4-4-99 Happy Easter. We are now in Academy Bay, Isla Santa Cruz in the Galapagos (Lat 00 °45' S/Lon 90°18' W). The port is called Puerto Ayoro. We are amazed at how much "civilization" is here, we thought all the Galapagos islands would be much more austere and rugged, but there is a town and several large farms here on Santa Cruz. Approximately 16,000 people (mainly Ecuadorians) inhabit the Galapagos on 4 of the 13 islands. Santa Cruz contains about half the population. Puerto Ayoro has restaurants, markets, a hardware store, souvenir shops, etc. We were even able get diesel, water and fill one of our empty propane tanks (used for stove/grill). We ate dinner out a few nights ($4.00 steak dinners, you can't beat that!), nice not to have to cook and wash dishes. The Darwin Research Station and Park Headquarters is located on Isla Santa Cruz. The research station monitors the local wildlife and provides critical support to the tortoise population. They take tortoise eggs from all other islands and raise the tortoises in a controlled environment until 3 years old. Then the tortoises are repatriated back to their home island. The tortoises were exploited for their oil and meat years ago and more recently, the introduction of rats, goats and cats on the islands have had major impacts in the survival of the tortoises, since they raid the nests and eat the eggs. We toured the station and enjoyed seeing the very young tortoises and some of the very old, large ones endemic to Santa Cruz. We hope their attempts are successful in trying to recover from such drastic deficits. Puerto Ayoro has email capability, so we will upload a web page update with some pictures of the giant tortoises and other wildlife. (Sorry, no update yet - they wouldn't allow us to upload with our disk on their computer (fear of viruses). Looks like it will be Marquesas or most probably Tahiti before we get another chance!)
4-11-99 We're now in Puerto Villamel, Isla Isabela (Lat 00° 58' S/Lon 90° 58' W), our third Galapagos island in 12 days. This is by far our favorite spot yet. The anchorage is a natural harbor, with good protection all around from wind and waves. The other two anchorages (Wreck Bay and Academy Bay) were exposed to southerly swells and consistently rolly with 3-4 ft seas. Isabela is the largest (2,249 sq. mi.) of the Galapagos islands and has numerous active volcanoes. We can see one just behind the boat here in the anchorage. We're enjoying our visit, the terrain is different from the other islands we've toured, and very interesting. This island is not as old as the others and that is evident by volcanic landscape. We walked several hiking paths on one of the outer keys of Isabela on black, volcanic cinders. We discovered a black sandy beach with several female sea lions resting in the shade of bushes. The large bull male was not far away, swimming in shallow water. When we approached to take a picture, he got out of the water and charged us! Good thing he wasn't as fast on land as in the water! We must've looked funny running from him, but he did give us quite a scare, weighing in at 400 lbs. or so. We had a chance to snorkel with smaller sea lions yesterday. There are dozens resident in the anchorage and they are very gregarious and curious. One small one, we've named "Slippery", is especially friendly and playful. He followed us in the dinghy until we got into the water and then swam with us for almost an hour, closeby, within arm's reach. We are not quite as graceful in the water, but tried to imitate sea lion moves with our man-made, plastic flippers. It was alot of fun. We also saw 2 large sea turtles while we were swimming and colorful fish. The blue-footed and masked boobies are everywhere and dive bomb small schools of fish in the water, they are comical to watch. They tuck their wings in and become torpedoes, full speed ahead, 50 ft off the water surface, diving face first into the water. They submerge a few feet underwater, then pop back up with their catch. It's amazing that they don't break their necks trying to get a bite to eat. There are pink flamingos in brackish lagoons ashore, feeding on tiny shrimp - that's what makes them pink. We've certainly enjoyed our time in the Galapagos, but must think about setting sail again and heading westward. We plan to leave for the Marquesas tomorrow - 4/12. It is our longest leg yet - 2,977 miles - according to our GPS and will probably take 21-30 days, depending on wind. Lots of water out there to cross ........
4-22-99 Offshore in the South Pacific - Lat 07° 00' S/Lon 110° 09'W. We're in our 10th day of our long passage to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. We've sailed almost 1,200 miles since the Galapagos and only 1,785 miles to go! It's been a long trip so far and we probably have another 16 days left of sailing. The first few days out of the Galapagos were slow - no wind and negative currents in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). We were conservative with fuel and engine, since it was so early in the trip and we slowly crept along with the sails up, hoping for a breath of air. Then we finally found the wind in the form of rain squalls and intermittent showers for 3 days straight. One day of torrential rain, not fun, but better than limp flopping sails. We are now far enough south of the Equator and ITCZ that the Trade Winds have filled in and are pushing us along. We had a visitor onboard for awhile - a bird. Seabirds have a tendency to land on boats at sea, and take a short break perched on top of the mast. This one however, was not a seabird, but a land based white cattle egret, whose habitat is marshes and cow pastures. You've probably seen them, sitting on the backs of cattle, they are abundant in the Galapagos. For some reason, this one was 600 miles from home and looking for a place to land. We saw it circling the boat for hours in the dark, concentrating on the dim lights from the electronic displays in the cockpit. It clumsily landed sometime after midnight on our stern rail. It was very disoriented and weak and and immediately fell asleep. (Despite several botched attempts and splashing into the sea a few times - never to qualify as a Navy pilot, and land on aircraft carriers!) Seeing the state it was in, we thought we'd have a passenger onboard until the Marquesas. It made itself at home on the dec, the next day, near our mast and drank fresh water and ate flying fish. We tried varying the menu with Cheerios, crackers, hot dogs and bananas - but it liked the flying fish the best. Luckily, we had an abundance of those every morning. After 3 and a half days of eating and resting, it took off and we haven't seen it since. It didn't realize that we were now 1,000 miles from the Galapagos - the nearest land. We hope it "boat-hopped" all the way back home. It was entertaining for a while anyway, and kept us company. Although it gave the term POOP DECK a new meaning for us!
4-24-99 We're halfway to the Marquesas! We recently passed a unique spot on the globe. It was a spot on our Planet that is farthest away from land in any direction - 1,550 miles in any direction! The coordinates are: Lat 08°S and Lon 112°W. It was eerie thinking about it and we felt insignificant and isolated, .... this Pacific is vast. We do keep in touch via radio contact with others. There is a cruisers' Single Side Band (SSB) radio network (12.365 MHz @ 1830 UTC) called the "Coconut Milk Run" net that allows us to communicate with other boats sailing to the Marquesas and right now there are 40 boats spread out over the 3,000 mile passage. We take turns being the net controller and perform a roll-call each morning gathering information such as position (lat/lon), wind speed and direction, current and cloud cover. We plot the boats' positions on our chart, with the weather info, and that way we get a big picture of where everyone is and graphically see the winds and currents along the route. We have several regular radio contacts that we keep along the way, besides the Coconut Milk Run net. We talk twice a day to 6 other boats that we have made friends with on what we call the "Fish Net". We also talk about boat position, weather, emergency repairs, and of course how many fish each of us have caught. (SIMMER held the record for a short time with a 36 inch dorado, or Mahi Mahi. The next day friends of ours caught a 48 inch dorado. We still hold the record for number of flying fish on deck in a 24 hr period - 67!). Theses 6 boats left the Galapagos a few days after us and are about 700 miles behind us. We also talk to Pat's Dad in Galena, MD and our friend, Lenny, in Tarpon Springs, FL a couple times a week, as propagation permits. It's amazing how important communications and electronics equipment is when you're "out in the middle of nowhere". It's comforting to talk to others and relieve the isolation. We don't know how old time sailors made long passages without modern electronic such as radios, radar, GPS and auto pilots. It would really make this passage extra long, lonely and frustrating without them.
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