was a “grown up” eight year old, the master of more useful knots and connoisseur of more
constellations than the average suburban adult - or even the average weekend sailor. So he
was ready, too, with a Lego collection that rivaled the depth and breadth of our tool box
and spare part reserves.
In some ways, a passage from Panama to the Galapagos resembles the typical opening leg
for an Atlantic crossing from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands. After all, both trips cover 750
to 900 miles - about a week, give or take - and both are the prelude to a much larger ven-
ture on the order of 3,000 miles. But the similarities end there, a point we were acutely
aware of on the eve of our departure from Panama.
That's because the Canary Islands are a populated, well-connected outpost of Europe; the
Galapagos, in contrast, are “only” an off-lying territory of Ecuador. For sailors on their way
across the Atlantic, the run to the Canaries is often a shakedown cruise: just a week at sea,
followed by the chance to re-assess, re-provision, and repair. The Canaries offer plenty of
chandleries, boat yards, hardware stores, and supermarkets. Crew or special equipment can
easily be flown in. Problems that arise do not have to develop into full-fledged dramas, and
anyone with cold feet can always sail back the way they came.
Not so the Galapagos Islands. Jumping off from Panama to the Galapagos is the mental and
physical equivalent of jumping off a much higher diving board into a much larger swim-
ming pool. Galapagos-bound sailors cannot afford to learn things the hard way, because
there's no way out from there (short of extreme measures). Even when you arrive in the
Galapagos, you've still only reached a tiny island outpost. A national park, at that, not a
cruiser-friendly playground. There's a lot of blue water west of the Galapagos, and
whichever route you choose to follow onward (be it a 3,000 mile run to the Marquesas or
2,000 miles to Easter Island) will only bring you to a different, tiny island outpost, all the
way to Tahiti (3,650 NM as the booby flies). And even there it's a long, long way to the
next well-stocked port in New Zealand. And that is, after all, part of the appeal of crossing
the Pacific.
Different ball park, different ball game.