We use 18 Litres per hour flat out. The locals provided less than 20 gallons per hour!
Southern Princess
John & Irene Hunt
Sat 8 Mar 2008 21:38
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Puerto Baquerizo Moreno Isla San Cristobal Galapagos 00:54S 89:37W Originally called Chatham Island in the days of Darwin and the British ruled the world. Very rolly anchorage with long swells coming in from the Pacific. Both sides of the entrance had breakers with the southern point having a well established surfing break.Well what did we see? Me, not a lot and I think
Irene even less. The WARC team were established in an upstairs bar/restaurant
called the Hotel Restaurant Miconia. Food wasn't bad but they put the booze in
the fridge a couple of hours before Happy Hour so consequently we had warm beer
over ice on one occasion. I went ashore twice while we were here.
The harbour is full of seals which decide that they
want to have a sun bathe and they launch themselves onto any vaguely level
surface to lie in the sun. We kept our back swim platform up as a number of
seals had laid claim to the back steps on a few catamarans.
Fuelling was offered by the local agent. Phew what
a marathon! On the Thursday evening, three yachts had been offered the
opportunity of refuelling by reversing stern to a large commercial concrete dock
and they pumping fuel down onto the boat. Keoloha8 was first and under the
circumstances the last that evening. They started at 17:00 and did not finish
until after 20:30. They had to strain all the fuel to keep the dirt out and
consequently the flow rate in the filter was a lot slower than that coming out
of the pipe and fuel went everywhere. Southern Princess stood by for 4 hours
before our turn was abandoned. We were advised that we would start again at
first light 05:30 Friday. The due time saw us up and ready to go. Joseph, the
young lad (17) in charge of this promised us "won't be long another 10 minutes
only" from 05:30 to 07:30 when he finally arrived alongside in a water taxi with
190 gallons (we had ordered 200 gallons) of fuel in 10 & 20 gallon
containers which we then siphoned into our tanks through a Baha Filter which
traps dirt, insects and water; all in evidence.
Irene, Lorraine and I had booked on the 08:30
snorkelling tour to Kicker Rock and as the time approached, we sent Lorraine off
while Irene & I persevered with Joseph. Now Joseph is 17 years old, he is
impressed with his management role and he also had his mobile (never stopped
ringing) and his VHF which he never stopped using while transferring fuel,
mostly into our yacht but with monotonous regularity over our yacht as
well.
To get the fuel into the bladder on deck, we had to
elevate the container up to boom height which was even more awkward. The last of
the 190 gallons went in at around 09:30. Joseph disappeared to get the extra 10
gallons and the order for Storyteller the next on the fuelling list.
Storytellers order arrived and I asked Joseph for the 10 gallons. "No" he said,
"This 190 gallons is for Storyteller and your last 10 gallons is coming in a
minute with my brother". This duly arrived BUT then the little so & so made
me wait until he had finished the Storyteller 190 gallons before he would come
back to finish off the last 10 gallons for Southern Princess.
He arrived back on board with the siphon hose at
around 11:00 and we then hoisted the container to boom height to get it into the
bladder. Joseph is in charge of siphon hose and pouring while I juggled the
filter over the flexible filling nozzle of the bladder. Joseph is balanced about
2' above my head. So the phone rings! The VHF crackles his name! And Joseph
manages to answer the phone, talk in the VHF but he doesn't take much
attention with the hose which ends up pouring diesel all over my head, up my
nose, in my mouth, in my eyes, all over the dinghy, in the open lazarette locker
and all over the whole bloody aft end of the yacht AND then he looks all hurt
when I go off my trolley!
The oil slick seen off the aft end of Southern
Princess at 11:30 was me having a swim. Used a whole container of hair shampoo
getting rid of the stuff off my body etc, Irene poured a half bottle of
Visine in my eyes and I showered on the swim platform before tackling the
cleaning of the yacht. I have a salt water hose so with soap, buckets, scrubbing
brushes I took an hour to clean off the yacht. the teak deck is horribly stained
but it will bleach out with the sun eventually.
So fuelling took 4 hours on Thursday hanging about
and 7 hours on Friday from start to finish. 200 gallons in 11 hours! Must be a
record BUT why does it happen to me?
Thursday night (21:00 hours) saw one of the
arriving catamarans (Williwaw II) lose the use of both motors while negotiating
the outer channel. Tallulah Ruby II towed her in while I launched our RIB.
We then strapped the RIB to the side of the catamaran and we steered her to an
anchoring spot and help pull her anchor in for a safe night. Something always
happening in yachting.
Lorraine enjoyed the Kicker Rock tour;
Grateful for my shore leave but feeling a tad
guilty as well as I left John and Irene to the refuelling nightmare, I
joined the 30 or so other yachties on the Kicker Rock tour, at 8.30am. Our
catamaran headed first for a sheltered bay where we motored close to rocks and
saw sea lions sunbathing, blue footed boobies nesting, large red Sally Lightfoot
crabs, and frigate birds soaring overhead. Then we jumped into the
25deg water and swam with sea lions.
Everyone back on board, we up anchored, and
headed for Kicker Rock, one of the Galapagos's most famous landmarks, a vertical
volcanic rock standing 146metres high, a short distance from the
coast. There's a narrow split through the rock, through which
the sea surges and churns. Very dramatic, I was all ready to
take photos then realised we were expected to snorkel through that! It
took a while to pluck up courage but I'm so glad I did. I saw 3
hammerhead sharks, 5 or so Galapagos sharks (around 1m each), a family of sting
rays circling sinisterly beneath us, thick shoals of reef fish, and more
turtles. All in all an adrenalin packed snorkelling
experience.
On the way home we returned to the first bay,
the tide was now out and the water clear and turquoise. Everyone had
a last snorkel, then got back on board and we headed for home. Then the
guide did a head count, and a re-count, looked in both heads, then realised we
were missing one person. 10mins later we were back in the bay where we
found the lone Italian still swimming, picked him up, and headed
home! A memorable day.
 Drums stacked on deck to be
siphoned into the yacht.
 Filling the fuel bladder. Just
after this shot was taken Joseph
covered me with
diesel!
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