Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands in May 2008

Early on Saturday morning, April 27, 2008, we weighed anchor at Wreck Bay at Isla Cristobal and sailed/motor-sailed/motored the 42 miles to Santa Cruz. We arrived at Admiralty Bay at Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz around 4 p.m. and found a spot to fit into. This anchorage is very crowded and also faces on-coming swell; so boats must use both bow and stern anchors. This is the first time that our stern anchor has ever been into water. The anchoring went smoothly and we found the motion not at all uncomfortable. People complain about the motion in this anchorage, but we find it quite comfortable with the bow facing into the swell and being held in that direction by a stern anchor. We will clear in with the agent and do some tours. Our friends on S/V FREE SPIRIT arrived an hour or so later. There are now 17 sailboats anchored in this bay, and probably all of them will be heading off to the Marquesas soon.

Puerto Ayora is quite the tourist town. Almost 70% of the economy of the Galapagos Islands is derived from tourism, another 20% from exporting wahoo and other fish to the mainland and nearly 10% from agriculture. In recent years Santa Cruz has experienced 7% population growth annually with a total population of around 12,000 to 14,000 today. Approximately 120,000 tourists visit here each year. Each person who visits the Galapagos Islands is supposed to pay the $100 park fee, whether they arrive via airplane or boat. The waters surrounding the islands comprise the Galapagos Marine Reserve and are protected. It is illegal to remove any marine wildlife. Guess the cruisers better hope they don’t get caught trailing fishing lines while sailing through this area.

The $100 park fee is distributed as shown below:
Galapagos National Park – 40%
Galapagos Marine Reserve - 5%
Quarantine and Inspection Service – 5%
National network of Protected Areas – 5%
Ecuadorian Army – 5%
Galapagos National Institute – INGALA – 10%
Galapagos Provincial Council – 10%
Local Authorities (Town Halls) – 20%

Some cruisers have the mistaken idea that they are not required to pay this park fee unless they participate in an organized tour. Not true; the entire Galapagos Islands area is inside the designated national park; some parts are called reserve but it is all part of the park. This is such a unique environment that paying $100 each to visit should not be considered a burden, especially since the largest portion of the fee goes to protect the environment. So much of the local environment has already been destroyed and they are doing their best to preserve what remains.

Yesterday we did what is called the Highlands tour. Rancho Primicias is private property but of course is located inside the national park. It is owned by one of the older families of Santa Cruz. Our guide was wonderful. His name is Dario Morales and he speaks English exceptionally well. Dario plans to become a private tourist guide in 2010. He hopes to specialize in the Galapagos Islands since this is his home but also provide unique tours in remote areas of mainland Ecuador. Dario’s mother is of indigenous heritage from mainland Ecuador and his father was of Spanish Ecuadorian ancestry. Dario was born in Santa Cruz in 1985, but he has visited relatives and has friends in many remote areas of Ecuador. Dario speaks English, Spanish and one of the rare indigenous languages. He is intelligent and has studied and knows the geography, history and environment very thoroughly. He should make a wonderful personal guide. If you are planning to visit Santa Cruz anytime soon, we would highly recommend Dario Morales as a guide. He can be contacted at dariomorales_gps@hotmail.com or his cell phone is 091262874. Sorry, I don’t know the country code or area code and do not know if additional prefix numbers are required to call internationally. Dario also works at Ida Mario Yacht in Santa Cruz, work phone number 02526117. Guarantee you that he is the best guide in the Galapagos Islands.

The Highlands tour is very simple – we just walked around the premises of Rancho Primicias looking for giant tortoises and then walked partway through a lava tube. Dario pointed out various plants and animals along our route. Unfortunately, this is the time of year when most of the male tortoises migrate down to the lowlands to mate so there was not the abundance of tortoises that one might find at other times, but we saw a total of five. We did spot one very large tortoise cooling himself in a pond filled with green algae. A tortoise must maintain his body temperature between 15C and 35C or he will die, so they require ponds for this purpose.

The shell of a male tortoise displays rings inside each section which indicate his age – sort of like the rings inside a cross-section of a tree trunk. But the rings do not change past the age of 80-90 years. So you can tell if a tortoise is 90 years old but cannot tell much after that age. It would be impossible to tell if a tortoise is 170 or 120 years old based on the rings of his shell sections, only that he was older than 90 years. The shell of a female tortoise has smooth sections; no rings. The female is also considerably smaller than the male. Lonesome George is a tortoise believed to be about 175 years old and is the last of his species. The researchers have tried to mate him with the most similar species but he has shown no interest whatsoever. Sorry we missed old George but not doing that long walk in the heat again just to see him.

The 2 primary reasons of death of adult tortoises are a result of mating mishaps. When the male mounts the female to mate, he places his front feet on the shell of the female on each side of her head. The shell actually curves up at these places so nature made allowance for this practice and put perfect footholds in the correct positions. However, sometimes the male will lose his balance and a foot will slip out of place on the female’s shell. When this happens the entire weight of the male drops down onto the female’s back and splits her shell and kills her. The second problem is that sometimes the male loses his balance when dismounting from the female and turns over towards her side instead of backing off towards the rear. When this happens then the male ends up turned onto his back. If a park guide or a guard finds the tortoise soon enough then they can turn him over and he will be fine. But most times the tortoise will be left on his back and he will die of starvation or excessive body heat. We were fortunate to see both male and female tortoises during our walk around Rancho Primicias. At the center snack bar there were shells of 2 tortoises who had died on the grounds in years past, probably due to mating mishaps.

I said in our last log that each island in the Galapagos has a different species of giant tortoise. This is also true of the land iguanas. Isla Isabella was formed by several volcanoes. The area near each volcano has a different species of land iguana and they cannot successfully interbreed. Sometimes the iguanas do mate between species but the baby iguanas of mixed species do not live beyond 2 years. Maybe this will change over the centuries and eventually produce viable offspring and a new sub-species, but for now the baby iguanas of mixed species all die.

Next was a quick stop at the snack bar and gift shop where we bought the obligatory tee shirts for our grandson and granddaughter. Since we have no idea when we will see them again we bought 7-year-old Zach a size mans small and 6-year-old BeBe a ladies small. Hopefully they won’t have outgrown those sizes before we see them again!

A short drive later brought us to the lava tube. This was what I have wanted to see for years. A lava tube is formed when part of the lava has cooled and hardened but a stream of hot liquid lava still continues to flow beneath it. The result looks like a man-made tunnel. This particular lava tube is very large, ranging 10 to 20 feet high and 15 feet wide. Water continually drips down from the ceiling of the lava tube so it is muddy inside. This lava tube is approximately 2 kilometers long and is partially collapsed at the far end. It is passable but is only about 4-feet high at the final section. Neither Bill nor I were keen on crawling through mud to exit the lava tunnel and there was no way my knees could squat and duck-walk through there, so we opted to walk half-way and turn around and exit from the main entrance.

As we exited the lava tube we were treated to a small tree filled with Darwin’s Finches. Like all wildlife in the Galapagos Islands, these birds exhibited no fear of mankind. We stood right next to them and they weren’t bothered by our presence in the slightest.

Several days ago we attempted to visit the Charles Darwin Research Center to see Lonesome George and the land iguanas, but we never found the center. Supposedly we were within a block of it but couldn’t find it. They have no signs here. It was hot and we were hungry so decided to blow it off and went back to town for lunch.

BTW, the red-footed booby that visited our boat several hundred miles before we arrived here was something special. Most people here have only seen the blue-footed boobies. Dario explained why. The blue-footed boobies feed near-coastal so are commonly seen all around the shores of the Galapagos Islands. The red-footed boobies, OTOH, are native to the small northernmost uninhabited islands of the Galapagos. And the red-footed boobies feed on squid way offshore. That also explains the black stains all over the foredeck near where the booby sat on the rail – squid ink.

Isla Isabella is the largest island in the Galapagos and is located west of Santa Cruz. We do not have permission to go there. Could have taken a tour from here but would have had to leave our boat for 3 days. FREE SPIRIT offered to watch our boat in our absence, but we just would not feel comfortable leaving our boat on anchor like that. There are penguins on Isabella and the second largest volcano crater in the world and many species of land iguanas and many other interesting things to see, but guess we will be giving Isabella a miss. There are boat tours available to go to another smaller island to see fur seals but we will skip that also. Galapagos would get a lot more of our tourist dollars if they would allow us to take our boat to these various places.

Tomorrow a diver is supposed to come clean the bottom of our boat. The scum line around the boat is filthy and really bothering me. We have no idea of the condition of the actual bottom of the boat or the prop since we can’t see those, but want it all cleaned before the next long passage. There are many sharks around our boat but that isn’t the reason that Bill and I aren’t doing this job ourselves. We aren’t afraid of the sharks bothering us (they are NOT white-tipped sharks). Bill would have to kit-up with his diving gear in order to clean the bottom of the boat and that would mean finding a place to re-fill the air tank that he would use, because we want to leave here with both air tanks full. Plus, this water is cold and Bill detests cold water. Simpler to pay someone else to do it. Diesel also will be delivered tomorrow to top off our tank and jerry jugs. The agent will clear us out and bring our final bill.

We plan to leave Saturday morning for the 3,000 mile passage to the Marquesas. Our visit to the Galapagos was not long, but was long enough for us. we can now check this one off the bucket list.

Isla Cristobal in Galapagos Islands, April 2008

Our passage from Panama took 9 days, far longer than we had anticipated. We arrived at Wreck Bay on Isla Cristobal of the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador at 0730 on April 25, 2008, and anchored at 0.53.723S; 089.36.821W.

We anchored in Bahia de Naufragio, a/k/a Wreck Bay. Isla Cristobal was previously named Chatham. The Galapagos islands have been known by several names during their various ownerships. Each bay and anchorage also has had many names. This makes navigation interesting when using different nautical charts.

Soon after we anchored Friday morning in Wreck Bay on Isla Cristobal the Port Captain and a military guy visited our boat. The Port Captain told us what we already knew – that if we officially cleared into the Galapagos on Isla Cristobal then we would not be allowed to move our boat until we cleared out for the Marquesas. We could take some boat tours to other islands, but our boat must remain at port of original anchorage. Had we obtained an “autografo” prior to arrival in Galapagos then we could have visited the other 4 allowed ports on a few other islands. The autografo is a cruising permit but it must be obtained through an agent prior to arrival. We knew this because we have been in contact with an agent for a couple of months, as well as having email from 2 other boats that were here last month. Ecuador has a new government as of last year and a number of things have changed for visiting yachts, both in Galapagos and on mainland. The rules are evolving and will certainly change again from the current restrictions. Since we were delayed a month at the Panama Canal that meant we would not have time to spend 3 weeks in the Galapagos islands, so we had opted not to obtain the autografo prior to our arrival here. If it meant that we only got to see Cristobal for a day or 2 and then depart for the Marquesas, that would be okay. But we really wanted to visit Santa Cruz for a few days if possible. The Port Captain is a very nice man and understood perfectly what we wanted to do, and he was kind enough to do what was within the scope of his authority while still following the current Ecuadorian laws.

The Port Captain had authority to allow us to remain in Wreck Bay for 24 hours before proceeding to Santa Cruz, a privilege which he very kindly granted to us and also to our friends on FREE SPIRIT. He would take possession of our Zarpe from Panama for this 24-hour period and return it to us just prior to our heaving the anchor and departing Saturday morning. That suited us perfectly. One day was enough to see the highlights of Cristobal. Most of the tourist things to see and most of the tour boats operate out of Santa Cruz. This way we get to see both islands.

We took a water taxi to the newly built malecon (waterfront street). The new malecon is very nice and construction was completed just a few months ago. They started the water taxi service because the sea lions were getting into cruisers’ dinghies and making a huge mess. The sea lions were everywhere – reminded us a lot of Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco, except that this is a very quaint little town. A guy named Fernando quickly attached himself to us. Fernando is quite a hustler. He speaks English moderately well and works for Carmela Romero, sister of Jhonny Romero. Carmela operates the Cristobal branch office of Jhonny’s company called Yachtgala Agencia Naviera. We told Fernando that we wanted to rent a car and drive around the island by ourselves. I know someone who did this last year. But Fernando made us understand that this just wasn’t going to be possible but that he could arrange a “looking” tour for us for $40 per person for a 4-hour tour around the island. We agreed since we couldn’t find anywhere to rent any form of transportation except bikes, and you all know I’m not riding a bike around a 25 mile long island with lots of hills.

At our request Fernando directed us to a restaurant where they would serve us lunch at only 10:30 in the morning. Local time is UTZ minus 6 hours, so we have moved back another time zone. After sailing all night we were ready for lunch at this very early hour. Bill enjoyed a Brahma beer and hamburgueza. The hamburgueza turned out to be chicken on a hamburger bun; but, hey, that’s okay too. The Brahma beer was huge by USA standards. They measure the bottles by cubic centimeters rather than by milliliters so we have no idea how much beer was actually in that bottle. The label said 580 cubic centimeters. Anyway, it was a large beer to have at 10:30 in the morning.

The driver met us outside the restaurant at 11:30 and we started our “looking” tour. First thing the driver did was stop and pick up his wife to join us for the afternoon. That was actually a nice thing all around. Gave her an afternoon outing and it was fun having her along. Neither of them spoke a single word of English but we managed communication just fine. Learned that she was originally from Quito and has lived here in Galapagos only a few years. BTW, Ecuadorian laws prohibit foreigners from residing in Galapagos Islands now. She had a good sense of humor and we enjoyed having her join us.

First stop was the Cerro Colorado Tortoise Conservation Center. All of the Galapagos Islands are a national park and technically we should have paid the $100 per person park fee, but since we were with a guide we were not asked about this. We will pay the park fee when we officially clear in at Santa Cruz. You are only required the pay the park fee once and it covers the entire Galapagos. The Cerro Colorado Tortoise Conservation Center is fairly new; I believe it opened in 2005. It is amazing that each island of the Galapagos has a different species of giant tortoise. This conservation center concentrates on the species that is indigenous to Isla Cristobal. It is a very nice facility. We walked the trail and saw several tortoises ranging from medium to large size. The incubation and breeding center has raised cages that contain tortoises ranging from 3 months to 3 years. The 3-month-old tortoises were about the size of my entire hand including fingers. The shell of the 3-year-old tortoise was about 1 ½ feet in diameter and 2 feet long. These smaller tortoises are kept in the raised cages to protect them from their natural predators – mainly wild pigs, feral cats and rats—all of which were introduced from sailing ships of yesteryears.

After the conservation center we walked up lots of wooden steps to a hilltop overlooking Puerto Chino beach. A very pretty view. Puerto Chino beach is the prettiest beach on Isla Cristobal and can only be reached by hiking. Not our deal. We were surprised at how cool the weather is on Cristobal on the eastern side vs. the western side. This temperature variance is due to the Humboldt Current coming up from Antarctica alongside South America and then turning towards Galapagos. The ocean can be 60F degrees on one side of an island and 80F degrees on the other side.

Cristobal also has a wind farm. They have 3 enormous wind gens on top of a mountain. They were barely turning as we drove past on this particular day.

We drove past a house that had watermelons stacked by the front door. Our tour driver stopped and talked to the owner. The owner pulled out a machete and soon we were all standing on the roadside eating chunks of “sandia” from our hands. The watermelon was so good that Bill bought one to bring back to the boat. We will enjoy that in a couple of weeks during our passage to Marquesas. Another time during our “looking” tour the driver stopped and his wife picked some fruit from a tree. We sampled it and the taste was good but it had lots of large hard seeds. The driver and his wife ate the entire fruit but Bill and I didn’t eat the peeling or the seeds. They seemed to enjoy this fruit a lot but it is not something that either Bill or I would want to eat again.

Rain is supposed to be rare on this island. So, of course, it rained on our only afternoon to visit Cristobal. One of the main tourist attractions on Cristobal is El Junco Lagoon and we were looking forward to visiting this volcanic lagoon. Unfortunately, the rain caused the road up the volcano to be closed for the day so we were forced to skip it. Since we missed El Junco, the tour driver took us to another attraction. This was one that I had never read about. His wife said something about a casa de arbol and muy bonita. Now, I know that arbol means tree in Spanish. So she was saying something about a house and a tree and very pretty. But neither Bill nor I could quite understand what she was trying to convey.

It was a tree house! A very unusual and big tree house. In the oldest tree in all of the Galapagos. There was a suspension walkway made with hand-hewn pieces of wood and tension cables from the roadway level to the tree house level. The tree was enormous. It is 315 years old. The tree house had a small living room with sofa, a kitchen, a bathroom, 2 beds, and a patio. And the real surprise was a cave in the trunk at ground level. Bill entered the cave and went down a ladder into an underground room constructed within the root system of this huge old tree. The batteries on our camera chose this moment to die so I didn’t get any photos of the underground room (and I refused to go down there anyway), but Bill said it had a ceiling and walls and lights and was just like a regular room except that the headroom was low. This tree house was the highlight of our tour of Cristobal.

The rain came down harder so we opted not to visit the marine iguanas. Lazy us. We did not want to walk in the mud to get out to the point where the marine iguanas live. Maybe we will see marine iguanas on Santa Cruz. We declared an end to the tour; sat around a bar/restaurant for an hour or so; and then returned to the boat. Ahhhh, we were looking forward to actually sleeping through the night after our 9 day passage.

Shortly before sunset Fernando delivered the diesel fuel that we had requested. We had asked for 109 gallons but he delivered what he claimed was 90 gallons. Our boat has a very accurate dipstick to measure diesel in the fuel tank and we knew that Fernando had not added 90 gallons. Our dipstick indicated that only 80 gallons had been added to the tank. Fernando argued and Bill would not relent. Eventually Bill agreed to pay for 85 gallons. So we got taken a bit but at least the fuel was delivered and put into our fuel tank and Bill didn’t have to deal with lugging those heavy jugs in a dinghy. Consider the extra 5 gallons that we paid for and did not receive to be their labor charge. Bill had planned to tip them, but considered the tip paid because of the discrepancy.

We were worried about the sea lions possibly climbing onto our boat during the night so Bill rigged fenders on the stern of the boat and coated them with dishwashing liquid. We could hear the sea lions all around the stern of the boat for most of the night. One of them did make it onboard and the noise immediately awakened us. We both saw this sea lion stick his head inside our bedroom hatch. I screamed and Bill started making loud, deep bass sounds as he punched the sea lion square on the jaw! That was enough to make the sea lion turn and slide back into the sea. I don’t know what we would have done if that silly animal had slid down inside our bedroom. We would never have been able to get him back up out of the interior of this boat.

The Port Captain arrived back at our boat shortly after 8 on Saturday morning and returned our Zarpe. He doesn’t speak a word of English but managed to convey that we are to proceed direct to Santa Cruz and that when we clear in with our agent Jhonny Romero that we are not to mention that we stopped in Isla Cristobal. We weighed anchor and sailed/motor-sailed/motored the 42 miles to Santa Cruz.

Note to all cruisers: verify latest requirements for visiting the Galapagos before you set sail because the requirements and limitations for visiting boats changes almost daily.

Tortoises, lava tubes, enjoying Santa Cruz

2008-04-27 to 05-01

Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands

Puerto Ayora is quite the tourist town.  Almost 70% of the economy of the Galapagos Islands is derived from tourism, another 20% from exporting wahoo and other fish to the mainland and nearly 10% from agriculture.  In recent years Santa Cruz has experienced 7% population growth annually with a total population of around 12,000 to 14,000 today.   Approximately 120,000 tourists visit here each year.  Each person who visits the Galapagos Islands is supposed to pay the $100 park fee, whether they arrive via airplane or boat.  The waters surrounding the islands comprise the Galapagos Marine Reserve and are protected.  It is illegal to remove any marine wildlife.  Guess the cruisers better hope they don’t get caught trailing fishing lines while sailing through this area.

The $100 park fee is distributed as shown below:

Galapagos National Park – 40%

Galapagos Marine Reserve - 5%

Quarantine and Inspection Service – 5%

National network of Protected Areas – 5%

Ecuadorian Army – 5%

Galapagos National Institute – INGALA – 10%

Galapagos Provincial Council – 10%

Local Authorities (Town Halls) – 20%

Some cruisers have the mistaken idea that they are not required to pay this park fee unless they participate in an organized tour.  Not true; the entire Galapagos Islands area is inside the designated national park; some parts are called reserve but it is all part of the park.  This is such a unique environment that paying $100 each to visit should not be considered a burden, especially since the largest portion of the fee goes to protect the environment.  So much of the local environment has already been destroyed and they are doing their best to preserve what remains.

Yesterday we did what is called the Highlands tour.  Rancho Primicias is private property but of course is located inside the national park.  It is owned by one of the older families of Santa Cruz.  Our guide was wonderful.  His name is Dario Morales and he speaks English exceptionally well.  Dario plans to become a private tourist guide in 2010.  He hopes to specialize in the Galapagos Islands since this is his home but also provide unique tours in remote areas of mainland Ecuador.  Dario’s mother is of indigenous heritage from mainland Ecuador and his father was of Spanish Ecuadorian ancestry.  Dario was born in Santa Cruz in 1985, but he has visited relatives and has friends in many remote areas of Ecuador.  Dario speaks English, Spanish and one of the rare indigenous languages.  He is intelligent and has studied and knows the geography, history and environment very thoroughly.  He should make a wonderful personal guide.  If you are planning to visit Santa Cruz anytime soon, we would highly recommend Dario Morales as a guide.  He can be contacted at dariomorales_gps@hotmail.com or his cell phone is 091262874.  Sorry, I don’t know the country code or area code and do not know if additional prefix numbers are required to call internationally.  Dario also works at Ida Mario Yacht in Santa Cruz, work phone number 02526117.  Guarantee you that he is the best guide in the Galapagos Islands.

The Highlands tour is very simple – we just walked around the premises of Rancho Primicias looking for giant tortoises and then walked partway through a lava tube.  Dario pointed out various plants and animals along our route.  Unfortunately, this is the time of year when most of the male tortoises migrate down to the lowlands to mate so there was not the abundance of tortoises that one might find at other times, but we saw a total of five.  We did spot one very large tortoise cooling himself in a pond filled with green algae.  A tortoise must maintain his body temperature between 15C and 35C or he will die, so they require ponds for this purpose. 

The shell of a male tortoise displays rings inside each section which indicate his age – sort of like the rings inside a cross-section of a tree trunk.  But the rings do not change past the age of 80-90 years.  So you can tell if a tortoise is 90 years old but cannot tell much after that age.  It would be impossible to tell if a tortoise is 170 or 120 years old based on the rings of his shell sections, only that he was older than 90 years.  The shell of a female tortoise has smooth sections; no rings.  The female is also considerably smaller than the male.  Lonesome George is a tortoise believed to be about 175 years old and is the last of his species.  The researchers have tried to mate him with the most similar species but he has shown no interest whatsoever.  Sorry we missed old George but not doing that long walk in the heat again just to see him.

The 2 primary reasons of death of adult tortoises are a result of mating mishaps.  When the male mounts the female to mate, he places his front feet on the shell of the female on each side of her head.  The shell actually curves up at these places so nature made allowance for this practice and put perfect footholds in the correct positions.  However, sometimes the male will lose his balance and a foot will slip out of place on the female’s shell.  When this happens the entire weight of the male drops down onto the female’s back and splits her shell and kills her.  The second problem is that sometimes the male loses his balance when dismounting from the female and turns over towards her side instead of backing off towards the rear.  When this happens then the male ends up turned onto his back.  If a park guide or a guard finds the tortoise soon enough then they can turn him over and he will be fine.  But most times the tortoise will be left on his back and he will die of starvation or excessive body heat.  We were fortunate to see both male and female tortoises during our walk around Rancho Primicias.

I said in our last log that each island in the Galapagos has a different species of giant tortoise.  This is also true of the land iguanas.  Isla Isabella was formed by several volcanoes.  The area near each volcano has a different species of land iguana and they cannot successfully interbreed.  Sometimes the iguanas do mate between species but the baby iguanas of mixed species do not live beyond 2 years.  Maybe this will change over the centuries and eventually produce viable offspring and a new sub-species, but for now the baby iguanas of mixed species all die.

Next was a quick stop at the snack bar and gift shop where we bought the obligatory tee shirts for our grandson and granddaughter.  Since we have no idea when we will see them again we bought 7-year-old Zach a size mans small and 6-year-old BeBe a ladies small.  Hopefully they won’t have outgrown those sizes before we see them again!

A short drive later brought us to the lava tube.  This was what I have wanted to see for years.  A lava tube is formed when part of the lava has cooled and hardened but a stream of hot liquid lava still continues to flow beneath it.   The result looks like a man-made tunnel.  This particular lava tube is very large, ranging 10 to 20 feet high and 15 feet wide.  Water continually drips down from the ceiling of the lava tube so it is muddy inside.  This lava tube is approximately 2 kilometers long and is partially collapsed at the far end.  It is passable but is only about 4-feet high at the final section.  Neither Bill nor I were keen on crawling through mud to exit the lava tunnel and there was no way my knees could squat and duck-walk through there, so we opted to walk half-way and turn around and exit from the main entrance.

As we exited the lava tube were treated to a small tree filled with Darwin’s Finches.  Like all wildlife in the Galapagos Islands, these birds exhibited no fear of mankind.  We stood right next to them and they weren’t bothered by our presence in the slightest.

Several days ago we attempted to visit the Charles Darwin Research Center to see Lonesome George and the land iguanas, but we never found the center.  Supposedly we were within a block of it but couldn’t find it.  They have no signs here.  It was hot and we were hungry so decided to blow it off and went back to town for lunch. 

BTW, the red-footed booby that visited our boat several hundred miles before we arrived here was something special.  Most people here have only seen the blue-footed boobies.  Dario explained why.  The blue-footed boobies feed near-coastal so are commonly seen all around the shores of the Galapagos Islands.  The red-footed boobies, OTOH, are native to the small northernmost uninhabited islands of the Galapagos.  And the red-footed boobies feed on squid way offshore.  That also explains the black stains all over the foredeck near where the booby sat on the rail – squid ink.

Isla Isabella is the largest island in the Galapagos and is located west of Santa Cruz.  We do not have permission to go there.  Could have taken a tour from here but would have had to leave our boat for 3 days.  FREE SPIRIT offered to watch our boat in our absence, but we just would not feel comfortable leaving our boat on anchor like that.  There are penguins on Isabella and the second largest volcano crater in the world and many species of land iguanas and many other interesting things to see, but guess we will be giving Isabella a miss.  There are boat tours available to go to another smaller island to see fur seals but we will skip that also.  Galapagos would get a lot more of our tourist dollars if they would allow us to take our boat to these various places.

Tomorrow a diver is supposed to come clean the bottom of our boat.  The scum line around the boat is filthy and really bothering me.  We have no idea of the condition of the actual bottom of the boat or the prop since we can’t see those, but want it all cleaned before the next long passage.  There are many sharks around our boat but that isn’t the reason that Bill and I aren’t doing this job ourselves.  We aren’t afraid of the sharks bothering us (they are NOT white-tipped sharks).  Bill would have to kit-up with his diving gear in order to clean the bottom of the boat and that would mean finding a place to re-fill the air tank that he would use, because we want to leave here with both air tanks full.  Plus, this water is cold and Bill detests cold water.  Simpler to pay someone else to do it.  Diesel also will be delivered tomorrow to top off our tank and jerry jugs.  The agent will clear us out and bring our final bill. 

We plan to leave Saturday morning for the 3,000 mile passage to the Marquesas.  This passage could take 18-30 days, depending on wind and current.  It is the longest passage we will ever make; longer than crossing the entire Atlantic Ocean.  BeBe is in great shape and we think we are physically and mentally up to the passage.  We both know that the boat is a lot stronger than we are.  Our biggest challenge is likely to be boredom.  If the SSB signal is good we will try to send a few updates along the way and have our son Trey post them to the website while we are enroute.  But SSB is not always reliable so don’t worry if those updates don’t get posted.  Next posting to this site might be a month away.

Isla Cristobal first, then to Isla Santa Cruz

April 26, 2008 Saturday

Puerto Ayota, Bahia Academy, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands

0.44.864S; 090.18.501W

Distance traveled today 42.4 NM

Soon after we anchored Friday morning in Wreck Bay on Isla Cristobal the Port Captain and a military guy visited our boat.  The Port Captain told us what we already knew – that if we officially cleared into the Galapagos on Isla Cristobal then we would not be allowed to move our boat until we cleared out for the Marquesas.  We could take some boat tours to other islands, but our boat must remain at port of original anchorage.  Had we obtained an “autografo” prior to arrival in Galapagos then we could have visited the other 4 allowed ports on a few other islands.  The autografo is a cruising permit but it must be obtained through an agent prior to arrival.  We knew this because we have been in contact with an agent for a couple of months, as well as having email from 2 other boats that were here last month.  Ecuador has a new government as of last year and a number of things have changed for visiting yachts, both in Galapagos and on mainland.  The rules are evolving and will certainly change again from the current restrictions.  Since we were delayed a month at the Panama Canal that meant we would not have time to spend 3 weeks in the Galapagos islands, so we had opted not to obtain the autografo prior to our arrival here.  If it meant that we only got to see Cristobal for a day or 2 and then depart for the Marquesas, that would be okay.  But we really wanted to visit Santa Cruz for a few days if possible.  The Port Captain is a very nice man and understood perfectly what we wanted to do, and he was kind enough to do what was within the scope of his authority while still following the current Ecuadorian laws.

The Port Captain had authority to allow us to remain in Wreck Bay for 24 hours before proceeding to Santa Cruz, a privilege which he very kindly granted to us and also to our friends on FREE SPIRIT.  He would take possession of our Zarpe from Panama for this 24-hour period and return it to us just prior to our heaving the anchor and departing Saturday morning.  That suited us perfectly.  One day was enough to see the highlights of Cristobal.  Most of the tourist things to see and most of the tour boats operate out of Santa Cruz.  This way we get to see both islands.

We took a water taxi to the newly built malecon (waterfront street).  The new malecon is very nice and construction was completed just a few months ago.  They started the water taxi service because the sea lions were getting into cruisers’ dinghies and making a huge mess.  The sea lions were everywhere – reminded us a lot of Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco, except that this is a very quaint little town.  A guy named Fernando quickly attached himself to us.  Fernando is quite a hustler.  He speaks English moderately well and works for Carmela Romero, sister of Jhonny Romero.  Carmela operates the Cristobal branch office of Jhonny’s company called Yachtgala Agencia Naviera.  We told Fernando that we wanted to rent a car and drive around the island by ourselves.  I know someone who did this last year.  But Fernando made us understand that this just wasn’t going to be possible but that he could arrange a “looking” tour for us for $40 per person for a 4-hour tour around the island.  We agreed since we couldn’t find anywhere to rent any form of transportation except bikes, and you all know I’m not riding a bike around a 25 mile long island with lots of hills. 

At our request Fernando directed us to a restaurant where they would serve us lunch at only 10:30 in the morning.  Local time is UTZ minus 6 hours, so we have moved back another time zone.  After sailing all night we were ready for lunch at this very early hour.  Bill enjoyed a Brahma beer and hamburgueza.  The hamburgueza turned out to be chicken on a hamburger bun; but, hey, that’s okay too.  The Brahma beer was huge by USA standards.  They measure the bottles by cubic centimeters rather than by milliliters so we have no idea how much beer was actually in that bottle.  The label said 580 cubic centimeters.  Anyway, it was a large beer to have at 10:30 in the morning.

The driver met us outside the restaurant at 11:30 and we started our “looking” tour.  First thing the driver did was stop and pick up his wife to join us for the afternoon.  That was actually a nice thing all around.  Gave her an afternoon outing and it was fun having her along.  Neither of them spoke a single word of English but we managed communication just fine.  Learned that she was originally from Quito and has lived here in Galapagos only a few years.  BTW, Ecuadorian laws prohibit foreigners from residing in Galapagos Islands now.  She had a good sense of humor and we enjoyed having her join us.

First stop was the Cerro Colorado Tortoise Conservation Center.  All of the Galapagos Islands are a national park and technically we should have paid the $100 per person park fee, but since we were with a guide we were not asked about this.  We will pay the park fee when we officially clear in at Santa Cruz.  You are only required the pay the park fee once and it covers the entire Galapagos.  The Cerro Colorado Tortoise Conservation Center is fairly new; I believe it opened in 2005.  It is amazing that each island of the Galapagos has a different species of giant tortoise.  This conservation center concentrates on the species that is indigenous to Isla Cristobal.  It is a very nice facility.  We walked the trail and saw several tortoises ranging from medium to large size.  The incubation and breeding center has raised cages that contain tortoises ranging from 3 months to 3 years.  The 3-month-old tortoises were about the size of my entire hand including fingers.  The shell of the 3-year-old tortoise was about 1 ½ feet in diameter and 2 feet long.  These smaller tortoises are kept in the raised cages to protect them from their natural predators – mainly wild pigs, feral cats and rats—all of which were introduced from sailing ships of yesteryears.

After the conservation center we walked up lots of wooden steps to a hilltop overlooking Puerto Chino beach.  A very pretty view.  Puerto Chino beach is the prettiest beach on Isla Cristobal and can only be reached by hiking.  Not our deal.  We were surprised at how cool the weather is on Cristobal on the eastern side vs. the western side.  This temperature variance is due to the Humboldt Current coming up from Antarctica alongside South America and then turning towards Galapagos.  The ocean can be 60F degrees on one side of an island and 80F degrees on the other side.

Cristobal also has a wind farm.  They have 3 enormous wind gens on top of a mountain.  They were barely turning as we drove past on this particular day. 

We drove past a house that had watermelons stacked by the front door.  Our tour driver stopped and talked to the owner.  The owner pulled out a machete and soon we were all standing on the roadside eating chunks of “sandia” from our hands.  The watermelon was so good that Bill bought one to bring back to the boat.  We will enjoy that in a couple of weeks during our passage to Marquesas.  Another time during our “looking” tour the driver stopped and his wife picked some fruit from a tree.  We sampled it and the taste was good but it had lots of large hard seeds.  The driver and his wife ate the entire fruit but Bill and I didn’t eat the peeling or the seeds.  They seemed to enjoy this fruit a lot but it is not something that either Bill or I would want to eat again.

Rain is supposed to be rare on this island.  So, of course, it rained on our only afternoon to visit Cristobal.  One of the main tourist attractions on Cristobal is El Junco Lagoon and we were looking forward to visiting this volcanic lagoon.  Unfortunately, the rain caused the road up the volcano to be closed for the day so we were forced to skip it.  Since we missed El Junco, the tour driver took us to another attraction.  This was one that I had never read about.  His wife said something about a casa de arbol and muy bonita.  Now, I know that arbol means tree in Spanish.  So she was saying something about a house and a tree and very pretty.  But neither Bill nor I could quite understand what she was trying to convey. 

It was a tree house!  A very unusual and big tree house.  In the oldest tree in all of the Galapagos.  There was a suspension walkway made with hand-hewn pieces of wood and tension cables from the roadway level to the tree house level.  The tree was enormous.  It is 315 years old.  The tree house had a small living room with sofa, a kitchen, a bathroom, 2 beds, and a patio.  And the real surprise was a cave in the trunk at ground level.  Bill enters the cave and went down a ladder into an underground room constructed within the root system of this huge old tree.  The batteries on our camera chose this moment to die so I didn’t get any photos of the underground room (and I refused to go down there anyway), but Bill said it had a ceiling and walls and lights and was just like a regular room except that the headroom was low.  This tree house was the highlight of our tour of Cristobal.

The rain came down harder so we opted not to visit the marine iguanas.  Lazy us.  We did not want to walk in the mud to get out to the point where the marine iguanas live.  Maybe we will see marine iguanas on Santa Cruz.  We declared an end to the tour; sat around a bar/restaurant for an hour or so; and then returned to the boat.  Ahhhh, we were looking forward to actually sleeping through the night after our 9 day passage.

Shortly before sunset Fernando delivered the diesel fuel that we had requested.  We had asked for 109 gallons but he delivered what he claimed was 90 gallons.  Our boat has a very accurate dipstick to measure diesel in the fuel tank and we knew that Fernando had not added 90 gallons.  Our dipstick indicated that only 80 gallons had been added to the tank.  Fernando argued and Bill would not relent.  Eventually Bill agreed to pay for 85 gallons.  So we got taken a bit but at least the fuel was delivered and put into our fuel tank and Bill didn’t have to deal with lugging those heavy jugs in a dinghy.  Consider the extra 5 gallons that we paid for and did not receive to be their labor charge.  Bill had planned to tip them, but considered the tip paid because of the discrepancy.

We were worried about the sea lions possibly climbing onto our boat during the night so Bill rigged fenders on the stern of the boat and coated them with dishwashing liquid.  We could hear the sea lions all around the stern of the boat for most of the night.  One of them did make it onboard and the noise immediately awakened us.  We both saw this sea lion stick his head inside our bedroom hatch.  I screamed and Bill started making loud, deep bass sounds as he punched the sea lion square on the jaw!  That was enough to make the sea lion turn and slide back into the sea.  I don’t know what we would have done if that silly animal had slid down inside our bedroom.  We would never have been able to get him back up out of the interior of this boat.

The Port Captain arrived back at our boat shortly after 8 on Saturday morning and returned our Zarpe.  He doesn’t speak a word of English but managed to convey that we are to proceed direct to Santa Cruz and that when we clear in with our agent Jhonny Romero that we are not to mention that we stopped in Isla Cristobal.   We weighed anchor and sailed/motor-sailed/motored the 42 miles to Santa Cruz.  We arrived around 4 p.m. and found a spot to fit into.  This anchorage is very crowded and also faces on-coming swell; so boats must use both bow and stern anchors.  This is the first time that our stern anchor has ever been into water.  The anchoring went smoothly and we found the motion not at all uncomfortable.  People complain about the motion in this anchorage, but we find it quite comfortable with the bow facing into the swell and being held in that direction by a stern anchor.  We will clear in with the agent and do some tours.  FREE SPIRIT arrived an hour or so later.  There are now 17 sailboats anchored in this bay, and probably all of them will be heading off to the Marquesas soon.

Ramblings

February 24, 2008 Sunday

Friday afternoon we went over to Bocas Marina to play dominoes.  Met new people and twiddled away a few hours.  It was nice, except that I managed to get another dozen or so no-see-um bites, even though I wore long sleeved shirt, long pants and high socks.  This is ridiculous.  Bocas del Toro definitely is not the place for me.

Now that we have made the decision to get out into the Pacific, I am ready to get moving.  The more we read, the more antsy I become to get started.  It is a long way to go by end of November and a lot to see and sitting here seems like wasting time.  We sent an email to an agent in Galapagos Islands but have not yet received his response.  From someone who is there now, we understand that it is now impossible to stop at Galapagos without an agent.  The port captain is now on a computer system that tracks every boat in Ecuador; if you are not in the system then he can’t clear you in; and the only way to get into the system is through an agent.  Seems simple enough and we don’t mind using agents.  Our experience so far has been that paying an agent to deal with the local authorities is well worth the money spent.  We do need to get over to Panama City to visit the French Embassy or Consulate and obtain a 90-day visa so we can visit French Polynesia with as little hassle as possible.  So I am anxious to get to Colon so we can get started on the things we need to do.

This week I made up a shopping list for groceries to last 8 months.  Good thing I already had a written inventory of all food on board to work from; this made it easier to calculate what would be needed to supply us for 8 months.  There are supposed to be only a few places to purchase limited provisions in the Pacific islands and everything is very expensive (like $10 for a box of breakfast cereal; $25 for 3 chicken breasts; $15 per dozen eggs; $20 for 3 tomatoes – all spring 2007 prices).  Goal is to have enough food on hand to last until New Zealand near the end of November and to arrive in NZ with empty freezer and food lockers because NZ is notorious for not allowing even canned meat or honey to be brought into their country. 

I prepared more “BeBe Brownies” mix and vacuum sealed enough to make 6 batches of brownies.  So it will be easy to make brownies while underway to satisfy those midnight watch chocolate cravings.  We have lots of instant hot cocoa pouches to go along with the nighttime brownie snacks.  The passage to Galapagos and the first part of the passage to Marquesas is supposed to be colder weather due to the Humboldt Current.  Heck, I get cold on overnight passages here in the Caribbean; so likely we will be really cold during those passages involving the Humboldt Current.  I also prepared homemade baking mix and have sealed pouches measured to make bake all those things one normally makes with Bisquick.  Bisquick is rarely available in the places we have visited so far, and I know it won’t be available in the South Pacific. This is a simple mix to prepare and very useful.  But when I made the first biscuits from this mix, I discovered that my supply of baking powder had lost its effectiveness.  That is a common problem in the tropics.  Baking powder expires rapidly; probably because of the intense heat and high humidity.  Now I need to remember to add more (new) baking powder each time I use one of these pouches of baking mix or brownie mix. 

Bill set up an account for us with Commanders Weather.  We have used Chris Parker for weather forecasting up until now, but Chris specializes in only the Caribbean and part of the Atlantic.  Commanders Weather does forecasts worldwide.  We will be able to contact them for passage planning anywhere.  I think we pay separately for each forecast, whereas with Chris we simply paid an annual fee and received passage planning via email whenever we requested, along with regular daily email forecasts.  This will make Commanders Weather be considerably more expensive; but, again, one of those services that it is well worth paying for.  We have met several people who have used Commanders Weather for years and recommend it highly.  We also will be using grib files which are received free via the SSB radio using either Winlink or Sailmail.  We have found these grib files to be quite accurate here in the Caribbean and are hoping the same applies to the South Pacific.  We simply radio a request for waves and wind for a specific geographical area, and within an hour we receive the grib file forecasts for that area for the next 24, 48 and 72 hours.  These grib files are overlaid on our electronic charts so it is simple to see what to expect for our planned route for the next 3 days.  Works great.

Electricity is off for this island this morning.  No dock power means no air-conditioning.  That means BUGS.  It is gray and overcast again.  There is a good breeze blowing right now.  Hope it keeps up (or even better that it blow harder) so that the no-see-ums don’t fill up the boat.  It is too hot to cover up on long clothing.  Think I am going to go lie in bed under a fan and cover with a sheet.  Oh, I cannot wait to leave Bocas and get away from these bugs.

Later…..

The electricity came back on shortly after noon and we were able to close up the boat and get back to A/C.  Good thing as it was hot and buggy until then.  Tonight was another potluck dinner.  I partially stir-fried some veggies and Bill finished cooking them down at “the cage” while he grilled some sausages.  This marina has something that we have never found at a marina before.  They have a fully-stocked kitchen in an area at the beginning of the dock that we all call the cage – because it has chain link or wiring all around the sides (to allow air circulation) and it is locked each night.  There is a refrigerator stocked with cold drinks and beer.  You take what you want and mark it on a tally sheet and it gets added to your bill.  They also have a microwave and a stove that anyone can use.  This is wonderful.  I use it for baking quite a bit – actually I prepare things and send Bill down there to light the oven and handle the baking part because I don’t want out there with the bugs.  This keeps our boat from heating up and also uses their propane instead of ours.

Adjacent to “the cage” is a TV room.  Has a ceiling fan and a couple of chairs.  Unfortunately, it also has millions of the no-see-ums that come up from beneath the dock through the slatted floor boards.  I sat down there for about 10 minutes when we first got here and watched BBC news and CNN, and got way too many bug bites.  So I won’t set foot back down there.  Darn shame, too.  Because I would love to be down there tonight watching the Academy Awards.  Oh well, guess I can read the results tomorrow on Google news.

Remember the snake that crawled onto our friends’ catamaran in the San Blas Islands last November or December?  We received an email from Melissa and Buddy on another catamaran named S/V INDIGO MOON.  They were anchored off the same island and a boa the same size also crawled onto their boat.  Has to be the same snake.  Melissa said the snake appeared docile but every time they knocked it into the sea, it would crawl right back aboard.  They finally got someone to take it ashore in a dinghy.  It didn’t come back after being placed ashore.  Strange coincidence.

February 25, 2008 Monday

This morning we received an email reply from Johnny Romero, the agent in the Galapagos Islands.  According to Johnny, the fees to visit the Galapagos will be:

National Park fees $100 per adult

Fumigation Certificate $120

Customs $30

Agency Fee $150

Permit for transit arrival $120

Port Fees $180

That is $800 just for the privilege of anchoring in a very rolly anchorage for 20 days.  Everything we do will cost extra and our boat cannot be moved from the main port anchorage.  No wonder so many cruisers opt to skip the Galapagos.  That is a little expensive.  We will not stay for the full 20 days; probably more like only a week to 10 days.  But I assume the fees are the same regardless if we stay fewer days.  Oh well, it is something I want to do.