Isla Isabella

We had our autografo—our special permit allowing us to go to 5 ports—we were one of the last boats allowed that this year—the Galapagos rules, being Ecuador rules and in keeping, change day by day for no apparent reason are no longer issued—boats now go to all kinds of trouble having to invent boat problems which will allow them to go to a second port.
We headed to Floreana for a few days. It is a small island with only 100 inhabitants and no tours set up to the major attractions—we were promised a trip to the Devils Crown which is meant to be one of the best snorkeling areas in the Galapagos but the panga never came. We did get to go to the highlands and see more turtles but were disappointed with our trip there so headed back to San Cristobel after 2 days to deal with our latest issue—our tax reassessment. The Canadian government had decided to audit our rental property for 2005 and 2006 and as we had not been able to come up with the receipts in time had reassessed our taxes!!! We had our neighbor from Saltspring go through all of our things and locate the relevant receipts and are now in the process of trying to have an accountant get it all together and represent it to Revenue Canada. Definitely not what we needed when all we want to do is retire and sail into the sunset. After many phone calls and emails we felt it was under control enough to go off to Isla Isabella where we are unable to get internet but is the sailor’s choice of islands.
We had an overnight sail and anchored in a very sheltered lagoon beside the town. This is the largest of the islands but with a small population and not visited as much by the tourist boats. We had our morning cup of tea to the sound of the boobies dive bombing into the sea right beside us, the sea lions and the cutest penguins swimming around our boat all fishing for their breakfast.
There were 20 boats in the harbour---9 of them catamarans—the percentage of catamarans has astonished us since we arrived in Panama—they come through the canal to continue to Polynesia. We had been the exception previously on the Pacific side of North and Central America. More and more monohulls owners come onto our boat and are very envious of the space and easy lifestyle our boat affords us and talk of “their next boat”. The flags of the boats are much more varied, lots of Dutch, German, Danish, Swiss, English boats and a few New Zealand and Australian boats on their way home after circumnavigating the world.
We joined with an Australian boat and did a tour of the reefs behind us—they are alive with blue footed boobies, penguins and of course sea lions—these are less aggressive than those on the other islands and we have been able to do away with the spike belt system we had been using to keep them off our boat. We went snorkeling and saw white tip reef sharks and rays. The walk onshore was past many iguanas—these are smaller than the other islands—seems each island has totally different species of most animals—this led to Darwin questioning and come up with his theory of evolution---the adaptation is very apparent here and quite amazing.
The next day we joined them and a British boat and took a panga for a fast 45 minute trip to the volcanic tunnels. These have been formed by flowing lava which hardens on the outside and allows the molten lava to continue to flow through creating a weird system of tubes and tunnels. We explored these—other than sea turtles they are pristine and barren but are an amazing sight. The water was very cold but we donned our wetsuits and snorkeled under and through the tunnels. He then took us to a warmer lagoon which was full of more turtles and rays that we have ever seen in one place. We snorkeled and suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a school of about 12 eagle rays. It was amazing to be amidst so many, the largest was about 8 feet wide. There were a huge number of turtles as well and I swam right up to one who was sleeping on the surface before he realized and slowly descended as I watched him. As seems to be the case with most Galapagos creatures these were larger than any we have been close to before.
We spent the next couple of days doing boat projects and then went exploring some of the other island attractions.
The walk to the giant tortoise centre was interesting—there are 4 varieties of tortoise there and the largest are 150years old. ET’s face was copied from them—obvious when you know. Godzilla was filmed using the local iguanas—it is the land of cartoon characters.
One lagoon has a lonely flamingo—they are migratory and I think he missed the leaving date. He is very beautiful and we enjoy seeing him each day when we go to town---update on the flamingo—Betsy from Qayaq saw 4 yesterday so we have to go check them out—hope they haven’t migrated somewhere else before we get there!!---saw 2 the next day.
We took our bikes and did a bike ride to the Wall of Tears. It was built when the island was a penal colony and the convicts were forced to build and take down the wall to serve their sentence—it is a very desolate hot area and one wonders why the labour was not put to better use and they could have built water systems or housing. There are many small side trails on the route which lead either to lovely little pristine white sandy beaches with iguanas on the sand on the one side and wetlands with some birds on the other. The road sign for the iguana’s crossing is very cute—we did have 3 crossing the day we went to the volcano.
Another major trip was to the volcano—an hour by bus and then 8 of us from various sailboats mounted the poor underfed tired looking horses to ride to the top for the next hour. We then walked around the rim of the volcano which is the 2nd largest crater in the world to a smaller crater of a nearby one. The whole area was desolate and made one think of a moonscape. There are a number of vents which are still venting warm steam and it is all quite eerie. After lunch we got back to our horses and rode them back to the bus and back to a welcome beer and milkshake at my favorite milkshake place---she is out of blackberry now as I had made the mistake of telling other boats about how great they were and so I am forced to have banana—we also made the mistake of telling other cruisers where the $1 cans of beer were and they are all sold out too!!!!
Shopping in these islands is interesting---one day they will be out of everything and then a supply will come in and you are inundated with a particular item but something else will have sold out. The planning does not seem to be systematic and even though yogurt has suddenly become prolific –none the first week we were here---the beer (bottled is still available) will not be in for another week or two. Flour was out the other week so the bakery could not bake!! To buy 10 items you go to the 15 tiendas (stores) and you may find 8 of the items but only one item at each store.
The number of the boats has thinned as they head off to the Marquesas and as the number decreased the camaraderie increased. We became friendly with many other sailors and our friends Qayaq who we first traveled with in Mexico are right beside us.
Our SSB (single side band) radio has proven to be one of the furthest reaching for the boats in the region and Ken has been relaying positions of the boats as they head south and check in each morning to report their progress and weather—we all follow this as we will be going soon and track them to get the best routing for ourselves when we leave. He hosts the “net” on Mondays and has become quite the expert at keeping the net controlled and moving quickly. We enjoy hearing from our new and old friends in this way.
Our generator has stopped producing power and so we are recharging our batteries with our engines which takes a lot more fuel so have bought more jerry cans and can now carry almost 200gals. Diesel here is $1 04 a gallon (Ecuador subsides it---French Polynesia at $7 a gallon does not!!!) We will try and find a small generator in Santa Cruz but if we can’t we will be running as little as possible—we need our autopilot and 1 fridge.
Santa Cruz is our last stop here where we will restock, make sure our tax situation is under control and then head to the Marquesas which will be a three week 3000 mile passage—one of the longest we will undertake on our ongoing voyage.