Isla San Cristobol and Isla Santa Cruz (Galapagos, Ecuador)

San Cristobol is home to a huge colony of sea lions.

We paid a lot of money to come to the Galapagos. When you consider that many of the islands in the Caribbean were completely free to cruise or at the most under $100 US, the $1600 we paid for our autografo (a permit that allows us to cruise to three islands; 1-island permits are cheaper) is expensive. Granted, it's cheaper than the $4000 or so that it costs to fly from Chicago but is still pretty rich for our blood.

Tijeretas on San Cristobol

Las Grietas on Santa Cruz--we loved this brackish-water-filled crevice.

So we can understand why some cruisers decide not to visit. But we're glad we didn't skip it. The rugged volcanic terrain, unique wildlife and their sheer numbers has distinguished the Galapagos from the many countries we have visited.

The elusive red-footed booby.

Our naturalist couldn't help giggling every time he said the word 'booby'.

Punta Pitt

We spent about a week in San Cristobol, where we picked up our friends Peter, Hilary, and Maria. We had fun touring Kicker Rock, Punta Pitt, and a few highlights of Cristobol. They got to experience the joys of Navy showers and a swell-y anchorage and were troopers about the whole experience. We took them over to Santa Cruz towards the end of their visit on what was supposed to be a day sail with light winds. Instead we had 20-30 knot winds on the nose, which was one of our more uncomfortable sails, especially for non-sailors. After a couple days in Santa Cruz, our friends headed home to Iowa.

 

Punta Pitt

We'll stick around Santa Cruz for a few days while we figure out why our water maker keeps overheating. Then we'll head over to Isabela to see penguins and volcanoes.

 

 

 

Panama to Galapagos

We beached our boat at Isla Espiritu Santo in Las Perlas. The tides are so big that you can drive your boat onto one of several flat sand beaches at low tide, do your out-of-water tasks, and then wait for the tide to come back up.

We spent the morning giving our boat bottom one last scrub to get rid of any hitchhikers (barnacles, algae, etc.). The tide came up, we motored off the beach, and then after a short anchor we left for the Galapagos with our friends on Amelie IV. Mandala left shortly afterwards.

We were expecting the trip to take anywhere from six to ten days, depending on the wind (starting March 5). The forecast showed good winds for the first few days, with the winds lightening significantly afterwards. We were ecstatic when the winds mostly held, with some lulls, until the last day. We only had to motor sail for the last 18 hours of the trip. We arrived in just over six days, within hours of Mandala and Amelie IV. We were glad to have beat ten days because our friends who are flying in on the 15th.

The passage was rough at times but mostly comfortable. We saw pilot whales right next to the boat, a turtle eating a dead ray, loads of dolphins, and a big shark jumping out of the water (we think either mako or spinner shark). Our friends on Mandala saw a huge dead whale and got a marlin on their fishing line (it took the lure). We had a ceremony as we passed the Equator and turned from slimy pollywogs to faithful shellbacks.

That's a sea lion sleeping on our boat. They're better climbers
than we thought. Cute but they shed, smell and aren't house-broken.

As we pulled into the waters next to the lumpy landmass of San Cristobol, the sun was coming up and we could see millions of tiny blue glowing dots in the water. The water was so clear that it was like an aquarium teeming with tube worms, big colonies of lacy jellies, and dozens of turtles. We were greeted by sea lions, pilot whales, and dolphins. Mark and Conrad jumped up and down at the bow of the boat, yelling and pointing excitedly. We couldn't have asked for a better welcome.

Now we wait...

New passports picked up. Check!

Boat's waterline lowered from 132 eggs, tons of produce, full diesel tanks, full gas tanks, and full water tanks. Check!

Last ice-cream cones eaten in civilization for awhile. Check!

Wind to get us to the Galapagos. [Sound of sad clown horn].

 

We're back in Las Perlas and even though the wind is blowing like crazy here, the forecast for sailing the 900 or so miles to The Galapagos is dismal. After we fueled up at Panama City, we decided we didn't want to spend one more night in the rocky, rolly anchorage at La Playita. We were also stubborn and didn't feel like motoring even though there was hardly any wind. So we tooled along at 2 knots for a good portion of the journey and pulled into Contadora after about 10 hours, around 9 p.m. The good thing is, our sail was calmer than the anchorage at La Playita and we caught 2 big red snappers. There were big swaths of reddish water, which we speculated could be the toxic red algae tides we had heard about. The water was so still that we could see tons of schools of tiny minnows, little octopuses, crabs, and jellies. We also sighted more whales. It was a long, slow, but pleasant journey.

We think there might be decent wind next Friday that will take us at least half way and then not so decent wind that, with the current, could get us where we're going without burning a ton of diesel. That's a lot of ifs and just another way of saying we are waiting to see what will happen. We might beach our boat to do the final bottom cleaning. At any rate, waiting around here beats the subzero temperatures that our family and friends back in Chicago are experiencing.