20 March 2011 Galapagos

The EJ's Voyage
Mike Everton-Jones
Sun 20 Mar 2011 20:22

Sorry, had no time to write the blog these past two days…

 

We took a beautiful two hours walk up the hill and around the headland the day before yesterday. Views were fantastic. Birds amateurs are in heaven here. So many of them, including the funny looking blue footed boobies. The walk starts at de Centro de Interpretacion, i.e. a museum about the story of the Galapagos. Interesting museum, very gruesome history. A lot of effort has been made into its construction and content. From there they have built stone paths and wooden steps to take us all the way up a steep hill to a scenic viewpoint and back down round the headland. The vegetation is very green and diverse. We enjoyed the walk very much. Even Mike did which is even better as walking is not usually his “thing”.

 

In the evening we had been invited for dinner onboard JACANA of MELBOURNE by Dan and Yo. Those two are fantastic cooks and served us Asian cuisine which was just superb. There was a funny incident during the course of the evening when Mike fell in the water trying to rescue a cooking oil can that Yo had accidentally dropped in the sea whilst cooking at the BBQ. No one hurt and we all had a good laugh.

 

We went on a snorkelling trip yesterday. The first stop was at Isla Lobos where we saw sea iguanas feeding. Terrifying looking creatures but not peaceful ones. Then we had two other snorkels at Leon Dormido, a sea lion shape roc made of volcanic ashes that emerges from the sea. There is a channel between the rocks where we snorkelled with giant green turtles, all sorts of sharks including a hammer heads, sea lions. These sharks are not dangerous for humans, needless to say. The boatman took us also to a lovely bay to show us the devastation the tsunami wave caused. It literally wiped out the white sand beach and pushed the shore line many feet back.

 

Last night we ate dinner ashore with Alan, Serge and Catherine, our French friends. I thought I ordered Scampi a la plancha but got served lobster, beautifully cooked, moist and tender. They were all jealous of my dish and will go back to that place to eat the same!

 

Sunday today so we had our traditional pancake breakfast and wrote our emails. We are having a rain shower as I write. Will go ashore soon to send this and others emails.

 

We hope to be able to leave Tuesday or Wednesday but will have to check the weather forecast first. No point leaving if there is no wind…

 

All good here.

 

Hope you will enjoy the attached photos. A view of the Galapagos from up the mountain and of the snorkelling adventure.

Love

Mike and Catherine

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