Update from Galapagos
Exocet Strike
John & Stella Dyer
Mon 23 Feb 2015 11:13
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Apologies for not sending blogs recently, but I
dont use the Iridium satellite phone when in port, and the wifi in the first
Island has been pretty poor.
The Galapagos seemed like a place full of beauracy
and petty officialdom, based on reading pilot books, world ARC books and
briefings, however since arriving and our encounter with officials, who were
very friendly and welcoming, so far it has been the opposite, local restaurants
are very reasonable, cheaper than the UK, and local markets we found have great
local fruit and veg. I can beleive though that if one is not careful enough with
boat preparation etc its possible to be in a whole lot of trouble, thanks to
Paul for pushing us to have very clean hulls and be able to have the correct
responses to any environmental questions.
The tours we have done have been excellent. The
first one was titled kicker rock, and it was included in our WARC entry fee,
initially from the itinerary it looked \ok but nothing special, actually it was
brilliant, Stella overcame her fear of snorkelling and tried it, after initial
nerves she loved it and now wants some of her own gear, we saw some Galapagos
sharks, a huge number of local smaller fish, turtles, and hammer head sharks,
brilliant. Our boat captiain showed us some firgate birds in full mating
plumage, with their big red chests blown up, quite stunning to see.
The second tour went up into the hils, a climb to
the highest point, about 1600m with some great views, often cloaked in cloud
but clear today, a trip to a giant tortoise breeding site, they are nearly
all wiped out and the government is ensuring they survive.A great scheme and
showed some very small ones in their small pens, and mature ones out in their
enclosure, which covered several acres. Then down to the beach for a swim,
the water was a lovely temperature, approx 23 deg C, just about right. Next stop
was an old sugar plantation, which used to employ convicts from Ecuador,
but unfortunately in 1903 they killed the owner, nd that w2as that. WE saw the
ruins of his house, and also a went into a tree house built inot the highest
Ceido tree on the island, quote something.
We wondered what the climate might be in Galapagos,
since its on the equator, but gets cooled by the Humbolt current, well it gets
pretty hot in the sun,but evenings and overnight it cools down a lot and gets
very damp, lots of dew. So its very bearable, and we found a lot cooler in the
hills. Not sure if we can do cold and wet in the UK again.
John
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