Galapagos Series

The Galapagos first captured my imagination in my high school textbooks. Images of giant tortoises appeared somewhere near a colorful graphic of Mendel’s experiments with pea plants. Visiting this island archipelago off the coast of Ecuador wasn’t on our radar when we left Panama. But, I am glad we stopped at Isabella Island, Galapagos.

Blog Posts in the Galapagos Series

The drafts of these blog posts were written at sea, long before we had Starlink. In chronological order, the entire series includes:

  1. What Lies Beneath?: about cleaning the boat bottom at 2,000 meters deep
  2. Jumping into The Water of the Galapagos: a memorable day for many reasons. The first time we swam as a family with sharks.
  3. Animal Feet in the Galapagos: a bit of fun
  4. Hiking a Volcano: describes a day hike in otherworldly, volcanic terrain.
  5. Leaving the Galapagos: I challenge a ship to a race and see a Chinese fishing fleet.
  6. Four Methods We Tried to Manage Sleep Deprivation While Sailing

If you have the opportunity to visit the Galapagos: Go!

Karen’s Message in a Bottle

Sat Jun 11 2022 04:33:00 GMT+0800 (Singapore Standard Time)

After leaving the Galapagos, Karen dropped a wine bottle into the ocean. She had been looking forward to this moment since September 2021. Her bottle was sealed with a cork and wax. It contained a note, contact information and a US ten-dollar bill.

Predictwind map showing the location where Karen dropped her message in a bottle.
The exact location where Karen dropped a well-sealed message in a bottle.

We like to think that Karen’s bottle is still floating in the rolling swell of the Pacific Ocean.

Where is Karen’s bottle now?

According to ChaptGPT, which used drift models from NOAA and NASA:

“Dropped west of the Galápagos on June 10 2022, Karen’s bottle likely rode the South Equatorial Current for thousands of kilometers—now drifting somewhere between Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.”

And, according to me: Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.

Here’s the first blog post in the Galapagos Story Arc: What Lies Beneath?