After installing the GPS/Chartplotter back in San Francisco in 2003, I never did reset the trip log (accumulated miles) to zero. Too many other things to do (like learn how to use a GPS/Chartplotter let alone navigate in more traditional ways). But yesterday I had some time and I've been curious: roughly how many miles have Hope & I sailed since leaving San Francisco in September of 2003?
When we knew that we were going to head to Central America and probably Ecuador, I meant to reset the trip log up at our northernmost point in the Sea of Cortez. Unfortunately, it didn't get done until a couple of hundred miles later in La Paz. But going back and gauging the mileage along the coast, I've come up with a total of at least 11,000 nautical miles (nm). For you land lubbers, that's roughly 12,500 miles or just over 20,000 kilometers. And it's probably more because I can't begin to add up the back-and-forths between islands and anchorages, circles we've made, and so on. As an example of that (this last passage), the straight-line distance between Panama and Ecuador is around 600 nm. Our GPS recorded that we actually sailed 935 (way out to the west then back again to have sailing angles on the winds from the south) to cover the straight-line passage of 600 nm. And in calculating the 11,000 nm I was using straight-line distances along coasts for about 60% of our travels.
The funny thing now (to us) is that the first hop out of San Francisco Bay around the corner to Half Moon Bay was about 50-60 miles. Then down to Santa Cruz was about the same again. But they were our first hops and they seem H-U-G-E ! Two weeks ago, this 900 mile passage seemed huge: now we feel we can plan 1000 miles at a time with no problem. Which will be helpful because when we leave here (Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador) we'll be heading due west to the Galapagos, another 600 nm. But this times the winds should still be southerly so our actual miles should be almost exactly the 600 of the straightline distance.
OK, time to catch up on some waypoints to look up on Google Maps:
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador: 00.609217S, 080.420633W (Note the 'S' for a change, and we'll be here for a few months so no new ones for awhile)
Balboa, Panama: 08.908300N, 079.525333W (Zoom out or pan right to find the Panama Canal to the east ... should be interesting)
Las Perlas: 08.426983N, 078.854717W (Zoom out a little: this is just one place we stopped in this bunch of islands)
Bahia Banao: 07.425700N, 080.193800W (Zoom out a little to see the point to the East ... Punta Mala [Bad Point] ... Banao is the hidey-hole to wait for decent weather to get around the well-named Punta Mala)
Isla Coiba: 07.623483N, 080.726000W (Nice place but with the shark stories from Hope)
Isla Parida: 07.10167N, 082.367483W (First stop after leaving Costa Rica ... want to get back to 'western Panama')
Golfito, Costa Rica: 08.619633N, 083.153300W (Last stop & check out point for Costa Rica)
Isla del Cano: 08.713850N, 083.887083W (Best snorkeling story since leaving Mexico)
Bahia Drake: 08.697167N, 083.668400W (Panga trip into the mangroves .. search to the north for the river entrance ... and our own inflatable kayak trip up a stream on the point of land to the west of where we anchored)
Think that takes us back awhile. And, oh yeah: water does swirl in the opposite direction here when going down a drain!
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