Dear Family and Friends,

 

25th March, 2015

 

With light winds slowing our progress yesterday, effectively ensuring our arrival in the busy port of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, in darkness tonight, we have sailed or perhaps more accurately drifted along today, killing time so we arrive tomorrow morning. A last minute water line inspection of the hull hoved to, in a current of 1.5-2 knots is not easy to manage but necessary before entering National Park waters.

 

This afternoon we drifted down the west coast of Isla San Cristabal, with binoculars trained on the shore we could make out the red brown steep cliffs of the outlying rocks, iced in guano white, the characteristic cones of volcanic activity, the pale greens of vegetation dried in the sun and the raw deep browns of lava flow. Half eaten rock mounds jut from the smooth curves and then you eyes stumble across a sight you might image to be Mars, successive small volcanic cones erupt like pimples on the face of the island, imagined heat and red hot lava flow preserved in the twisted and tumbled brown rocks, naked to our eyes without a stitch of green. Extraordinary, beautiful stark.

 

With 2 main ports of entry, one beside us on San Cristabal, however tempting to divert here, we are plugging on at an impressive 2.5 knots! The wind has all but died and we really just have the current .  The boat rocks more at slow speeds and the see sawing will drive us mad tonight. Better news, after an APB to locate our agent, we finally had a short email from him at last, but I don’t feel optimistic things are going according to plan though. Not least the international payment has left our account and not reached the agent.

 

I am hoping the next bulletin will be via terrestrial wifi! It is so much easier. Or better still our own boat wifi, dream on. Very happy to do product testing, anyone?

 

All our best,

 

Lynne and Alan