Galapagos!
Mystic
Archie Massey and Jo Wood-Hill
Sat 28 Apr 2012 15:13
Lon 089:37.03 W
Greetings from the Galapagos islands! We arrived at San Cristobal yesterday afternoon (Friday) after some good winds for the last few days meant that we have been trucking along at 7.5knots for the last few days.
We also caught a massive Dolphinfish (Dorado) and a few more small Tuna, so the freezer is fully stocked! We also crossed the equator so we are now in the South Pacific!
We are anchored in Wreck Bay, where there are about 20 other sailboats, and a fleet of small tour boats offering diving and sightseeing tours around the nearby islands. This is the smaller and quieter centre of the two main bases in Galapagos, but there is still a fairly substantial town which although pre-warned about, is still bigger than I was expecting. As soon as we had anchored we were approached by an "agent" whom it is now mandatory to employ in order to check in with the Port Captain, and she also took care of immigration and quarantine. On our way to the immigration office we bumped into a couple of friends we had met in Shelter Bay, Aileff and Emilie on Baten Anna - from Sweden. It was great to see them again and they have been here for 10 days so they showed us around a bit before we all settled into beers and mojitos before a massive meat fest at a barbecue restaurant in town. They dropped us back to our boat in their dinghy, only to find that our boat had been commandeered by a seal who was lying on the scoop deck refusing to move! We had heard that seals were a problem here - there are so many of them strewn along the pavement on the front of the harbour, and you can get within 1 foot of them before they bark at you. They are literally everywhere - they definitely run the place! After much hollering and shouting we finally got rid of the seal from our boat, although not before he had crapped all over the transom. Welcome to Galapagos!
Today we are checking out what tours are available - we're hoping we can organise everything from here and not have to go to Santa Cruz. Hopefully going on a diving tour of Kicker Rock tomorrow which promises Hammerhead shark encounters! We're also off to go and swim with the seals this afternoon - they are everywhere and apparently very playful with snorkellers.
Apologies for the lack of contact so far - sat phone works for emergency phone calls but we can't get the data calls working which means we can't access the internet or update the blog while at sea. Hence the flurry of emails now we have reached land!
More soon...