Friday, April 6.<\/p>\n
We are anchored in Puerto Villamil on the island of
\nIsabella. It is a very pretty anchorage although still a bit
\nrolly (although not nearly as much as Academy Bay was in the
\nlast three days we were there). Sea lions swim by the boat
\nlooking for fish, boobies dive bomb into the water looking for
\nthe same, and this morning Laura was startled to find two
\nGalapagos penguins checking her our out while she dangled her
\nfeet off the transom. Let me first update events since the last
\nblog entry.<\/p>\n
On Monday we spent a few hours provisioning. It took us
\nless time than we thought because there was not that much to buy
\nin the stores, and we have quite alot of foodstuffs that be
\nbought in Panama, Bonaire, and the French Caribbean. At the
\nMercado Municipale, we bought a huge stalk of bananas (we could
\nnot resist the price — $3). They were all very green on Monday
\nbut about half are ripe today and the rest will be ripe tomorrow
\nso we have some serious banana eating to do. We bought lots of
\noranges, tomotos, peppers, and pineapple. The problem is that
\nwe do not expect to start our Pacific crossing until Tuesday or
\nWednesday next week, so that most of these will have to be eaten
\nbefore then. I spent some hours looking for a filter element
\nfor a ZF Hurth gearbox with no luck. We had arranged to meet
\nour agent, Johnny Romero, on the boat at 3 pm to get our
\nclearing out papers and settle up our debts but he could not
\nmake it. It was not until after 7pm that he sent Javier and
\nManolo to the boat with our passports and documents, and not
\nuntil 8:30 pm that we got our laundry. Somewhat to my surprise,
\nat 5:45 pm “Macaroni” showed up at the boat to clean the bottom.
\n Macaroni runs a dive shop in Puerto Ayora, and Craig of
\n“Patriot” had spent some days trying to get him to clean the
\nbottom of Patriot and of Sabbatical III. He would show up and
\nsay he would be right back with a tank of air and then not
\nreturn. You could never find him at the dive shop as we was
\nalways taking tourists out for dives. But there he was just
\nbefore sundown ready to go. I had him change the zinc anodes
\nfirst and then as the sky darkened he went to work on the
\nbottom. I cannot imagine how he could see anything down there
\nbut he said that he cleaned it well by touch. He had an
\nassistant with a snorkel clean the water line. They both worked
\nfeverishly for 45 minutes and asked for $40 for their efforts —
\nan exceptionally good deal. (Just now, Laura checked out the
\nbottom and said is was very clean). That afternoon we had a
\nchat with the German couple (Uva and Beatrice) in the boat next
\nto ours and they said they were planning to go to Isabella as
\nwell the next morning. They hauled in their stern anchor that
\nevening so that they could get an early start. As soon as they
\ndid, their boat turned broadside to the swells and started to
\nroll in a most uncomfortable fashion. They later told us that
\nthey could not sleep in the roll. We left our stern anchor in
\nfor the night.<\/p>\n
Tuesday morning was exceptionally cold and foggy. We wore
\nlong sleeved shirts at breakfast and delayed preparations for
\nleaving because of the poor visibility. We talked with Uva and
\nhe said that they did not want to leave in the fog and would
\nstay another day. The issue was not so much with leaving
\nAcademy Bay in limited visibility, which is not very hard to do,
\nbut entering Puerto Villamil. There are shoals of black
\nvolcanic rock all around the anchorage and the charts are very
\npoor. The fog started to lift at 9 am so we quickly hauled in
\nboth anchors and headed out. There was no wind the whole way so
\nwe motored, The fog burned off after an hour and it was a very
\npretty ride to Isla Isabella. We had a pod of dolphins with us
\nfor a short while, plus big sting rays leaping into the air. It
\nwas perfectly clear when we entered the anchorage at Puerto
\nVillamil and most of the other sail boats at anchor were boats
\nwe recognized from Academy Bay, including a trio of Austrian
\nboats, and a couple of American guys from California in their
\nearly twenties who many of us refer to as the “dudes” since that
\nword is such an important part of their vocabulary. We got a
\nride in to the Embarcadero from Henry, who runs Club Nautico,
\nand then a pickup truck taxi into town to do our check-in with
\nthe Ecuadorian Navy. We have done everything by the book in the
\nGalapagos. We applied for a cruisng permit months before we
\narrived (they are issued in Quito), and paid every fee required.
\nThis cost us many hundreds of dollar. It seems that some of the
\nother boats did not do this — they either just drop an anchor
\nand do not check-in, or pay something to the local port captain
\neven though a cruising permit is required to come to this
\nisland. They live is fear that they will be told to leave
\nimmediately, but that does not seem to have happened.<\/p>\n
We have not done to much on Isabella. I have developed a
\ncase of bronchitis — the first illness since leaving the USA.
\nI suspect that I got the bronchitis from “Capitan Cucharacha”,
\nthe captain of the boat that took us to Isla Floreana one week
\nago. He liked talking with me but was hacking and coughing the
\nwhole time. Fortunately, my wonderful physician Dr. Warren
\nLicht had given me a big bottle of antibiotics on which he hand
\nwrote “bronchitis”. The other limitation is that it very hard
\nto land a dinghy here and the water taxis stop running at 6 pm.
\n At low tide a dinghy has to cut an extremely circuitous course
\nto avoid going aground on jagged black volcanic rocks, and then
\nthere is no place to leave the dinghy ashore. As we anchored
\nin fairly shallow water at high tide, I was concerned that
\nSabbatical III might get too close to the bottom when the tide
\nwent out. In the morning I was pleased to see 2.0 meters of
\nwater under the hull but then dismayed when, as the boat swung
\never so gently at anchor, the depth dropped to 0.0 meters,
\nmeaning that we were touching bottom. I suspected that there
\nwas a volcanic rock that we did not spot when we first anchored.
\n Laura and I rushed on deck to look over the side for a rock
\nand saw something black right under the keel. Then we saw a sea
\nlion dive into that blackness and emerge with a silvery fish in
\nhis mouth, and then do it again. In watching more closely, we
\nrealized that that dark spot was not a rock but a large school
\nof fish trying to hide under out boat. The seal lion was not as
\neasily fooled as we were. Another boat at the anchorage reported
\nthe same thing.<\/p>\n
Yesterday morning we visited the Giant Tortoise Breeding Center
\nwhich is not far from town. There are hundreds of juvenile
\ntortoises awaiting return to the wild and a couple of dozen
\nfully grown tortoises for breeding, with many more females than
\nmales. The males grow larger, and fully grown male giant
\ntortoises are — well — giant. As Laura and I sat in the shade
\nnext to a group of females, a huge male slowly plodded his way
\nover and mounted the first female he came to. All I can say is
\nthat it was a pretty amazing show of slow motion sound and
\naction. Another male must have suddenly remembered what his
\nduties are at the breeding center, and sprung into action,
\nalthough he seemed a bit rusty. He mounted a female backwards,
\nwhich seemed to annoy her greatly, and as she tried to turn
\naround, she got it in the shoulder, before finally all the parts
\nfit. He was so energetic that he pushed the two of them
\ncompletely across the dusty pen six inches at a time.<\/p>\n
There is a beautiful trail from town to the Tortoise Breeding
\nCenter that passes three lagoons with brackish water and the
\nsulfur smell arising from volcanic activity. In one lagoon we
\nsaw three pink flamingos slowly walking and using their beaks to
\nlook for food in the mud. Where the trail hits the beach, there
\nis an enormous colony of marine iguanas. They are mostly black
\nand they rest motionless on the black volcanic rock, so one can
\nmiss seeing them. But if you look more carefully, there are
\ndozens strewn about including some very large individuals the
\nsize of small dogs.<\/p>\n
Last night Henry arranged a BBQ at his Club Nautico for the
\nsail boats in the anchorage. We attended along with the three
\nAustrian boats and our German neighbors from Academy Bay who
\narrived yesterday. The water taxi that took us back in the dark
\nat low tide kept banging into shoals but finally got us back to
\nSabbatical III. I am feeling better today but am still a bit
\nrundown from my bout with bronchitis. This is Easter weekend so
\nI am not sure if the restaurants or stores are even open. It
\ndoes not matter much as we have plenty of food on board. The
\nwind forecast has improved a few of the 10 boats in the
\nanchorage will be leaving tomorrow or Sunday for the long
\npassage across the Pacific. The German couple, Uva and
\nBeatrice, just came over in their dinghy to say goodbye. We
\nwill probably meet up with all of these boats in the Marquesas
\nin a few weeks.<\/p>\n
M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday, April 6. We are anchored in Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabella. It is a very pretty anchorage although still a bit rolly (although not nearly as much as Academy Bay was in the last three days we were there). Sea lions swim by the boat looking for fish, boobies dive bomb into … <\/p>\n