Passage to New Zealand in November 2008

Day 1 Monday, November 3, 2008

Weighed anchor at 0730 and departed Nuku'Alofa out the western Egregia Pass. ETA Opua, New Zealand, is for Tuesday morning, November 11.

Goodbye to Tonga. This has been the highlight of our South Pacific travels so far. Serene is the best word I can think of to describe Tongans. They are strongly Christian and have such a peaceful quietness about them. A person in Tonga can believe in any religion he wishes but by law only Christians are allowed to congregate together for worship. I love the way the Tongans continue to wear their traditional dress daily. Not like all the other places where if you see someone in traditional attire you know that they are wearing it just for the tourists for a specific function. In Tonga both men and women continue to wear their skirts covered by matting wrapped around their waists and hips. The matting is heavier and different when they are in mourning for a relative. That is their normal daily attire, not something affected for the tourists. If anyone wants to visit the South Pacific and can go to only one place, Tonga should be your destination.
Barometric Pressure: 1011.9
Temp inside boat: 80.2F
Sailed most of daylight and then motor-sailed from 4:00 p.m. all night.


Day 2 Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 22.38.85S
Longitude: 176.41.88W
Miles Made Good: 144.7
Course: 211T
Barometric Pressure: 1011.2
Temp inside boat: 80.0F
All well on board.
A large squall rushed down on us at 0600 this morning and lasted about an hour and a half. Winds were 30 knots sustained and gusts of 45 knots. This storm moved from south to north and traveled at 20-25 knots per hour. Lots of lightning but no close strikes. Bill took in the sails just before the squall reached us. He then turned the boat and ran with the storm until winds died down to 20 knots. Then we turned back to our course of 211 True. Motor-sailed all day and night because winds were extremely light. Many boats left Tonga on Monday and Tuesday. Several who left early Monday are ahead of us - we are not the fastest boat out here by any stretch of the imagination. We are not within visual or VHF radio contact range with any other boat. Most of us are checking in twice daily on the SSB to follow each others positions and verify everyone is okay. Some are sailing in various directions. We are sticking to the rhumb line and motor-sailing. We are only sailing without motor when the wind changes to the right direction for our desired course. We are not sailing to follow the wind which would add many miles to the trip. I would rather waste diesel and get this trip over with as quickly as possible before weather changes again.


Day 3 Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 24.23.08S
Longitude: 178.09.54W
Miles Made Good: 126.7
Course: 211T
Barometric Pressure: 1013.2
Temp inside boat: 76.8F
All well on board.
Guess we have a new president-elect today and someone from home will hopefully send us an email and tell us who won. I certainly hope this election had a clear winner and won't require dragging on in courts as has happened in the past.

Several boats were affected by the squall yesterday morning. The mainsail halyard on S/VNUKUALOFA separated and their mainsail came down. Luckily it landed on the deck instead of in the ocean. They are continuing on to NZ under foresail only. S/V DON PEDRO had a lightning bolt strike the ocean directly behind the boat. Their boat wildly vibrated and all electronics ceased functioning. They turned everything off; waited 30 minutes and turned everything back on; and all started working again. They are darn lucky about that. S/V TOKETIE was knocked down. For you landlubbers, that means the boat was laid down on its side in the ocean. The keel on a monohull will cause a knocked-down boat to right itself, which is exactly what happened. Sometimes the righting happens quickly and sometimes it takes hours; depends in large part on how much water is holding the sails down in the ocean. Water also normally gets into the interior of the boat through the companionway when a boat is knocked down. This extra weight will also affect how long it takes for the boat to right itself. I do not know how long TOKETIE was knocked down, but assume the boat righted itself fairly quickly. The boat turned back upright but the mainsail was damaged. They spent the day repairing the sail and are now back underway to NZ. Good thing TOKETIE is a monohull. A catamaran would have flipped right over and remained upside down and the occupants would have had the opportunity to use those escape hatches that are built into the bottoms of catamarans. None of the boats were anywhere close to one another, but this storm rushed on everyone quickly. Bill had seen it on radar and thought it would take about 1 ½ hours to reach us. It was on top of us in 20 minutes. Really glad he got the sails furled away before the squall engulfed us. Something to be said for furling electric sails. We can get our sails in faster than manually controlled boats with old-fashioned hoist-up sails.


Day 4 Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 26.09.86S
Longitude: 178.32.53W
Miles Made Good: 134.5
Course: 200T / 270T / 220T
Barometric Pressure: 1010.4
Temp inside boat: 76.2F
All well on board.
Had good sailing during afternoon and most of the night. Winds shifted from E to N to W to SW during late afternoon and overnight. Change in wind direction forced us farther east than desired for this point of the trip. Encountered 35 knot winds and sheet lightning around 0500 this morning, ending with winds from SW. So we turned and sailed due west for 5 hours. This squall never appeared on radar because it contained no rain, just high winds and sheet lightning.

The weather forecast has changed again (what's new!!!). There now are 2 LOW pressure systems that are developing deeper and on collision course. One LOW is moving from NW to SE. A smaller but deeper LOW is moving from SW to NE. As these 2 systems converge or collide there will be a "squash zone" forced between the 2. It is supposed to be very bad to get caught in the squash zone. Boats now at Minerva Reef are running south in hopes of getting far enough south to be inside the more southerly LOW system before the 2 systems meet one another. We are already well south of Minerva Reef and will continue on our SSW course. We sent an email to Bob McDavitt the weather guru asking which direction we should head: south or west. Hope to hear back from McDavitt this morning.
P.S. Received an email from Bill's brother, John, this morning telling us that the US presidential election had a decisive victory this time. Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama. Only thing that worries us about Obama is his lack of experience. Hopefully, Joe Biden will be able to help him along, especially regarding national security issues.


Day 5 Friday, November 7, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 27.29.39S
Longitude: 178.51.12E *
Miles Made Good: 110.9
Course: 220T
Barometric Pressure: 1017.7
Temp inside boat: 71.2F
All well on board.
The 2 LOW systems are still predicted to collide Saturday or Sunday. Boats that were at Minerva Reef are running south as fast as possible. And boats enroute that are farther north than us are running to Minerva Reef as fast as possible. Seems people there want out and those people who are out want in. Bob McDavitt answered our email and said we should continue same course and speed, and that should put us south of the convergence point before it occurs. He said we should be prepared for gusts to 35 knots and seas 3 meters on Saturday and/or Sunday. Won't be pleasant but shouldn't be dangerous. We have been in worse conditions before. Here's hoping this forecast is accurate and doesn't change again for the worse.

* We crossed the meridian mid-afternoon yesterday. Notice our longitude is now east instead of west. Remember third grade geography. The equator encircles the planet east to west and separates north and south latitudes; the meridian encircles the planet from north to south and separates east and west longitudes. We are now in the eastern hemisphere, south of the equator, and will remain in the eastern hemisphere until we cross the prime meridian several hundreds of miles west of southern tip of Africa. The prime meridian crosses through Greenwich, England and is home to UTC or GMT or Zulu time. We will re-enter the western hemisphere when we cross the prime meridian in spring 2011. Also notice the temperature. It is getting colder each day as we get closer to NZ.


Day 6 Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 29.09.864S
Longitude: 177.33.617E
Miles Made Good: 120.1
Course: 210T
Barometric Pressure: 1017.0
Temp inside boat: 70.4
All well on board.
Forgot to mention earlier about the currents. We have experienced a head-current ranging ½ knot to 1 ½ knots for this entire passage. By the time we reached the half-way point on Thursday evening we were also experiencing a very strong westerly-setting current. Seems like it wants to push us over to Australia. We must make frequent course adjustments in order to remain on course. Other boats enroute behind us are reporting favorable currents, but we haven't found any yet.

Friday afternoon we transferred all the diesel jerry jugs to our main tank, except for one 5-gallon jug that we are saving as our emergency reserve. Figured we should take advantage of the totally flat calm seas and zero wind to do this fuel transfer since we are expecting rough weather Saturday night. I also moved the few remaining items from the freezer locker into the fridge since we are down to our final few days of this voyage. First time I know of that we have had both freezers turned off. Found brownies and a few other treat surprises in the freezer that I had baked in the past 3 weeks and forgotten about. We should arrive Opua on Tuesday morning with no excess of prepared meals on hand. We will be ready for the restaurants.



Day 7 Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 31.20.905S
Longitude: 176.26.615E
Miles Made Good: 143.3
Course: 206T
Barometric Pressure: 1016.8
Temp inside boat: 68.5F Burrrr!!
All well on board.
Bill did not sleep at all last night. He is on an adrenaline rush. The rough water didn't help any either. It was blustery, wet and cold. Winds were 25-33 knots all night; seas 3 meters and very rough; but really not too bad. When the water is rough like this, it sometimes sounds like logs are striking the hull very hard. This loud impact sound is actually caused by air pockets in the waves created by all the sea motion. We experienced lots of these impact sounds during this bad weather. The waves were stacked so closely upon one another that many times there was no trough between waves. There was so much motion that one needed both hands to hold on as one crab-walked around inside the boat. Same conditions will remain all day today. Weather should begin to lighten up a bit this evening. Supposedly we are in the small "squash zone" but it really is not all that bad. At least there is lots of wind so we can sail and not run the motor. We have spent all night shortening sail over and over again because the boat was going too fast. Finally found the perfect sail configuration for these weather conditions. We took in the mizzen sail altogether; mainsail is triple reefed; foresail has just a handkerchief-sized piece flying. We have 20 wraps on the foresail furler. Leaving it triple reefed was still too much sail and boat was still going in excess of 8-9 knots. By flying just a handkerchief-sized piece of the jib we have reduced boat speed to about 5 to 5.5 knots and it is much more comfortable. We both have numerous little bruises from being thrown about inside the boat. When in the cockpit we sit in the driest corner wrapped in blankets. Sixty-eight degrees might not seem cold to most people, but out on the sea with 30 knots of cold wind blowing on you, then that 68 degrees is darn cold!


Day 8 Monday, November 10, 2008 at 0730
Latitude: 33.29.42S
Longitude: 175.10.67E
Miles Made Good: 144
Course: 204T
Barometric Pressure: 1021.9
Temp inside boat: 66.1F
All well on board.
Only 109 miles to go. YIPPEEE!!!!
Winds moderated down to only 20 knots around midnight last night. Believe me, there is a huge difference between 20 knots and 30 knots of wind. The seas are still quite large and confused and rough, but we are sailing very smoothly this morning at 6 to 7 knots. This is marvelous sailing and very comfortable.

Added 8 p.m. Monday:
The morning dawned sunny and clear, but clouded up more and more as the day wore on. Never rained, thank goodness that is over; but looks dreary and gray. And we don't care a whit because we are almost there. As I type this on Monday night we are at 34.44.69S 174.25.208E which is about 37 miles from our destination of Opua. We notified Russell Radio on the SSB this evening that we should arrive at the Opua Quarantine Wharf about 0100 tonight. Hopefully there will be room for us to tie off at the Q dock; it is supposed to be large enough to dock at least 15 boats. We will tie off and wait for Customs to open in the morning so we can officially clear in.

For those who are following such things (see Bruce, I am thinking of you), the Customs and Quarantine Wharf is located at 35.18.82S 174.07.35E. It has been a great passage for us. The few squalls we encountered weren't severe and most of the passage was smooth sailing. Do wish we had not had to motor so many hours, but the light winds and motoring we experienced were far preferable to heavy winds and seas.

First, to recap our passage to New Zealand: On the final day, Monday, we sailed 122.3 miles. That totals 1046.5 miles made good for the entire passage. Actually we sailed more miles than that but we only track MMG. Any miles sailed that do not bring us closer to our destination don’t count with us. I know that won’t make any sense to the landlubbers, but sailors understand that sometimes you must sail in the wrong direction in order to get to the right destination. Passage duration was 0730 Monday through 0130 Tuesday of the following week, for a total of 7 days and 18 hours (8 nights at sea). A 46-foot British boat left Tonga at exactly the same time we did and they arrived in Opua about 16 hours after us.

We arrived at the Quarantine Dock in Opua and were tied off at 0130 Tuesday morning. Of course there was no one around to help us with the dock lines but that was simple and we did not require assistance to dock. We followed a German boat in through the channel; then they drifted around because they couldn’t figure out where to go. It was misting rain and difficult to see in the pitch-black night. We nosed around until we found the Q Dock (it is back behind the old wharf and south of Opua Marina). After we were tied off then the German guys followed and tied up behind us. This Q Dock is quite long and could easily accommodate 20 to 30 boats. It is a long floating dock and is not attached to land. Bill and I ate a very late dinner of the final 2 bowls of chili; had a hot shower; and went to bed. We were up and dressed at daylight because had no idea when Customs and Quarantine officials would arrive to clear us in.

Two Quarantine officials arrived at 0800. After all the stories about how difficult Quarantine can be in New Zealand, I was greatly relieved with how very simple it really was. The men were very polite and helpful. One of the men carried a heavy-duty black plastic bag into which he placed our garbage bag and the few items that they removed from our boat. The second man wrote down each item that they removed. We had no fresh or frozen meat to dispose of, and they did not take one single can of any canned meat because ours did not contain bones. They did say that many canned chicken products are prohibited because things like canned chicken chili or turkey chili contains ground bones. Mayonnaise is often removed but I had Hellman’s and that brand is not a problem. Several other people later told me that Quarantine removed all their mayonnaise. The country of origin didn’t seem to be the deciding factor. The officials seemed more concerned about the brands. Guess they know what they are looking for. Since we have only microwave popcorn, they let us keep that. Regular loose popcorn kernels are prohibited, but microwave popcorn is okay. They approved all my spices because they are all in bottles and commercially prepared. I usually do not buy local spices and had none onboard. They did not take cheese, butter, canned milks or UHT boxed milk. Powdered milk is not allowed but UHT is okay.

The things removed from our boat were: 3 boiled eggs, 1 orange, tiny bit of leftover baked boneless chicken and 6 bags various dried beans. And it was convenient for us that they took away the garbage accumulated during the passage. So, moral of this story is to ignore those oft-told stories of difficulty of clearing into New Zealand Quarantine. It was a breeze. BTW, we arrived with about 1 case of beer. Bill did a pretty good job of drinking up or sharing those 25 cases we had aboard in mid-March in Panama.

Shortly after the Quarantine officials left then the Customs guy dropped by to deliver a gift bag to us. Now that is a first! Certainly never had an arrival gift from Customs anywhere else we have visited. This gift was a nicely decorated heavy straw bag containing all sorts of useful information about the Opua area and New Zealand. Even had some discount coupons for coffee shops and bakeries and the like.

Soon 2 Customs officials arrived and we did the paperwork dance. Turns out that we indeed should have that Multi-Entry Visa that we tried to obtain both in Niue and again in Nuku’Alofa and were told that we did not need. They said we will need this Visa when we clear back in at the airport in January because it proves that our later departure on a boat is guaranteed. We will try to take care of that before we fly home on December 10 but I am not very hopeful that this will be accomplished. The complete clearing in process with both Quarantine and Customs took less than half an hour. Then we moved the boat a very short distance to our slip at Opua Marina.

Other people arrived worn out from their passage but we felt well-rested and ready to start exploring New Zealand. Hard to believe that we have actually sailed all the way here..

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.

Skipped Fiji

Unlike almost every other cruising boat we have met, we did not sail to Fiji. We instead opted to spend more time in Tonga and visit the Hai'pai and Nuku'alofa groups of islands. We have visited Fiji by airplane 4 times, once with a lengthy lay-over between connections; so we had aerial views of the Fijian waters and reefs and have seen the Fijian men wearing their skirts. The Fijian people we met were nice, but we had no desire to sail through those reef-filled waters. We know it is beautiful, but by that point we had seen enough reefs. Plus, Fiji is hot; whereas, Tonga is cooler, which is more to our liking.

BTW, I might also be the only cruiser who only put on a swimsuit and got into the sea once during our entire crossing of the South Pacific. Just never appealed to us to get in the water; it was too cold. So snorkeling the reefs in Fiji amongst the sharks wasn't high on my list of things to enjoy.

Sorry we missed it; but not sorry we missed it.

Niue in August 2008 & a whale shark

Niue is another of those special places. Niue is probably the smallest country in the world. It is a very small island a few hundred miles east of the Kingdom of Tonga. Niue may now be independently governed, but it still receives about $5,000,000 dollars of support annually from New Zealand. The island of Niue is affectionately known by the inhabitants as "The Rock." Because that is about all it is -- one big rock of limestone. There is very little soil to support vegetable crops, but they do manage to grow enough to get by. Along with the support from New Zealand.

There are no ports at Niue; no anchorages of any kind; and virtually no beaches. It is theorectically possible to anchor off the main town on the western side of the island in 100-120 feet depth. But the bottom is craggy limestone with deep chasms and it is very likely that any anchor dropped there will be lost. The limestone also will eat right through an anchor chain like a hacksaw. There are a total of 20 moorings in place and if the moorings are all filled, then it is best to continue on your way to Tonga.

The dinghy dock at Niue is famous with cruisers. It is a very high concrete dock. The sea surges very strongly (especially as the tide changes) and landing a dinghy is impossible. Instead, there is a crane on the top of the concrete dock and you use it to lift your dinghy up onto the dock. This is a feat in itself as the sea surges and you try to climb out of the dinghy onto the stone steps without slipping and falling as the water swirls up around your knees during high tide. Then you swing out the hook to your dinghy driver so he can connect it to your lifting harness and then you haul up the dinghy. Then swing in the lifting crane and lower the dinghy onto the concrete dock. Then drag your dinghy out of the way so the next person will have room to land. If the crane isn't working then you cannot go ashore or you cannot go back to your boat. There is no other way of getting shore. I don't know how single-handers manage this, as it required both Bill and I to accomplish this task.

We stayed at Niue for a couple of weeks. Rented a car and toured the island, which does not take long. We drove to the eastern side of the island and hiked out to Togo where there are fabulous limestone formations that go on for miles and miles. The limestone looks like jagged stalactites ranging up to 25 feet high, and so close together that walking is impossible. There is one path that allows you to walk through the limestone to reach a picture-perfect pocket beach of sorts. It is not right on the ocean, but seawater finds its way to the white sand "beach" between enormous boulders. There are several palm trees found here and it is quite picturesque. When you arrive at the beach, you must climb down a 20-foot ladder to reach the sand. On one of the stone walls is a collection of sandals and shoes. I cannot imagine how this custom got started as it is postively impossible to walk back out of there barefoot.

There are many caves on Niue. In fact, the inhabitants lived in caves even into the late 19th century because the caves made such perfect homes on this island. Trees are not plentiful and timber is scarce.

A conference of Pacific nations was held in Niue while we were there. I can't remember what this conference was called, but it is similar to the G-8 conferences that the USA participates in. Anyway, the leaders of most Pacific countries were in Niue that week. Because of this conference, there was also a local festival held. This was a blast. There were a lot of New Zealand military present as security for this conference as well as police from many countries, and they participated in many of the competitions at this festival. Not surprisingly, most of the competitions involved coconut palms in one fashion or another. There were various races using different parts of a coconut palm tree and/or coconuts and spear throwing contests. Lots of music and just a lot of fun. The woman in this photo with Bill is wearing leaves from a coconut palm. In the old days that is all she would have been wearing, but today she is being traditional while still being modest by our western culture ideas.

We were visited twice one day by a whale shark right alongside our boat on the mooring! This was such a very special experience for us as we had never seen a whale shark. And this one was huge. It was about 35 feet long and 8 feet wide across the head. I can guess at its length based upon where it was placed alongside our boat. Its tail was even with our outboard engine mount on the liferail, and its head was past the forward shroud toward the bow. That means the it was more than 30 feet long but not more than 35 feet long. This thing was big!! At first we thought it was a whale and I ran downstairs to get our whale identification booklet. We quickly determined that it was not a whale. It stayed right next to our boat for almost a minute and then slowly moved off to the right several hundred meters. Several minutes later it returned and again stayed right next to our boat in the same place. This time it remained only about 30-40 seconds and then again moved slowly off to the right to the same area. We assume it was feeding over there. A whale shark is a baleen shark; that is why the head is so wide. It has no teeth and is positively nothing like any other shark; very prehistoric creature; and I think it is the largest fish in the world. These fish are reported to be gentle and curious. They have been known to almost surface next to fishermen and stay for a long time, as if they are curious about the little fishing boats.

This sighting was one of the highlights of the South Pacific for us. The photos with this posting are taken from Google images. We were so flabbergasted by watching the whale shark that neither one of us thought to go below and get a camera.