We are enjoying a blissful stay in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in Galapagos.

As you can see it is a busy little anchorage with commercial boats and rally boats all jostling for a space.

We have anchors out fore and aft so that we don’t need any swinging space and all the rally

Boats are withing shouting distance !

Pelicans have taken up residence on our bow sprit and sea lions are everywhere – in this photo

They are basking in the sun and blocking the landing steps to the water taxi !

On our first day, Tuesday, Alison & Ashley and the boys were visiting the island on their cruise ship,

we met for breakfast and lunch and fitted in some shopping too.

It was fantastic, so good to see them all, and couldn’t have worked out better if we had tried planning it !

Today is the last day of their cruise and we are expecting our new crew member, Ashley, to join us this morning.

There are lots of nice restaurants and internet cafes ashore and we have also commandeered one of the local bars and they have Happy hour for the rally every night between 5.30pm and 7.30pm. It is a great meeting place and a bit like Apres Ski when everyone congregates at the end of the day to have a drink and share stories.

On Wednesday we went diving in the North of the island, it was a rock dive with three large rocks in a semi circle above the water and pitons below the water.

It was our worst and best dive ever !

We had to descend quickly as the sea was rough and below the surface the currents were very, very strong.

We had to swim against the currants and keep up with each other as the visibility was not good.

At one point we held onto the rocks and our bodies were being swept back horizontal by the current, some of the rocks moved and tumbled away whilst we were holding onto them !

We were surrounded by white tip reef sharks – scary you may think – but they are so graceful and relaxing and they took no notice of us.

We also saw two large hammer head sharks, with their very strange shaped heads and noses, almost like a whale’s tail.

Turtles and big rays and huge angel fish also came to say hello.

What an experience !

Underwater photos soon….