00:45.3S 90:14.5W In Galapagos
Meryon.bridges
Fri 2 Apr 2010 16:49
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Our lovely wind held until we were in sight of the
Galapagos, but sadly it slowly died away on the morning of 29 Mar, so we had to
motor the last 30 odd miles. On crossing the Equator we opened one of our
last bottles of presentable wine, poured a libation to Poseidon, and toasted our
progress. The air was beautifully cool like a warm English summer
afternoon. Our passage had taken 7 days.
The islands came up green and surprisingly
unspectacular. Gentle open sweeps of land rise from low lying shores to
central hills which are all ex-volcanoes, but there's none of the jagged scenery
offered by the Canaries, and these islands are typically only around 2,000ft
high.
As we entered the bay we saw the sad sight of a big
three masted schooner lying sunk and awash on the rocks. We later heard
her wrecking was probably an insurance job, but she'd only been there a week and
it seemed a crime,
At the head of the bay on the SE side of Santa Cruz
island, which is the main anchorage, lies the principle town of the Galapagos,
Puerto Ayora. This accommodates about 10,000 people and is vibrant, clean,
and pleasant. It provides a very adequate supply of shops, restaurants,
accommodation, and of course, lots of tour operators. The Galapagians
seem to be a friendly, cheery lot. Our agent, a very nice and helpful
young Finnish lad, Tuomo, came aboard as soon as we had anchored and talked us
through all the basics. He's very efficient and took away all the
necessary papers to check us in with the Ecuadorian Navy who run the island, and
the other formalities. Went ashore for a shower and a nice meal in the
evening.
Next morning we were ashore early to book ourselves
a tour or two since casual enquiry the night before had indicated that, this
being Easter Weekend, most things were booked up. However we managed to
get four seats on a trip to Floreana (an island 40 miles south of Santa Cruz, on
Wed 31 Mar, and another on Mon 5 Apr to San Bartolome, so that Nick Marr, who
joins us on Sat or Sun can see the islands before we set off for the
Marquesas.
Andrew Saxby arrived safely, having had a long but
trouble free trip via Amsterdam, Bonaire, and Guayaquil, and he found us at
around 12.00 so we had lunch together in the Garrapata restaurant where we dined
last night - nice place, open sided and floored with black volcanic
gravel. That afternoon it rained, massively, but not before Tim and
Meryon had had a look round the Darwin Centre where the islands' ecological
conservancy operations are based. Here we saw the Giant Tortoise breeding
programme. They have released some 6000 animals into the wild so
far. We also saw Lonesome George, the last of his species, and some other
huge tortoises who are in captivity as part of the breeding programme.
They may be slow moving torpid creatures but their shear size makes them
massively impressive.
Our trip to Floreana was wonderful. We went
across in a fast launch with about a dozen people aboard, and reached the small
village of 120 people on Floreana after 2 hours. After looking at and
endlessly photographing the sealions, marine iguanas, and colourful crabs
scattered over the rocks, we boarded a little bus to take us into the
hinterland, climbing up over the hills on a gravel track through the bush.
There was evidence of quite a lot of agriculture, but it seemed to be in retreat
with many of the cleared fields full of rank grass or invading bush. At
the end of the track we were taken on a short walk to see giant tortoises being
fed in a walled enclosure. There were about 20 of them, all busily
chomping plantain leaves and studiously ignoring the tourists. >From there
we walked to see evidence of the first settlers on the island. These
appear to have pursued an extraordinarily primitive existence, living in shallow
caves they scooped out of the crumbly rock and leaving crude Easter Island-like
carved effigies. In the absence of other information one might have
guessed this had been several hundred years ago, but, amazingly, it was in
1930! Very interesting nonethe less.
Returning to the village we were given a good light
lunch, and reboarded our launch to go snorkelling. A quick dash along the
north side took us to a rocky point where blue footed boobies were nesting and
the fish on view were indeed spectacular. However the next stop at a
little island a couple of miles away was pure magic. Entering the water
just off another rocky point covered with sealions, they came to join us.
Ignoring the human rule about going no closer than 2 metres, these
graceful, beautiful creatures glided and whirled about us within arm's
length, though they never made contact, either with us or their fellows.
20lb pups to 250lb adult males, grey and brown, all joined in the fun as we
paddled slowly along the shore. An truly amazing experience.
2 hours back on the launch to Santa Cruz and
dinner.
We will lose Tim on on Saturday when he flies home,
but Nick will join us and we will head off to the Marquesas as a foursome.
3,200 miles to go. We will pray for enough
wind.
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