After we crossed the Panama Canal, we set out on our longest passage yet, to the Galapagos Islands. It was going to be around 10 days long even though we did 100 miles a day and the islands were 600 miles away. The reason it was going to be that long was because we were sailing through the Duldrums, an area around the equator where the winds from each side meet, it is dead calm in the Duldrums.
We spent our days doing school work, playing games, sleeping, and watching the horizon for the familiar cloud shrouded gray lump that meant land. With all the time in the world we explored new games and watched dolphins perform for us, doing flips and jumping sometimes 5 feet in the air! We also noticed that the dolphins were somewhat smaller than the ones we observed in the atlantic.
One night my dad woke me for the equator crossing on his watch, I went up on deck and my dad showed me a light he had seen and told me to click into it on the AIS screen. I did and saw, to my surprise the name of the boat we had spotted was Field Trip! My dad smiled and told me that just a few seconds ago he had talked to Mark, the dad onboard Field Trip, they were going 1 knot, waiting until morning for Sarah, the mom, to wake up so they could go across the equator.
We dismissed the idea of dumping salt water or going for a swim to celebrate equator crossing because we had just taken showers, instead we celebrated with ginger-ale and chocolate, Yum!
