Galatea's Diary

Key to decipher sailing lingo:

• Speed is measured in knots per hour, kt(s), and distance in nautical miles (nm). There is actual boat speed and speed over the ground (SOG). We report both.
• Our direction, or heading, is denoted from the compass in degrees, deg, and called the course over ground, COG.
• Wind velocity and direction are denoted in kts and direction, respectively (e.g., 10 kts from the NE (north east)).
• Boat headinq, or direction, is given in degs.
• Boat location is given in in latitude and longitude e.g., (Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos: 00deg44.85 S and 90deg18.51 W. This means our current location in the Galapagos is at zero degrees, 44 minutes and 85 seconds South latitude and 90 degrees, 18 minutes and 51 seconds West).
• Please read the 10 Ways to Relate to the Galatea Sailing Experience

We completed our World Circumnavigation in June, 2003 some 36,000 nm in 18 months. Galatea is currently in her home port of Marblehead, MA. See our circumnavigation 'Stories'.

Australian Territory and Indian Ocean (Dec. 2002) and Australia (Nov. 2002)
Check the photos from Cocos Islands and from Northern Australia!

Australia (August-Sept., 2002)
14 Aug 02 Great Barrier Reef. We're enroute from Vanuatu to Thursday Island, Australia. Careful navigation is required negotiating the reefs and entrance into Australian waters.

15 Aug 02 We entered the Torres Straits, which are Australian islands north of Cape York and south of Papua New Guinea. It's beautiful here and we're only sailing in the day time, since these islands and reefs would be too dangerous to pass at night time. We anchored at Rennel Island and Sue Islet in tourquoise waters. The wind is contantly blowing here. Gui caught a Black Marlin and thank goddness we let it go, it was over 2 m.

17 Aug 02 We anchored at Horn Island and checked into Australian customs, quarantine and immigration at Thursday Island. We met some new friends, Libby Troy and Dillon Bateman in T.I. We also reconnected with Ulf from Josephine.

20 Aug 02 We set sail for Gove, Aus and saw our first dugongs, which are a mix between dolphins, mermaids, and manatees. week out from Darwin, Australia with another few months of sailing before we reach Africa. Currently, we're headed to Cocos (Keeling) the last Australian territory, but it's really South of Sumatra, Indonesia. After a few days of rest then we'll head out on another 2,000 nm journey to Mauritius. After that leg, it must be about another 1,500 nm to Durban, South Africa. Once there we have to sail around the Cape to arrive in Cape Town. So this is the most serious/straight sailing that we'll do on the entire circumnavigation.

21 Aug 02 We saw the Green Flash tonight at sunset! A blue footed boobie spent the night on Galatea and kept us entertained.

23 Aug 02 We anchored in Gove Harbor. Nhulunbuy is the town near by and we went to the Buku-Larrngay Mulka art center at Yirrkala. The Aboriginal art, crafts, instruments and museum were incredible, beyond words. Gui bought me a Yidaki (didgeridoo), so now I have another instrument to learn. I really need a lot of practice. Arnhemland is the home of this ceremonial instrument. We also couldn't resist a spectacular Bark Painting and sent it home.

25 Aug 02 Last night we anchored in Elizabeth Bay and today we made it through the Hole-in-the-Wall. What an experience (you'll have to see the video). It's truly a small canal opening through the land and the current can run 9 knots. Now we're planning for the tides to get through the Van Dieman Gulf and Cape Hotham on our way to Darwin.

28 Aug 02 We anchored at Fannie Bay, Darwin in the middle of the night. Wew, it's been a wonderful, but long passage from Vanuatu.

Darwin, Australia
30 Aug 02 Galatea came out of the water and is now "on the hard" for repairs and work at SadGrove's Quay. We're still living onboard.

1 Sept 02 Cori Lathan arrives from DC to Darwin to visit and help teach the Darwin students at St. John's College and Stuart Elementary, and to work on the boat with us - and she thought this was a sailing vacation(-;.

4-5 Sept 02 We taught over 75 students about Exploration: By Sea and Space and had a 3-way videoconference between Darwin, Montana and Houston. Astronaut Cady Coleman discussed Living in Space with all the students and we all had a marvelous time (See Galatea Highlights (i.e., the Compass Rose) for more details and photos). We got to see our Montana family via the videoconference across the Ocean.
We've enjoyed Darwin and know every business in the Industrial Park. We enjoyed the Mindle Beach market, the Dinah Beach Club and the Darwin Sailing Club. We met Peter, a new, wonderful friend from Derby, Australia who was working on his ketch, KAJUPA, next to Galatea in the yard. The Schreurs, Steve, Fiona, Scott, and Luke showed us the Darwin spots not to be missed: Mindle Beach, Crocidylus Park, etc.

8-14 Sept 02 Darwin to Sydney to Bangkok to London to Manchester to York, England (in an airplane, of course). We flew to Audrey (Gui's daughter) and Garry Corbett's wedding in England. What a wonderful trip we had and a beautiful country, hunting wedding they had. It was picture perfect from the morning ceremony complete with family, friends, and hounds to the brunch celebration with wild game and toasts to the afternoon hunt in the beautiful English countryside to an evening of singsong. There are so many stories to tell, that we'll have to put photos and more wedding stories up on the web (See Galatea Stories). We had a great time with Jim Olive at the wedding, but it was too short. On the way there and back we got to visit briefly with Wendy Montagne in Sydney.

15-23 Sept 02 Back onboard Galatea on the hard we had a furious week of work finishing the fiberglassing (foredeck, chain locker, and keel), rigging (jub furler), new welds on the boom vang, and new bottom paint on Gala before putting her back in the water on Sept. 23rd. After hours of cleaning and final shopping, we're ready for the big blue Indian Ocean.

24-27 Sept 02 It's great to be back in the ocean, but it's very calm and we had to motor for the better part of three days (the longest calm stretch of our entire trip so far). We're less than fifty nm from Indonesia. We see many Indonesian fishing boats at night and have to avoid them. Too bad we can't stop in Bali, but the world political problems dampened those plans and we have to get to Africa before the cyclone season in Nov-Dec.

28 Sept - 3 Oct 02 We've found the SE trade winds and are making good progress to Cocos (Keeling), which is 2000 nm west of Darwin. It's rockin' and rollin' seas out here. We sailed with numerous dolphins on our bow wave on the 1-2 Oct 02. You can never get tired of watching and interacting with the dolphins. Cocos here we come, and Mauritius is another 2000 nm from Cocos.

July-August, 2002: Fiji

Read the stories from Fiji.

July 5-11, 2002: Samoa

From Dava:

Just like that, we lost a day. It's now July 13, 2002 and when I was just writing to you it was July 12, 2002.

Our current loctation is:14 deg 40.66 S / 174 deg 11.25 W at 0400 UTC

Read the Samoa Stories

29 June 2002:
Galatea enroute from Bora Bora, French Polynesia to Samoa, a 1200 nm crossing. We just spent a wonderful 10 days with Andree and Luke Cannon (Dava's cousin from Portland, OR) sailing from Tahiti to Moorea to Huahine and then to Bora Bora. We had a great company, food, snorkeling, biking and sailing throughout beautiful Tahiti Nui.

May 27, 2002: Enroute to Papeete, Tahiti

We are now enroute to Papeete, Tahiti after spending a few days in the Tuamotus Archipielago in the island of Manihi. All of the Tuamotus are atolls, sunken craters in the ocean floor where coral reefs have grown emerging from the craters. Entering these atolls is no easy task - they are very narrow channels surrounded by coral reefs with extreme currents and rip tides running through the passes. We had to time the extact hour to enter and exit so we wouldn't be swept over the reefs. Also, our 7.5 ft draft on Galatea is 'deep', so we take extra care in negotiating the coral once we're inside the lagoons. Sun and polarized glasses are a must. We had a 'near miss' with a coral head while anchoring due to low light levels. Once anchored we had a peaceful time compared to the rolling anchorages in the Marquesas. There was a picture perfect white beach with palm trees off our stern. We had a wonderful snorkel through the pass where we drifted with the current and saw a myriad of tropical fish species that we have never seen before. We spent time visiting with other cruisers, a family from Japan on Oric Halcum who have had incredible sailing journeys to Alaska and throughout the Pacific on a Jeanneau 35' (a lightweight racing boat!) and three canadian boats from British Columbia (Lil' Gem, North Road, and Silent Runner). The three day crossing to Tahiti is comfortable with very light winds.

May 19, 2002: Manihi

• Enroute to Manihi, Tuamotu and the wind has picked up a bit, so we're sailing at 4-6 kts with about 400 nm left. It's 'shower day' today! We each use 1 gal of fresh water every few days and believe it or not, we can take an entire shower and wash our hair with 1 gal, but it took some practice.

Typical menu onboard Galatea:

Breakfast:
Tea and/or coffee, fresh fruit if we're lucky enough to have any onboard (papaya or grapefruit we've had this week), toast (if we have any bread) with jam or dulce de leche or Nutella.

Lunch:
Avocado salad (we had about 6 avocados from Nuku Hiva that are all ripe now). We might have veggie, or put in a little crab or tuna for a real treat. Crackers, and water, water, water. It's very hot (~88 deg F) with the sun in the cockpit from 8 am - 4 pm. Other days we have sandwiches with cold cuts or salads when we're lucky enough to have fresh food (no fresh salad currently onboard).

Gatorade and fruit for treats. We have about 2 dozen ripe bananas currently, so it's bananas, bananas, bananas.

Dinner:
Grilled chicken that Gui bar-b-qued before we left from the Marquesas. Other dinners often include: rice and beans, fresh fish whenever we catch one! (mahi mahi is our favorite with tuna coming in second).

Midnight:
Munchies to stay awake for the night shift usually cookies (Oreos are ranked at the top) or even chocolate since it's always easy to justify eating junkfood when you're on the night shift. Healthier versions include carrots, peanuts, granola, and juice.

May 18, 2002

• We hate to leave this gorgeous island covered with sky-reaching spires. It's truly a wonderful natural Cathedral here in Oa Pou (wa-poo).
• The wind is light ALL day and we only make about 90 nm in 24 hrs.

May 16, 2002: Marquesas to the Tuamotus

• Happy birthday to my father, Dan Newman.
• We sailed from Nuku Hiva to another island, Oa Pou, in the Marquesas and anchored at Etienne's Bay. We were greeted by the friendliest people in the Marquesas and had a wonderful bar-b-que with the cruisers and locals on Friday night (17 May 2002) at Etienne's house. We ate, sang, danced and played music.

May 12, 2002: All is Well in the Marquesas

• Galatea is currently in the Marquesas. Read more about it.

May 2, 2002: Solving some steering problems!

• Read how Dava and Gui fixed their hydraulic system
• Galatea is currently 1600 nm away from the Marquesas (out of the 3100 nm trip from the Galapagos to the Marquesas) Check the position image below.

22 April 2002

• Galatea is currently 1000 nm away from the Galapagos Islands with close to 2000 nm to go to reach the Marquesas Islands. The black line shows Galatea's position per day and we have been averaging close to 180 nm per day, which is great speed for us. The wind is blowing between 20-30 kts. The blue lines show boats that are friends of ours and we track daily, Gipsy from Majorca, Warna Carina from Australia, and Athenor from Seattle, WA. The red lines (2 bars = 20 kts) and numbers give wind forcasts. The second graphic shows our progress over the past 24 hours (21-22 April 2002).

21 April 2002

• We are 775 nm from Isabela, Galapagos and still have 2300 nm to go to reach the Marquesas. Our current position is: 05deg 56' S / 102deg 19' W, COG 271 deg, SOG 7.7 kts. We covered 186 nm in the last 24 hours! (that's great for us, we are always happy when we cover over 150 nm per day). The wind is constant from the SE.

20 April 2002: Saturday

• We caught a nice mahi mahi today and Gui made an excellent dinner.
• After losing a larger fish, Gui put some yellow strips from our Doyle sail tie and that seemed to do the trick. Bamm, we caught the fish and gave thanks to the ocean for the fresh meal.

19 April 2002: Friday

• After three days at sea, we're still pretty exhausted from sailing around the clock. Soon, we should get adapted to the lack of sleep and schedule.

18 April 2002: Thursday

• We wake up every morning to the smell of a fish market.
• Little squid and flying fish land on the boat while sailing throughout the night. We might have a calamari dinner soon.

17 April 2002: Enroute to the Marquesas

• Check the trip plan

We set up the following sail, eat, sleep schedule for our 3000+ nm journey.

• Gui - 6-9 pm, Dava usually prepares dinner and stays awake until about 7 pm for the gorgeous sunsets.
• Dava - 9 pm - 12 midnight
• Gui - 12-2 am
• Dava - 2-4 am
• Gui - 4-6 am
• Dava - 6-8 am
• Gui - 8-10 am, Dava communicates on the SSB radio to other boats to log everyone's position and to talk about the weather and the last 24 hours. We do email and download our Raymarine weather files at this time also (about every other day or so).
• We both stay awake and cat nap during the daytime. There are many things to work on with the boat just keeping things in order, tighening, checking, projects, etc. We're currently reading books (wow, this is a novelty, so we must really be in the crusing mode now). Gui's reading the Conquest of new Spain by Diaz and Dava is reading A long walk to freedom, Nelson Mandela's autobiography.

11 April 2002: Sailing from Santa Cruz to Isabela Island

2 April 2002: Sailing on a course to Santa Cruz, Galapagos

• 0453 hr 00deg36.9 S / 89deg 29.9 W, COG 261 deg, SOG 4.2. We just heard a whale spout, but couldn't see it in the dark.
• 1200 hr 00deg45.18 S / 90deg08.83 W, COG 269, SOG 6.5. We're under sail and the wind is 8 kts from the SE.
• 1400 hr We arrived to Puerto Ayora (Academy Bay), Santa Cruz, Galapagos! We were welcomed by a sea lion 'hello' and a dolphin on our bow. It's great to be here and we made the crossing in 7 days.

1 April 2002: April Fool's Day.

• 0800 hr 00deg15.71 S / 87deg27.61 W. No wind so we have to put on the motor. COG 260 deg, SOG 6.6 kts.
• 1600 hr 00deg24.78 S / 88deg15.18 W, COG 266 deg, SOG 5 kt. We can sail again and put up the UPS. Slow and steady with 120 nm to go.

31 March 2002: Happy Easter - Feliz Pascua

• 0900 hr 01deg28.965 N / 84deg59.778 W, SOG 5 kts, COG 213 deg, Wind 16 kts from the E, NE at 66 deg. Equator is 120 nm away at 222 deg heading.
• 1200 hr 00deg37 N / 85deg46 W, SOG 5.9 kts, COG 229 deg, Wind 10 kts from the E. Very light air so we have our secret weapon up (the UPS sail, it's like an assymetrical spinnaker but can reach even better), which adds about 2 kts to our speed under these conditions.
• 21:15 00deg00.00 / 86deg20' W. Crossing the Equator! COG 223 deg, SOG 4.9, Wind 7.5 kts NE. Flat seas, celbration and offerings are made to Neptune and the sea gods and goddesses. Gui and Dava outfit themselves in their Kuna carnival masks and Jean-Pierre puts on pirate attire (see photos in website ).

30 March 2002

• 0900 hr 02deg51.45' N / 84deg01.58' W, COG 224deg, SOG 8.6, wind E at 25-30kts, 468 nm covered so far, we are cranking. 450 nm to go.

29 March 2002

• 0230 hr 05deg38.74' N / 82deg08.24' W, COG 180deg, SOG 5.2, wind NNE 10kts, nice sailing!
• 0652 hr Ahh, it is Good Friday 05deg21.45' N / 82deg20.74' W, COG 229deg, SOG 6, wind E at 13kts, 600 nm to go to the Galapagos and 280 miles from Panama.
• 1630 hr 04deg32.78' N / 82deg57.26' W, COG 216deg, SOG 8.6 kts, wind NE at 12-16kts, 3-6' wavss, clear sky.

28 March 2002

• 600 a.m. 06deg53.57' N / 80deg41.41' W, light 10 kts winds E, covered 148 miles in our first 24 hrs.
• 2000 hr 06deg16.11' N / 81deg43.03' W, COG 243deg, SOG 4.1, light 2kt had to start the engine and head 205deg to get on the rum line

27 March 2002

• We left the mooring at 6:30 a.m. in Balboa, Panama. 10 kts of wind, flat seas (fantastic! Dava's not seasick). SOG 6 kt.
• 1500 hr Gui caught a Wahoo, 36" long. We'll be eating well tonight.
• 1930 hr 7deg44' N / 79deg52' W 15 kts wind, waves 2-4', SOG 8.5 kts COG 190deg

Each morning we use our SSB to check in with our friends on Warna Karina, an Australian boat, and Gipsy, a Spanish boat from Majorica to give each other's location and to see how the past 24 hours of sailing went. We dial into frequency 8101 kHz. Then we usually check our sailmail account and every other day log into galateaodyssey.org to download (very slowly) our latest 7 day weather forecast from Raymarine (our wonderful sponsors for our educational program).

25 January 2002:
G.P.S. Coordinates - Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies
Latitude / Longitude: 18 degrees 02 N - 63 degrees 05 W

Satellite Imagery of the Caribbean:

Weather Conditions:
click here to see what the weather is like where Galatea is!

Nautical Maps:

Simpson Bay , Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies (aerial photograph of marina)

Marigot, St. Martin, French West Indies - click on the name to see a nautical map!

St. Barts , French West Indies

Ocean Conditions:
Caribbean Weather