The Eastern Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 225

Into the Trade Winds
Luckily, our misery was short-lived. The wind abated over days four and five, when we
motored south-southwest. On day six, we found steady fifteen knot southeasterly trade
winds at last, and the tune of our days made a drastic change for the better, something
along the lines of “Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” The sky was a swath of
blue dotted with a few fair weather cumulus clouds. What a pleasure to lean back, let the
Hydrovane do the steering, and watch the log tick off the miles as Namani sailed in pursuit
of the setting sun.
Back in the Galapagos, we had made many new acquaintances and set up two SSB radio
nets: one English and another German-speaking (in fact, these were just two of many, in-
cluding the well-established Pacific Seafarer's Net and a French-speaking net). These
provided twice-a-day social contact and just enough structure to pleasantly punctuate days
on the open sea. As it turned out, the nets were populated by an entertaining cast of charac-
ters: listening was a little like tuning in to radio entertainment in the era before television.
That's one reason why Namani followed the ticks of two different clocks: UTC, for our
constant appointment with the radio net crews spread over many degrees of longitude, and
our ship's clock, which we adjusted periodically as our sloop sailed west.
Otherwise, we were on our own. In fact, we had more contact with animals than humans,
given occasional dolphin, whale, and seabird visits. Only once did we spot a fishing fleet,
not far west from the Galapagos. Interestingly, other crews reported regular sightings of
fishing boats throughout their passages, so perhaps this was just luck. It certainly wasn't for
lack of a good lookout, since Markus and I spent our watches in the cockpit, ducking below
only briefly to write in the log or dig out a snack. Standing watches can be a trial, as they
were during those wet early days hard on the wind, or they can be glorious, as in the middle
section of the trip.