Looking back at Galapagos
Island Kea II
Steve and Katrin Everett
Mon 29 Mar 2010 17:51
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Position 02:20 S 92:21 W
yesterday we were literaly looking back at
Galapagos islands as they disappeared in the distance.
We left at the same time as Aqualuna, a few days
behind the rest of the fleet as we were waiting for Allan from Aqualuna to
arrive with our watermaker.
The good news is that we now have a fully working
watermaker (fingers crossed) and the idea of sailing 3000 miles does not seem so
bad now as I know that we can have showers every day if we want to.
It is strange how what we take for granted in our
land life, becomes a luxury when at sea.
We sailed until 7.30pm last night,but then had to
motor until 10am this morning. this makes a very noisy night in our aft
cabin and we are feeling a little tired today. We are now getting 5 kts
out of 8-9 windspeed as the sea is pretty flat and providing least resistancw
which is pretty good.
We have brilliant sunshine but some of the yachts
further ahead in the fleet have been having a lot of rain and we just hope that
this will be finished when we get there, otherwise it will be a great
opportunity to see if Steve's repairs to the cocpit floor worked and hopefully I
will not get flooded in bed!!!
Whilst in Galapagos I was not very good at updating
our blog on what we were getting up to. It
was busy in 3 ways.. Socialising - happy hour every day at the bar from
5.30 to 7pm followed by having a meal out quite a lot as it was
cheap.
During the day, it was unbelievably hot and very
high humidity and we were all getting tired of being permanently hot and
sticky.
We went to the Darwin Centre where we saw gigant
tortoises and land Iguanas. We walked to Tortuga bay, which was about an
hour walk in hot sunshine where we walked along a white sandy beach and saw
lots of sea Iguanas and pelicans (well pelicans are pretty common now, but
still deserve a mention. We also walked to 'Las Grietas' which is a
mysterious area of lava fissures filled with a mixture of fresh and salt
water. In Icelandic we would call it 'gja' . Tom jumped
in off the cliff as the local youngsters but I clambered down and went for a
swim. this was quite a surreal experience. Normally in Iceland it is
too cold to go for a swim in these.
We then went on our mini cruise on 'Coral 1' for 4
nights (4.5 days). Apart from the initial hiccup when we found out less
than 24 hours before that the tour operator in the UK had not paid for this (we
paid tour operator in UK 5 months in advance in full), and having to cough up
between us directly as security we all had a wonderful time.
We visited the northern coast of Santa Cruz, Rabida
(jervis), Santiago (Egas Port), Fernandina (Espinosa Point), Isabela (Tagus
Cove) and Bartolome.
We saw lots of lovely scenery with lots of lava
formations and lots of wildlife. Tortoise, Turtles, Sea Lions, Land
Iguanas, Sea Iguanas (you needed to be careful not to step on these
as they blend in so well with the lava on the sea side and do not move),
Flightless cormorants dancing a love dance, lava birds and lots of
others....
It is incredible to see islands which look so much
like Iceland in terms of lava formations but so different because of the climate
in terms of what can grow there and the animals who live there.
Each day there was an opportunity for snorkling
(well for the keen ones anyway) and this was incredible. Swimming with sea
lion which was showing off acrobatics (sorry cannot post videos), sharks (when
the guide called shark, was not sure if to swim away or to have a look) sea
turtles - lots of and we were just drifting with them in the current floating
above them, ray and hundreds of pretty reef fish of lots of different
colours.
This is really my dream come true in terms of
snorkling and it was a really amazing experience.
So lots of party and socialising (two birthday
parties), day trips and our mini cruise. On top of this, obviously the
normal yacht maintenance. Steve and Tom have spent many hours now taking
the watermaker to bits several times - well at last success.
We are still suffering with fuel and water breater
pipes not behaving causing the need to climb into small spaces and lift them up
or disconnect. sth strange is going on with alternator so the charging
level had to be turned down in order to protect the fan belt which was going
mad.. sth strange about various sections in the bilge not passing water
between them and therefore parts being able to flood without water flowing to
the area with the bilge pump...
All these items are relatively small but as access
is so difficult (climing into tight spaces) and with very high humidity
and heat makes it difficult.. - but this is life...
So right now.. brilliant sunshine, moderate
wind and calm seas and we are sailing nicely - life is good.....
:-)
(KE)
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