Isla Isabela Part 2

We are still on Isabela after 8 days and enjoying it so much.

The lava tunnels snorkelling trip was a highlight. We spent a good part of a day with some the crew from Lisa Kay, Jack from Cat Weazle as well as a couple of fly in tourists on a small boat exploring the marine life and the geology of the lava tunnels in the water nearby. Our dead-ringer-for-John-Travolta-skipper, Leonardo, expertly gunned the boat over the reef into the calmer waters beyond. We spotted very cute penguins and blue footed boobies immediately.  In the water with our snorkelling gear on, we swam amongst a school of yellow tailed surgeon fish and saw numerous other fish. The day just got better and better as Leonardo manoeuvred the boat through the narrowest of channels in the lava rock, passing bridges of black rock and cactus growing out of fissures and cracks. We looked down on aqua coloured pools and saw green turtles and spotted eagle rays rays swimming to and fro. I spotted a shark from above and others saw them while snorkelling. We snorkelled all around; swimming into gloomy caves to find an opening at the end to take us back out into the sunlight and another stunning pool. (Oh Dan, you would have loved it so much) Back on the boat we shot back out through the reef and over to another area to swim with turtles. They are so very gentle and really don’t seem fazed when humans get close to them. Finally, back out in the ocean and heading for home, Leonardo slowed the boat when he spotted a huge manta ray. Those who wanted to quickly donned snorkelling gear and swam over to it. I stayed in the boat and it was funny to hear the hooting and honking noises coming from people’s snorkels as they got so excited about being so close to the huge creature.

The next day we went on a trip to Sierra Negra, the volcano on the island that is second only in size to the largest in the world which is in Tanzania. Its caldera is 12 miles by 10 miles, and I can tell you it looks huge! Steam rises in places and the surface that you look down on from above looks somewhat like cracked and crusted bitumen after an earthquake. To get to the volcano we walked about 10km from where the bus dropped us off. We also saw Volcan Chico, and were able to walk on its surface, in some places feeling warm air venting through cracks from way down below. As we walked the 10km back to the bus, it bucketed rain on us and turned some of the track to mud, but Lisa Kay’s Tootsie Roll Pops kept morale high!

We do of course also have days where we don’t play tourist. There are always jobs to do on Brio, whether it’s putting a coat of paint on rust spots, getting the bar under the boom repaired, sweeping up the hair that just seems to fall everywhere or cleaning the algae off the hull. Ivan has spent some time making a centreboard and rudder for our Walker Bay dinghy so he can use it as a sailing boat (aaagh! Another one!). It’s still not quite right yet, but soon….

We were up early this morning and walked to where the pink flamingos are known to hang out and there they were. They were lovely to watch going through their morning routine of feeding and grooming. They are amazing to see in flight as they are so big.

We expect we will leave this lovely island on Wednesday. PS. Sorry, no pics – way too slow to upload.

Galapagos, Isla Isabela

We ended up staying 3 days in Santa Cruz and while the swell was never as bad as the first night we were there, it never got much better. Again, we used water taxis to get to and from the dock, which was rather exciting with all the pitching and rolling, when one had to leap from boat to boat. When bringing aboard 10 gallon containers of fuel it was all the more exciting!

Having replenished our fuel, water and food supply and gone through the formal checkout procedures, we left just after sunrise on a Saturday morning for our final Galapagos destination: Isla Isabela about 45 nm away. It was a sunny day with a breeze of about 10-12 kts for most of the way, allowing us to average 6-7 kts. Coming in to Puerto Villamil on the island wasn’t too tricky once we spotted the 2 channel markers to guide us away from the reefs. There were about 13 other yachts and a couple of big cruisers at anchor in the snug, narrow anchorage. We were delighted to see a couple of penguins swimming around Brio as we set the anchor – already we liked this place. The town of Puerto Villamil is very small and the place has the feel of somewhere like Mallacoota 40 years ago – there are a few sandy roads, a bakery, some small hotels and restaurants. The giant tortoise breeding facility is a short walk out of town via a boardwalk built through international funds and as is the case with a lot of externally funded projects, it doesn't look like any funds are being put towards ongoing maintenance. The boardwalk passes a number of lagoons, in one of which we spotted a pink flamingo and in another marine iguanas. As we were to discover, there are thousands of marine iguanas sunning themselves on the jet black volcanic rock that has flowed in times past down to the beach. With their spiky, reptilian, slightly grotesque features, they make excellent photographic models.

We expect to spend a week here, perhaps more as the wind is forecast to drop out later in the week and we will need to wait for good wind to set off for the Marquesas as 3,000 nm is way too far to motor.

Galapagos Islands

Daniel, Ivan’s son, arrived from Canada to do the Panama to Galapagos Islands  passage with us. After a few days at La Playita anchorage in Panama, making final preparations to get away, we set sail for Las Perlas, the Pearl Islands 31 nautical miles south of Panama. We were all keen to leave the hustle and bustle of Panama and get to somewhere where the water was clean enough to swim in. Many people have this idea that cruising is all sunsets and gin and tonics, but I’ve found that especially when in a port, it’s all paperwork and hardware shops. Or, as someone said to me recently cruising is just boat maintenance in nice places J.

Dinner!

We sailed and motor sailed 4.5 – 5 knots to our first anchorage in Las Perlas, dropping the anchor at 9.25pm. The next morning started with scrambled eggs and tomatoes with freshly squeezed orange juice, courtesy of Carlos’ father. Carlos was the taxi driver we used while in Panama. He was a bit of a dude and eagerly interpreted for us in (hardware!) shops, took us to a huge fruit and veggie market and negotiated with the stall holders and carried our bags for us and then he invited us to his home to meet his family and share some food. Coming back to the orange juice – I was going to buy some oranges, but he said “momento” and rang his father and asked him to drop off a bag of oranges to his house which he then gave us. He was very generous and helpful.

Las Perlas was nice and relaxing and we were able to get some swimming in and Daniel caught three fish while we were sailing. After a few days in the sun, salt and sand we set off for the Galapagos Islands. To cut a long story short, it took us 11 days to make the passage. During that time we used the motor a lot because the winds were mainly light and against us. It was good to see that Brio is very  economical on fuel. Our days were spent watching flying fish (sadly no more fish were to be caught), dolphins, birds trying to catch a ride on our spreaders, eating, reading and playing scrabble. We saw more life in this ocean in the first couple of days than we did the whole time we were in the Caribbean. We didn't experience much rain at all, although others ahead of us were reporting on the radio continual downpours. On day 10 we had enough rain to justify stripping 'nekked' and having a wash. We certainly needed it by then!

We motored into Wreck Bay, Isla San Christobal early on Thursday morning. What a lovely anchorage and a lovely little town. We spent 5 days on the anchorage there catching water taxis into town. Very few people put there dinghys in the water there because the sea lions treat them as their personal bathing platforms. The shore and waters edge is teeming with sea lions - they seem to be a mixture of a puppy, a sloth and a slug :)

A slugfest of sealions

We spent a day with others from yachts on a snorkelling tour. We snorkelled around Kicker Rock which is an amazing rock towering out of the water. It was wonderful to be swimming amongst a huge variety of fish, turtles, hammerhead sharks (!), marine iguanas and of course sea lions. We also saw a bit of birdlife incluing the gorgeous blue footed boobys, brown noddies and the very pre-historic looking frigate birds.

Marine Iguana

The next day we joined a couple off another yacht a did a tour of the island. It included visiting the giant tortoise sanctuary where we got to see these giant creatures from young to very old.

The San Jose BBQ restaurant was our favourite place to eat as the meals were enourmous, tasty and huge. We had a very social time with other cruisers on San Christobal and went to restaurant twice with various people.

Bearded Dan at San Jose BBQ

Daniel left us here to fly home to Canada. It was sad to see him go as we had had a great time together and he was really great on the boat during our passage.

I was hoping to be able to swim withthe sea lions at Playa Lobaria, however they weren't in the water the afternoon we went there. Ivan got to swim with a turtle though.

We have now moved on to Isla Santa Cruz, the most populated island of the group. We are anchored in Academy Bay which is just off the township. The swell here is very uncomfortable and we are worried our anchor rope will chafe so we may not stay here very long.

When we leave I susect Gordon Gecko, our resdient gecko I discovered the other day, will come with us. He tends to hide amongst the fruit in the fruit hammock!