Galapagos Doesn’t Disappoint
Rich's 2025 World ARC PatBon Blog
Richard Hurd
Mon 24 Feb 2025 20:51
We’ve just left Isola San Cristobal and are now heading to Isola Isabella in the Galapagos archipelago. We arrived in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the main harbour/anchorage on the island on Tuesday 18th after a 5 day passage from Panama. If you read my earlier blogs, you will know that we had to motor most of the way sadly, as the winds were light and variable the whole way - typical doldrums - and it bucketed down with rain! We crossed the Equator late on Monday evening, which is always a land-mark (or should that be ocean-mark🧐😂) for any sailor.
When we arrived, we had to complete the most stringent entry formalities - 12 people came on board, all from different agencies. While it might be bureaucratic in the extreme, you can understand why when you start seeing this amazing place. Border control to stamp passports and check visas and the crews documentation, port police to check the boats documentation, National Park police to check our bio-security, including a diver to ensure we have zero weed or barnacles on our hull, medics to do a detailed check on all our medical equipment and people to check all our food. You cannot bring in any fresh seeded fruit, fresh meat, various frozen foods - clearly they don’t want to risk any chance of invasive species taking hold. Labels are required everywhere, with instructions regarding bins and rubbish, releasing the black water (poo) tanks, where contaminated waste should be held and other bits too. We were all told about these rules prior to our arrival, so we didn’t have anything for them to be concerned about and the diver said we had a very clean bum! So after a very friendly visit, they all trudged off onto a water taxi to go and inspect our friends aboard One Distraction.
We then all headed off to meet up with the wonderful World ARC yellow shirts, who had set up base in a nice bar/cafe called Umami and have a lovely local cold IPA beer. Sadly they sold out fairly quickly, so we had to drink the Ecuadorian Club beer - that’s OK too! Our thoughts then turned to what we wanted to do while on the island. Diving was a key ambition of mine and Nathan’s, so I booked up on a refresher dive course with Dave from 1D, as I felt I needed a confidence boost with the waters around here being quite challenging. Nathan and I also booked a dive at one of the best dive spots in the world - Kicker Rock. We also had an island tour organised by the ARC and another tour organised by Zoe from Mageia to Isola Espanola.
The ARC tour took us to see a large fresh water lake inside one of the extinct volcano caldera’s, where the Frigate birds come to wash their feathers. We learnt that these sea birds cannot land on water, as they don’t produce oil to make their feathers waterproof. As such most go to high altitudes to get rid of any salt that they pick up while diving to the surface to catch flying fish. However the birds near San Cristobal know about this fresh water lake, where they can clean themselves. We then went to a Giant Tortoise breeding centre - quite remarkable to see many tortoises from the earliest hatchlings to huge males that are 10’s of years old - they can live to around 150 years in the wild or 170 in captivity. Early adventurers that came to the islands ate them and many became close to extinction before the islands were turned into a National Park, where strict laws forbade any harm to all the living flora and fauna. Each island had a unique subspecies of tortoise (and many other types animals & birds) and some have disappeared - remember Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise from Isola Pinta who died in 2012! However the breeding programme has been remarkably successfully with over 7,000 tortoises released into the wild on Cristobal alone. We then went to an amazing beach on the east coast of the island for a swim and snorkel, before heading back to the harbour, where Pat Bon bobbed at anchor.
The diving that we did was truly amazing. First Nathan, Dave and I did a dive in Darwin Bay, where Charles Darwin first set foot on the Galapagos, and then onto a wreck called Carawa just outside the harbour. This was a tuition dive for Dave and me, where the instructor carefully went through the key training aspects for us. We saw fish, turtles, sea lions, moray eels and mola rays. The wreck was a 100+ year old freighter that sank when it struck the reef and it has pretty much fallen apart, but there is some structure still left. The following day, we went up to Kicker Rock with Simon and Steve from 1D and several other people from other ARC crews. What an experience this was - very large Hammerhead and Black Tip sharks, Mola and Stingrays, Green Turtles, Moray Eels, shark & turtle cleaning stations and fish galore. The most amazing part however was swimming into the midst of a huge fish-ball, the size of a small house. Literally ‘000’s of fish tightly packed together for protection, with the odd sea lion swimming through picking off a small snackette! The fish just part in front of you and then close off behind. Our air bubbles create a sort of light tube above us as the fish part to allow them to rise. It also goes dark as the fish close in all around, like being in a tiny cave - not for everyone I know, but simply being surrounded by a living writhing mass of fish is an incredible experience!
While Nathan and I were at Kicker Rock, Peter, Val and Paula went for a walk to a beach to the north of the town and main harbour. It was a tough walk for them all, as the path was over huge lava boulders and very difficult to negotiate. The first beach is where Paula and I went on Wednesday and saw marine Iguanas and plenty of sea lions frolicking on the beach with human kids - all seemingly playing happily together. Sadly the beach they wanted to get to was a disappointment due to rocks all over the sea floor and waves crashing in. A nice glass of chilled rose awaited them on their return to the town however!
Yesterday we went on a private tour to an uninhabited island called Isola Espanola with Chris, Tracey and Zoe from Mageia, Jim & Heather from Amelia and the 5 of us from Pat Bon. You can only go to these places with a National Park guide and after paying some hefty fees and you’re given a time slot for your visit. The park authority are trying to limit human activity and allow the animals to live without human harassment. This makes the animals completely unafraid of humans and they will allow you to get quite close, although there is a 2 meter rule and definitely ‘no touch’! We got very close to Nazca Boobies and their chicks that nest on this particular island and also saw plenty of Marine Iguanas which are the most colourful subspecies in all of Galapagos. Lava Lizards, sea lions, Mocking Birds and Oystercatchers were all on show. Fabo, our guide was very good at explaining all we saw. Sadly we were hoping to see the Espanola Hawk, the #1 predator on the island but it didn’t put into an appearance and the critically endangered Waved Albatross had already left after raising their chicks this season. After the walking tour, we all went snorkelling and saw more sharks; small black and white tips, Mola rays, turtles and sea lions. For Paula, Val and Peter, this was something they either hadn’t done before or not for a long time, so it was great to see them all marvelling at the world beneath the waves! On our way home, we saw a massive pod of Bottlenosed dolphins - maybe 100+ dolphins performing the most amazing tricks. Apart from wonderfully acrobatic leaps, launches and jumps, one animal decided to lie on its back, exposing its pink tummy and whacking its tail flukes on the water surface. It was such a laugh to watch. Even the grizzled old tour boat captain was smiling, yelling and laughing at this marvel, and he must see this most days. Oh the joy of watching dolphins at play in the wild.
So it was up at 0430 this morning for the 85 NM sail to Isola Isabella and the anchorage of Puerto Villamil, which is the second harbour the ARC fleet is allowed to visit in the Galapagos. We feared another windless day, however were currently close hauled in 10 to 12 knots of wind and sailing very nicely at 7 to 7.5 knots towards our destination. Hopefully there in a couple of hours and then it’s time to explore this island for 3 days. We’ve got a couple of tours planned…….but more about these next time!
Diving into the huge fish ball
An Oystercatcher wandering in front of a bemused sea lion pup, wanting to make its way up the beach for some shade in the undergrowth.
A Marine Iguana heading to the shore.
I love this pic of a Nazca Booby