Our only other tense spot was at the second, and last, Miraflores lock, where the current is fast. Here we had to be out and away under full power even before the gates were fully opened, in order to beat the surge of the incoming sea.
By 1830 we were anchored off Balboa Yacht Club. The pilots and Jim left to catch transportation back to Cristobal and the rest of us settled down to savor the knowledge that we were once again in the Pacific—our own ocean.
The next morning we went ashore to check in at the Balboa Yacht Club and once again were accorded a friendly welcome and taken in tow by one of the old-timers. Our ten days in Balboa were taken up with preparations for the 6,000 miles of Pacific which lay between us and the Hawaiian Islands. We planned to make two stops, in the Galápagos and in the Marquesas, but in neither of these places could we expect to get supplies or provisions, so it was necessary to be completely self-sufficient for an indefinite number of months. Like Cristobal, on the Atlantic side, Balboa is attractive, self-contained, and completely American, catering only to government employees. We were distressed to learn that, contrary to advance information, we were not permitted to shop at the American commissaries in the Canal Zone and as for “free port” shops, such as those we had found so tempting in St. Thomas, they don’t exist here.
Adjoining Balboa is Panama City, capital of Panama, sprawling, colorful, and very Latin. Lovely old cathedrals front on verdant squares; wide main streets peter out into winding, thin alleys; Moorish-type architecture and free-flowing, highly expressive Spanish reminded us constantly that Panama has been and will remain far more simpatico to Latin ways than to the often-irritating American influences which exist in the Zone. While we were there, there was considerable grumbling, especially among the university students, at the control of the Canal by the United States; and there was a constant agitation for a greater share of the profits. It was easy to see that here, in times to come, will be one of our country’s trouble spots, and it is not impossible that the time will come when the Panama Canal, along with the Suez and others, will have to be internationalized.
Our most difficult job here was getting permission to enter the Galápagos, which belong to Ecuador. Marie and Jerry Trowbridge, on White Seal, had been quoted a dollar a foot and had reluctantly decided to skip those islands. We knew, however, that there was no hard and fast rule for getting a permit, or the amount of the fee, so we again pulled rank and asked Governor Potter to put in a word for us. He kindly contacted the Ecuadorian Ambassador and we obtained permission with remarkable ease, at a very modest fee.
While we were getting ready for sea, a number of visitors called because they had “heard we were going to the Galápagos.” Each would start out by extolling one particular island in the group, and when we had been sold would casually remark, “I wonder if you’d be willing to drop off a few things for us”—packages, letters, foodstuffs—even a sizable wood-and-coal stove, which we had to lash on deck. We were happy to take all we could carry, because we knew that the passing yachtsman was a major factor in supplying the pioneers on these isolated islands. Also, on the advice of old-timers, we took reading matter for the islanders—books, magazines, and newspapers—as much as we could collect.
We sailed on January 18, bound for Wreck Bay, San Cristóbal, the port of entry for the Galápagos. The islands are on the equator, about 860 miles southwest of Panama, and we were warned to expect a slow passage. Yachts have taken as long as three months for the trip and some have managed to miss the islands completely. This had, in fact, happened to the Carrs, on Havfruen, who had preceded us by a couple of months and had also been carrying a respectable load of supplies for the colonies. They had carried on to the Marquesas, where they had unloaded their cargo to be shipped to Tahiti. From there, eventually, it would have to travel up to Hawaii, over to California, and back down to the Panama Canal, there to await another yacht bound for the Galápagos and willing to take on the mission of good will. The entire circuit would take upward of a year and we could only hope that none of the cargo had been perishable!
We had no intention of missing the islands, no matter how long it took us, and to our delight we started out as if we were going to make a record passage. On the second day out, we made a noon-to-noon run of 197 miles, better than eight knots, which we knew was accurate because we could check our position with Malpelo Island. This delightful state of affairs was soon over, however. We ran into the area of light southerlies, where we had to work our way alternately west and southeast, slowly making good our course. My log on the ninth day out is representative:
Midnight. Very quiet. Moon just down. Two knots, course west. Many dolphin about, snorting and leaping. Phosphorescence all around.
We weren’t worried about our slow progress. The peace on board was so wonderful that I personally felt a two-month passage would have given me just that much more time to soak it in. We three men continued our two-hours-on-four-off system, with the girls sharing three daylight hours, thus shifting the watch each night. Nick ate his meals with us, sat with us in the cockpit, joined in our discussions, entered fully into our family life. It was a happy ship.