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Date: 08 Mar 2008 23:07:19
Title: Galapagos - Bartolome Island Tour
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00:44.827S  90:18.414W
 
On Saturday (2/1) we motorsailed as planned from San Cristobal Island to Santa Cruz Island, and anchored in a cozy fashion with about eighty other sailboats in Academy Bay near the town of Puerto Ayora.  When we first arrived, there was another round-the-world sailboat rally here with about 30 boats.  This was the 'Blue Water Rally'.  They have since moved on to the Marquesas where we will probably run into some of them again (not literally, of course). 
 
Here in Puerto Ayora Oscar left us and joined some family members that just happened to be in the Galapagos at the same time.  All we have left of Oscar now are a few pictures, a pair of socks, some soy meat (yum!) and good memories from our five day motorslog together.  We wish Oscar well and hope that he finds the perfect wave, and captures a picture of himself underwater with a hammerhead shark (these are the two things he was most excited about doing).
 
On Sunday, we went on the first of three day tours.  Most of the Galapagos is part of an Ecuadorian national park, which means most areas are restricted, and privately owned sailboats are not allowed to simply hop from one island to another (or even from one bay to another) without a special permit and a local guide on board at all times - all at a very hefty cost.  So, most boaters like us opt to anchor in one of the three designated harbors and take day trips to the other islands via a tour boat.  Our first trip was to Bartolome, which is a very small island north of Santa Cruz.
 
The trip to Bartolome was fairly long, so we left our boat at 4:45am, boarded a water taxi which brought us to land where we boarded a tour bus which brought us to another harbor on the north side of Santa Cruz, where we boarded a large dinghy which took us to the tour boat.  Sixteen of us World ARC boaters crammed onto the tour boat, which was fairly modest in size and had a diesel engine.  It looked very well used and tended to list noticeably to the port side if too many of us happened to station ourselves on that side.  We spent a little time wondering where the life jackets were and then decided the seat cushions would do nicely as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a sinking.  The ride to Bartolome took about three hours at a whopping speed of 7.5 knots.  The trip wasn't bad, but it did remind us all of our recent motorslog from the Ecuador mainland to the Galapagos.
 
The tour boat crew fed us breakfast and we arrived at Bartolome, where we were transferred to a large dinghy, which took us to shore where we had a rather exciting moment trying to time our hop from the dinghy onto the crumbling concrete stairs in between wave crashes.  We all made it and even the camera stayed dry, so a successful semi-crash landing it was.  In the brochures, the island of Bartolome is compared to a moonscape.  I think the words were something like, 'When on Bartolome, you often wonder whether you have arrived on the moon, or whether you are truly on a Pacific Island just south of the equator.'   That comparison is perfectly fitting.  Bartolome is just like being on the moon.  Not that we've ever been on the moon of course, but we've certainly seen the TV footage of the first moon landing ten thousand times and feel we can use that as a frame of reference.  According to our guide, Bartolome has twenty-seven volcanoes on it (none active).  We hiked to the top of one of them and aside from some very hearty small scrubby bushes, there was no vegetation.  The surface was brown and black rock and ash with lava chunks everywhere and the molten lava tracks still visible down the sides of the volcano.  Picture 1 will give you a sense of the terrain close up, whereas pictures 2 and 3 show the barren terrain with a backdrop of the beautiful aquamarine bay.
 
Note the really big sailboat at anchor in picture 3.  Obviously they could afford the hefty fee for the personal guide so that they could take their own boat around to all the islands.  Our guide insisted that it is the Americans that have all the money, but we pointed out the British flag on the very large sailboat in the bay.  No response from our guide, instead he broke into song (a habit of his) - some kind of strange Spanish/English mix that made it impossible to tell what song he was actually singing.  This strange Spanish/English mix, or Spanglish, was the same language he used when guiding us around the island.  As a result, we only learned a few things.  For example, there are snakes that hang out in the crevices between the rocks and under the boardwalk we were walking on (ugh) and they eat the smaller iguanas.  After eating the iguanas, the snakes upchuck (my word, not his - he just made the motion of vomiting to get his point across) the iguana skeleton because they can't digest it.  Don and I have no idea if this particular Galapagos factoid is true, it's just all we could piece together from the Spanglish.  The other boaters in our group, especially those that speak English as a second language, looked around at each other and shrugged their shoulders when the guide was rapidly and very enthusiastically spouting Spanglish.
 
We finished our tour of the volcano and completed the reverse of our semi-crash landing back into the dinghy, which took us back to the boat. Next was snorkeling.  As you might know from previous blog entries, I am no snorkeling expert and am still working on overcoming the fear associated with being in the water really close to lots of fish, some of which are scary - like stingrays and the like.  So I bravely put on my snorkeling gear and flopped off the boat into the water right behind Don.  We proceeded to snorkel our way from the boat to the beach, noticing along the way that we really couldn't see anything.  The surf was up and not only causing difficult dinghy landings, but stirring up the sand bottom as well, making it impossible to see anything beyond a few feet beneath the surface.  I followed Don and wondered why when we were nearly to the beach, he started wallowing around in the surf and couldn't seem to make it past the wave crash zone to the edge of the water.  When we finally stumbled our way onto the beach (with five pounds of sand stuffed inside our bathing suits), the reason for Don's wallowing became clear when he peeled off a thin jellyfish tentacle that was laying across his cheek and upper lip.  Big, ugly jellyfish sting welts appeared on Don's face and shoulder.  Needless to say, that was the end of snorkeling for the day.  We signaled the dinghy and were ferried back to the boat.
 
Once back on the boat, the Australians that were with us on the tour proclaimed vinegar as the cure-all for jellyfish stings.  Vinegar appeared from nowhere, was applied to Don's welts, and he immediately came back to life.  The whole episode got the boater group started on a long conversation about the many wonders of white vinegar.  Not only does it take the sting out of a run-in with a jellyfish, but if you dump it down your boat toilet, it clears out the pipes and makes everything smell fresh.  Vinegar is also the wonder cleaner of choice for the woodwork in the cabin of a boat (we use it religiously for this purpose) and I've recently been informed by the Irish that a tablespoon of vinegar in a cup of milk left to sit will result in buttermilk that can be used to make Irish soda bread (which is a very attractive type of bread to make because it requires no yeast, and therefore, no kneading and no fussing).  There were at least ten other uses for vinegar that were discussed, but all you really need to know is that if you have a problem, generally vinegar can fix it.
 
Eventually, all the snorkelers were collected and our boat headed back to Santa Cruz.  Picture 4 was taken as we were leaving the area.  There were many sea lions at the base of the rocks, but their color makes them indistinguishable from the rocks. 
 
The water was extremely glassy (due to no wind, what a surprise!) and made for perfect wildlife viewing conditions.  The waters around the Galapagos are simply teeming with life.  If you've ever seen a documentary film on the Galapagos, then you already know that the amazing array of marine wildlife here is attributed to the convergence of several major ocean currents, which bring different water temperatures and lots of marine food to the area.  We sat on the top of our slightly port-listing tour boat and watched as a parade of animals went by in the water - giant sea turtles, giant manta rays three feet in diameter jumping out of the water, pelicans dive-bombing into the water in search of dinner, and to top it all off, dolphins.  Lots of dolphins came over and escorted our tour boat for a good forty minutes.  We could see the dolphins barreling in toward the boat from all directions, making a quick u-turn when they reached the boat and then settling in to swim alongside.  As this point a couple of us were sitting on the bow of our port-listing tour boat so we could be closer to the dolphins, and on several occasions, the dolphins put on an extra show for us.  Not only were they weaving in and out of the water in typical dolphin fashion, but they were throwing in extra twists and turns and sometimes a tail flop which (we think purposely) splashed those of us sitting on the bow.  I didn't get any good dolphin pictures, but picture 5 is at least one of them underwater very near the bow of the boat.
 
We thought the dolphin visit was a fitting end for our first Galapagos tour.
And don't worry, Don is fine and has completely recovered from his fight with the jellyfish.
Anne
 
 
 
 

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