In April 1999, we completed our transit of the Panama Canal and set sail across the Pacific Ocean. First stop was the Galapagos Islands, where we spent several weeks of eco-touring land travel.
For the 6-day passage to the Galapagos from Panama, we had light winds on the nose almost the entire way, with some thunderstorm activity in the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone. The 800-mile passage ended up requiring about 1100 miles of tacking to complete.
During the passage, we spotted many small brown-spotted dolphins and two seabirds floating on a piece of driftwood. At the time, I thought the birds might be stranded, but I now know that they were merely resting on a multi-day fishing expedition. A red-footed booby (joined later by many companions) hitched a ride on our bow railing.
After exploring several of the islands by boat and land, we continued on our Pacific passage — another 3300 miles (just over 16 days) to French Polynesia.