Pacific Bound

Chris and Helen Tibbs Describe How They Planned and Set About Sailing Across the Pacific
 

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A red-footed booby landed on our pulpit and hitched a ride as we approached the Galapagos Islands. As dawn broke, it flew off, and the light revealed a pod of orcas swimming nearby.

Cruising in the Pacific is a different world. Nothing really prepares you for the abundance of nature in the Galapagos Islands, even when you are ashore. Here, sealions crowd the sidewalks and benches and you struggle to avoid tripping over iguanas.

After crossing the Atlantic in the ARC in 2015 and making a short cruise in the Caribbean, we returned to the UK to go back to work, leaving our Wauquiez Centurion 40s, Taistealai, in Grenada for nine months.

We had heard horror stories about mildew and termites reducing the woodwork to dust, but they were no more than that, and when we arrived back in January to antifoul and launch the boat, she looked better than she would have after a few months ashore during a UK winter.

We were hit, however, by the diving pound after Brexit so it had become an expensive layup. And when returning to Grenada we were a bit shocked when our bags were searched at the airport for boat spares. Our pleas that they were ships stores in transit fell on deaf ears and our only choice was to pay a tax (which seemed a random amount) or employ an agent, which would cost more than the tax.

But once the boat was launched we had a short cruise to Saint Lucia with friends to join the World ARC, our ultimate destination New Zealand.

On the way north to the start we stopped at Tobago Cays and enjoyed a lobster dinner cooked by Neil’s mum (Neil is a local boat boy who goes by the tag of Mandyman) and carried on to Bequia, where we got a bit of a shock. Bequia has grown and grown since I first visited in 1980 – in good ways and some bad. But Admiralty Bay is as I remember it, still prone to some gusty conditions, with mixed holding.