Thursday 28th February.  This really is utopia!  Let me try and give you the flavour  – it feels like a place that evil has never touched!  There is plenty of enterprise without any greed - boat taxis cost .60 US cents a ride – 1 Dollar after 6 o’clock.  A land taxi anywhere within the town radius is 1 Dollar per fair regardless of how many people in it.  A three course sushi meal – 13 US Dollars!  A ‘meal of the day’ in the local bars – 4 US Dollars.  Once ashore there is a long ‘high street’ with dozens of clothes’ shops and boutiques, supermarkets, chandlers, a laundry, chemists, art  galleries, designer jewellery shops, a hospital, doctors, dentists – in fact pretty much anything you can think of.  Paul has had both his broken teeth completely rebuilt in a ‘’state of the art’ dental practice which took 3 painstaking hours for 100 US Dollars! 

Yesterday twelve of us went on a day trip to Isla Santa Fe.  I think photos speak louder than words so here are a few:

Blue footed booby – their feet are the prettiest powder blue colour!

Daunting rock face of Isla Santa Fe

A small sea iguana on the jetty – they confidently and purposefully swim around in the sea looking like miniature dragons!

Sea lions asleep on the sand!  Their smell is extremely pungent!

And coming out to play!

Galapagos sea urchin (less spiky than most)

Pelican sitting pretty in Santa Cruz – look at the SIZE of him!

And one on our bow!  That is Coral 1 behind him – one of the local cruise boats

Booby and pelican – the Laurel and Hardy of the bird world!!

Swimming with sea lions (I thought I would take a perfect photo as you see in National Geographic but they swim by so fast this was the best I could do!!)

Snorkelling with fishes – look how dense they are!

Galapagos dolphin off Anahi’s bow

More rocks (Santa Cruz)

Red Sally crabs on the wharf (Santa Cruz)

This is our fourth day – we are gradually getting all our jobs done in preparation for the long journey ahead.  Again the grib files are showing very little wind so it is a real game of strategy – do you burn diesel at the beginning, looking for the trade winds – or keep it for the end, to get you there – obviously there is a balance and that is what we are seeking.  We did buy 12 five gallon plastic containers today to give us a little extra edge.

Diesel has been a problem here.  Poor ‘Our Island’ was assured he didn’t require a filter – and was then given 10 gallons of water mixed with his fuel.  Apart from the potential damage to the engine, he has spent two days pumping it all out again,  filtering out the water, cleaning his tanks and replacing the extra ten gallons– for which he has been charged! Our turn tomorrow of course!

Off to the sail maker today to reinforce Paul and Bennett’s genoa repair – Aqua-Gen have been bought out by ITT and when they heard the problems we had had with our tow generator they sent a free of charge replacement turbine propeller which Richard BWR brought out with him so that needs assembling.  We have bought new braid (as we lost the last 150 feet) and two anodes to clip around the shaft to make it heavier and stop it skipping out of the water.  The freshwater foot pump has failed – not desperately important and unlikely we will find a replacement here.  The batteries need far more frequent topping up now we are in hotter climes and not in marinas where they are charged up all the time – two are thirstier than the rest (hope we are not in for a couple of duds). Our new generator has sprung an oil leak so we are in touch with the manufacturer to discuss ‘talk’ levels if the head needs tightening down. We have done loads of laundry on board but this entails constantly putting on the toaster to energise the washing machine’ drum to turn!  Sounds crazy and we have burnt out one set of elements already but the generator expert has explained that with modern washing machines the ‘sine waves’ are different! So we have succumbed to sending all the heavy bedding and towels up the road.  Starting to restock on fresh food like vegetables and fruit - no bread for sale and no flour as there is an island shortage.  Lots to do and what a wonderful location to be doing it!