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Well, we’ve only been here a couple days, but we’re loving it. The town is pretty cool, and best of all it’s safe to walk around even at night. That’s such a nice change.
When we arrived yesterday, Lauren and I went to the Port Captain’s office to start the check-in process. We’d read that they would try to force you to use an agent ($200 to stand beside you while you fill in paperwork) even though it’s not legally required, so we were hoping to avoid doing that and also to get cleared in before evening so we could go ashore. A Navy guy in the office saw us looking around, yelled “Amigos!” and motioned for us to come into the building we’d just passed. He told us to head back to the boat and they’d be there in half an hour or so with a doctor. We returned to the boat and after a while, three guys showed up with surgical masks on and cam aboard. They were very friendly and after shaking hands we were all examined by the “doctor”, who listened in about 8 places with the stethoscope as we breathed in and then asked us a series of questions intended to help determine whether we have swine flu. We all passed and then the 3rd guy explained that he was an agent, blah, blah, blah. I was ready and told him our understanding was that per Article 50 of the Ecuadorian legal code, since we have less than 10 passengers and are not a commercial ship, we’re not required to use an agent. He referred to the uniformed guy from the Port Captain’s office us who told us in so many words that we have to use an agent. I tried telling the agent thanks and we’d give him a call in the morning if we need him, but he and the uniformed guy explained it was “better” to get started right now. Ahh well, $120 and Javier is going to handle all the paperwork and office visits for us. Cruisers don’t generally like to be grouped with the other “tourists”, but like them, we’re a source of dollars for the local economy and everyplace has different requirements, schemes, etc. for moving the dollars ashore.
After doing some repair work Wednesday morning, we joined Wes & Tiff ashore, stopped at an Internet cafe and a tour shop, and then had a walk around town. While we were at the Internet cafe, Ecuador beat Argentina in what was apparently an important soccer match. From the sound of things it was a 2-0 victory. After the game, people started driving around town in an impromptu parade with cars, scooters, pick-ups with people in the back, etc. Everyone was honking and cheering, making what appeared to be laps around the small town for about 30-45 minutes or so. A local news guy even came out and held up the procession long enough for a couple of quick interviews.
Celebrating Ecuador´s soccer win in World Cup play
Because of the protected nature of the park, we’re not allowed to take our own boat to visit anywhere without a formal permit and about $1000/day in fees, so we’re planning to take advantage of the local tourist industry It was looking like an all-inclusive, 3-4 day local cruise to several of the islands was going to be too expensive for us when we found a good deal on visiting the large island, Isabela. We can get 2 days of excursions, transportation, hotels, and food for $170 each, so we’re planning on doing that soon. We’ve also found out about some cool things to do here on Santa Cruz, so there should be some fun sightseeing in our future.
Around town, we found lots of tourist gifts and excursion shops near the bay and an interesting town behind it. We walked by a nice Adventist church close to the bay, which may explain the good variety of vegetarian and fake meat food on the menus at many of the restaurants. We stopped at a few of the grocery stores the locals use and found potatoes and onions for $0.50/pound, which made us happy. Imported food is a little pricey, but the locally grown produce is cheap. We also found a bakery that sells 6-7 sandwich-sized pieces of bread for a dollar, so we picked up 6 croissants for a buck and headed for some dinner.
We met Wes & Tiff and went to a street we’d found that has local restaurants on each side for about 100 yards or more. In the evening, tables and chairs are set in the sidewalks and street and it makes for a nice atmosphere and great food. Our brother Tim donated to the “give the girls a break from cooking dinner” cause again and we picked an “Asian” restaurant to enjoy his generosity. In fact, we were hard-pressed to find anything Asian about the restaurant aside from some of the decor, but after a series of menu questions we enjoyed a tremendous dinner (veggie soup: $1.5, veggie omelet: $2, side of fries: $1.5, lobster dinner with rice, fries, and salad: $8, seafood platter with fish, octopus, shrimp, scallops, fries, & salad: $9, etc., etc.). Not a bad way to end the day. Thanks Tim! We may have to add a Paypal button to our site…
Lobster Dinner
Check out the “Photos” link at the top of hte page for more pics of the town.
Well, that last passage was certainly a long one. We spent 11 days at sea and traveled almost 1,200 miles despite that the rhumb line from Panama to the Galapagos is only about 860 miles. For many of those miles (130 hours worth), we were motoring, and we were almost constantly beating into the wind. Nevertheless, it was pretty pleasant, at least to me. I think we are getting used to this whole sailing thing. The lethargy wore off after a few days after which I felt fully functional in the sense that I could read, write, cook, clean, and sleep without being too bothered by the motion of the boat. Granted, we didn’t see any seriously big waves on this passage, but we did pound into 6′ waves, which would have left half of the crew feeling queasy at best on prior passages. Instead, we all went about our business for the most part, and thanks to the movies provided by our good friend Brian Kopan, no one was tempted to jump overboard out of sheer boredom. (Thanks, Kope!)
We kept the watch system the same as we had on the previous passage: 3 hour shifts during the day, 2 1/2 hour shifts at night. This seems to work very well for us, as we would rotate through the worst shifts (i.e., those in the middle of the night) without feeling like our sleep schedule was too disturbed.
Over the weekend, we had perfect sailing conditions. The sea was glassy, and at last the current was in our favor! It was not uncommon for us to exceed 7 knots under these conditions, and at one point, Dallas saw us reach 8.1 when on a beam reach (sailing perpendicular to the wind). After so many days of rocking and rolling, it amazed us to be moving so quickly yet so smoothly.
Can you believe this sunset?
We had more marine animal sightings as well. One afternoon we all got to see a mama dolphin (presumably) with her baby, who appeared to be attached to her hip as they darted through our wake. I also had a close encounter with a flying fish that flew on board duing one of my middle-of-the-night watches, scaring me to the point that I ran back into the cabin as fast as I could! It then flopped its way onto the cockpit floor, right into my field of vision. I then had no choice but to muster up the courage to go back out and toss it overboard.
Dallas had the best recent sighting, though. As we were approaching the Galapagos, he saw a large (5′ across) manta ray jump out of the water and spin around before finally splashing back into the water. What a sight!
Manta rays put on a great show
But the dolphins may have shown them up!
Booby birds battle it out on the bow
We are hoping to see more of these amazing creatures while we are here in one of the most renowned places in the world for wildlife observation. We just need to find the most economical way to get into the park, as they charge exorbitant fees to take your own boat. In the meantime, Dallas has managed to attack several of the items on the boat maintenance to-do list. Just today, he has already cut off a chafed part from the main halyard and whipped the new end, fished out two broken reef lines from the boom and reran them, and resolved a clogging problem with the electric head.
We only have a few things left to resolve on this stop:
–diving on the prop to remove any remaining fishing line (Wes already dove on it while underway so we´re probably good)
–addressing a problem with the mast not being aligned in the boot (let’s hope this isn’t too serious)
–sewing up the busted trampoline (I think that’s a job for me)
–assessing why the port engine oil pressure alarm goes off when engine is in idle
–repairing the broken hatch frame in Wes and Tiff’s berth (our leaky hatch is holding for now thanks to some duct tape)
This is not an intimidating list compared to what we have dealt with on previous stops. Pura Vida seems to be in pretty good shape considering the beating that she just endured. With any luck, we will manage to shove off from here before we get too comfortable…
Hi everyone. We just wanted to let you all know we´ve made it into the nice little town at Academy Bay on Isla Santa Cruz after a great last few days. We´re tired, but just had a tasty dinner and are checking our e-mail. We´ll post a blog and more pics tomorrow.
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