Galapagos

Passage Panama to French Polynesia, day 7, 26-March: Pit stop in Galapagos to refuel.

After the last 3 tranquil days motoring across glassy seas, today we have far more to talk about.
At midnight we are gently sailing in 5-10kts on the port beam, AWA 30-60 degrees about 20nm NE of Isla Cristobal. My usual cat napping is highly disturbed because we are endeavoring to sail slowly so that we have daylight when passing Isla Cristobal. The trouble is the wind shifts and varies its speed under each puffy cloud. So, one minute the loosely trimmed sails are powered nicely and the next they are flapping with sheets banging on deck. I tried sailing with autohelm on wind-angle but that put our course all over the place, like we’re being steered by a drunken sailor!
At one point the genoa completely backed itself while I was napping, forcing the boat to turn 120 degrees to port, firmly putting it into a hove-too position, with boat speed zero. I was pretty confused when I woke to find it dead still in the water, face the opposite way than it’s heading. So, I left it there, drifting in the 1/2 kt current while I finished my nap!

All in all, our speed timing worked well, nicely placing us at the eastern end of Cristobal at dawn.
By 8am with the sun a little higher we saw the full glory of a Galapagos island for the first time. Not necessarily beautiful but definitely majestic and interesting – especially for a geologist like me. Lots of low sloped volcanic cones, and clouds forming over the higher volcano at the western end. Above all you immediately get the sense of zero human footprint. No buildings, no roads, no communication towers, no boats, nothing. It’s very easy to imagine this is exactly how the first mariners, and Darwin himself would have seen it.

As we get into the wind shadow of the island our speed drops to nothing, and we drift there for a while in the peace of a glassy sea. This is where we get visited by our first Galapagos sea lions, coming to the surface for air and to say hello, then gracefully ducking back down again, only to pop back up the other side of the boat a minute later. Then a pod of dolphins, plus lots of birds around. We guess this must be the typical “welcome committee for Galapagos”.

As we gently motor west along the north coast of Cristobal we fly the drone. Lovely to see Cloudy Bay gently motoring with the island and sunrise in the background but unfortunately filming into the morning sun didn’t give the result we really hoped for.
Landing the drone back on a moving boat is always tricky. And by “landing” I actually mean getting it as close as possible then catching it and quickly flipping it 90deg to stop the propellers. It’s almost impossible to actually land it onto a moving boat. Especially a sailboat with its many obstacles. Oana normally does the catching but last time her fingers got whacked by the blades and she has been rightly put off this task. At the time, as she squealed in pain, I said “surely it can’t hurt that much?” Well today I learned! I got my own fingers bitten when I caught it. Ouchy ouchy, that DID hurt! My two fingers throbbed for at least the next few hours plus I had to install a new propeller blade.

Midway along the north coast of Cristobal is Kicker Rock: a huge chuck of rock that juts vertically out the sea. Famous for tourists diving on its steep drop-off where there are always thousands of hammerhead sharks. I did contemplate stopping there for a snorkel but there is no place to secure the boat. Impossible to anchor (>100m depths) and no mooring buoys. So instead, we motored as close as we dared and again flew the drone. This time, pointing away from the sun, the footage was perfect.
Yet again I had an incident catching it. This time I grabbed it but didn’t flip it fast enough and it forced its way out of my grip and started flying upwards at 45deg towards the boom. Instinctively I threw up my arm to stop it hitting the boom. It worked and the drone fell to the deck, but not before its propellers sliced 2 cuts into my arm ☹️. I think in future I’ll just stick to Oana catching it!
Come to think of it, most of our injuries on board have been drone related! Oana has clocked up 1 broken toe (don’t ask how!) and 2 propeller clipped fingers. Me: clipped fingers and lacerated arm. And all flying from the moving boat.

By 09:30 we were at Galapagos’ capital town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the west end of Cristobal. Its Wreck Bay is full of tourist boats plus maybe 20 cruising yachts. We anchor among them and contact our agent.
And of course, I cannot resist jumping into the clean turquoise water on the pretense of checking the anchor. The water here is 28degC. Lovely and warm but not like the steamy hot water (30degC) near the Central American coast. Below the boat are lots of fish, all brightly coloured.
I extended my swim to quickly wipe the green slime off the waterline. For just a fuel stop the authorities apparently don’t care. But for a full check-in and stay, yachties are advised to dive and clean their hull before arriving to Galapagos waters. Because if on check in they find anything on your hull you are sent 40nm offshore with a diver to get it cleaned … at some exorbitant cost.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the swimming and cleaning. While doing this I had 2 very friendly sea lions come and investigate me. They’d come right up to me, almost touch their nose on me then dive down, around the keel and back out the other side. This sequence was repeated several times. It was almost like they were asking me to play peek-a-boo! A pretty cool experience.

At 10am the agent, Danny, arrived by water taxi. He took photos of our documents and passports, discussed how much fuel we need and took our provisioning request list, for some fresh fruit. He then left with our $1,000 cash (400 fees and permits, 600 the fuel) and said he’d be back in the afternoon with the fuel once he had got all the permits arranged.
When he returned late afternoon, in a water taxi, he had 100 gallons of fuel in containers, a hose, nozzle and pump. It was the slowest refill we have ever done! But we were happy to calculate that with our frugal motoring at low RPM and Gori prop in overdrive, our consumption was only 4.9litres per hour. Normally motoring we consume 6 per hour. Quick recalculations, using 5Ltr/hour revised our range up to 9 days motoring. Good news for where we are about to venture. There won’t be any more “gas stations” for quite some time.

By the book, we are allowed to stop no longer than 12 hours and absolutely not allowed to go ashore. But graciously they allow us to depart at sunrise tomorrow. We could have easily set off again after refueling but it was very pleasant just to rest and take it easy for the evening and top up on a good night’s sleep.

Around sunset we sat on the foredeck and watched the glorious sky colours while the town gradually lit up. We kind of wished we could go ashore, but it has at least inspired us to visit here again one day, using Oana’s method next time: jet plane!
Of all the towns we have anchored next to, each has its own special sounds. In the Caribbean it was the thump-thump of reggae. Some islands it was dogs barking. Mexico was definitely cockerels crowing – like all night! But here in Galapagos it’s the sound of sea lions growling as they roam freely through the town. Their grungy growls are not too dissimilar to camels. Like cows in India, they own the town without fear, even occupying park benches. At one point, the catamaran anchored in front of us had to shoo a sea lion off its stern scoop! So I made doubly sure our own swim platform was up for the night.

We turn into bed at cruisers midnight (9pm!) and immediately slept like babies.