Snorkeling Highlight of our Lives (to date)

We think we've figured out how to stay here in the Galapagos, see what we need/want to see, and not break the bank.  Bolivar is the MAN!!!  We've now taken his advice on the second tour of the island, and this one was definitely worth the price of admission.

In his own words, Bolivar is our agent and believes that his job is fix our problems, and in general make our life while here on Cristobal as perfect as it can be.  He always offers to take our trash to town, he's fixed our fumigation paperwork, and he has ensured that the Park officials are happy with the state of the boat.  The latest in his recommendations was a "buddy" of his, who has a boat for touring the islands, and for fishing.  Along with our gang of six, Bolivar showed up with a 3-pak of Ecuadorians and we were away for a day of fishing, snorkeling, and beaching.

The ONLY man to know in town!

Bolivar and his captain friend were keen to do a bit of fishing along the way, so at various times they threw their hooks out.   With the exception of a "bambini" barracuda, they were thwarted in catching everyone a bit of yellowfin for a sushi dinner.  However....

The day started out by heading directly away from Cristobal, past the only two sailboats in the harbour, and out to a rock that all of us sailors had seen coming into port.  

No photoshopped colour - Sundancer and Mar de Luz

The Rock - A Baby Island with it's own light

Due to an entire flock of petrels showing the way, the guys were hoping for a few strikes here but it was not to be.

This island, called Leon Dormido was our destination.  The Sleeping Lion didn't look too much like its namesake, but the gap was the site for our snorkeling adventure.  It's known for hammerheads and other types of sharks, which we all hoped to see, sort of.  

Leon Dormido

We saw what we came to see.  It was truly like being in the middle of a Galapagos documentary.  The rays of the sun shining down through to the depths, the deep blue colour, the vertical walls of the rocks plunging to the sea floor, and a layering of marine life; the six of us snorkeling at the surface, the marine turtles lazily swimming just below, second floor down were the spotted rays, which looked to be about 4-5 feet in diameter, and then the sharks.  All those sharks!  None of knew how many there were, but suffice it to say that there were "enough".  Slowly patrolling the channel, these guardians were obviously well fed, as the countless schools of fish, the turtles, us....they just didn't seem too interested in any of it.  For which we are grateful!  

Ron was able to take some pretty amazing footage on our GoPro, which due to slow internet upload speeds here, you can find via this link on YouTube, if you are interested.  

http://youtu.be/lNmo7BATyCc

http://youtu.be/qRHXzsMeaYE

Consider our minds blown, and despite what friends have said about the sea life we will be seeing in the upcoming months, we wonder if anything will ever be able to top this. 

Another stop, but this time at a deserted island, complete with lots of interesting plant growth patterns.  At first, when I saw them on the beach, I was sure it must have been someone's handiwork, but further into the mangroves, we came upon this under the water.

 

As I mentioned, Bolivar is a good man to know.  We had wandered through town upon our arrival, inquiring at various tour agencies about a trip out to Leon Dormido, and had gotten quotes in the range of $75-100 per person.  We had our own snorkeling gear and wetsuits, we didn't need a picnic lunch, and we had Bolivar - the cost was $84 for the both of us for this 6 hour excursion.   

It looks like we'll be moving on in the next day or two.  We've decided, after much discussion to bypass Santa Cruz.  Although this is the place that has the most tours, and supposedly is a very lively town, we've also heard that the anchorage is crap, being quite rolly.  There are moorings, but friends on Aros Mear, after a very uncomfortable night, decided that anchoring was better.  As the anchoring area is very small and tight, a stern anchor is needed to keep your boat from swinging into other close-by neighbors.  We don't really like tight, and we're not here to be a part of a lot of tourists, so we'll just head over to the westernmost island, Isabela.  Plans today include replenishing provisions we've used up in the last 3 weeks since leaving Bahia, as well as to top off the 15 gallons of diesel we've used up so far.

Until next time....

Rules, Regulations, and having a personal "fixer"

For all coming behind us.....

Entering the drizzly bay yesterday morning, we found the free yellow moorings the National Park provides to all visiting sailboats. There is a bollard on the mooring, which you tie your own lines to. Very sturdy, very practical, and even better, the price is right. After a quick radio call to "El Capitania del Puerto, El Capitania del Puerto, este es el velero Sundancer", we made our presence known. I did send an email via sideband to our agent Bolivar (more on him later) to let him know that we had arrived, and within 2 hours, he showed up with the Port Captain, a diver and a woman from the Health Department.

As explained by Bolivar, the Galapagos actually operates as it's own entity. The rules are extremely strict, and are frankly in a complete 180 degree turnaround from the very recent past, when tortoises were hunted and killed almost to extinction to provide oil for lighting the streets of Guayaquil. While the woman from the Health Department looked in all our cupboards, and took photos of our trashcan, a scuba diver was insecting the bottom of the boat, while at the same time the Port Captain was quizzing us on our holding tanks, and safety equipment. He told us he didn't want us to die in Ecuadorian waters, so.....out came the certification of radio license, the registration of our EPIRB, the paperwork regarding our most recent life raft inspection (fortunately done in Manta a few months ago), inspection of flares, and life jackets, and interestingly, our "papers detailing our Mariner's Qualifications". Now this is a joke, as neither Ron nor I are certified as anything (well, perhaps insane, but nothing else). We reckon we've come all the way down from Oregon with this boat, is this not certification enough that we know how to get from point A to point B? A bit of quick thinking on my part, and I pulled out an Oregon Boating Certification card, that I had obtained while I was huddled in a hotel room outside of Vancouver, BC, in order to add legitimacy to my need/ability to be in the states with our new boat. Sure enough, he copied that number down. Paperwork, people, dazzle them paperwork and perhaps a bit of bullshit.

You just never know.....

...and now we come to hiding pineapples.

Unlike in crossing the Panama canal where you are able to handle all of your own paperwork, here in Ecuador it is a requirement to have an agent when you leave/arrive into any port. Based on internet and personal recommendations, we chose Bolivar. Bolivar Pesantes. A bit like James, James Bond. Bolivar is a "fixer" and it was a lesson in watching him finesse the officials on our arrival.

As an example, it is required to have a fumagation done on your boat, prior or just after your arrival here. Stupidly, we just assumed it was for cockroaches, and any bugs in general we might have here on the boat. When the Health Department lady inquired (in spanish) "What do you do about mosquitos?", I pulled out the screens we throw over the hatches, and the mosquito repellent. Actually, she was wondering about our fumigation, but the fumigation we had had done in Bahia de Caraquez, prior to departure, did not have the "product" used during the procedure indicated. Bolivar kept mouthing "tranquilo, tranquilo" to me during this entire exchange. By the time they left, we had gone from "you need to have a fumigation today" to...."we'll call again to the company on Monday."

Another example....we had been told, and rumour had it, that upon arrival, the bottom of your boat needed to be clean, or they would point you back out to the ocean, telling you to go 70 miles offshore and "deal with it". We took the rumours seriously, which is the reason we stopped about 50 miles from seeing San Cristobal and jumped overboard to give the bottom a quick once over. Well, the scuba diver that Bolivar brought with him took a GoPro down under the boat, and then uploaded the images to his phone afterwards, sitting on our poop deck. In a quiet "aside", Bolivar told me to go back down, "this afternoon", and continue to clean, collecting various barnacles in a plastic bag, which he would collect the next day (today). We did, and he did, and the National Park guy's arrival today for yet another inspection, progressed without incident. We have now been given the all clear, and as Bolivar said, we are "free men".

Fruits and vegies....pretty strict here regarding the imporation of anything. Bolivar had said that the 2 pineapples we had needed to be stuck away in the refrigerator, and that bunch of bananas we had been slowly working our way through, yup, get those in the refrigerator too. Trash is all to be separated, and we needed to show them our "recycling bins", also known as plastic bags. I had remembered reading something about this, and had one bag with a few beer bottles in it, one bag with a plastic bottle, and my bin in the galley with organic waste. We were given the thumbs up.

We've nicknamed Bolivar, "the fixer".

So now we only have one more thing to worry about....and in typical fashion, it's about money. Every dollar bill we had on board went to Bolivar for all the fees collected by the Galapagos from private boaters, all $1185 of them. We came up $45 short, as the banks in Bahia had run out of money due to the holdays when we were withdrawing money. Not only do we now owe our agent $45, but today when we went ashore, the ATM refused to cooperate. Of course, tomorrow is Saturday, and then Sunday, so hopefully by Monday we'll have this money thing sorted. We're going to rely on our personal "fixer" to come to our rescue. If not, we can't even pay the water taxi guy the $1 to get to shore.

Cruising is sooooo very exotic.

Bolivar told us that if we needed help, that's what he was there for. We're going to make him earn his fee.

And then there was Darwin

I'm now in Galapagos mode.  We are aiming to get out of here mid-November, to start our long awaited journey west, and the first stop is ....the Galapagos.  It's on everyone's bucket list, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We've read other boat blogs, and seen photos of the wildlife, but in order to do it ourselves, we get to do more paperwork.

The fees have put some cruisers off, as it's not a free anchorage situation that we're talking about here.  Cruisers, for some reason, are known for being cheap.  Perhaps not even cheap, but miserly.  We rely on the free sunshine for power, and after the initial cost, we can make our own water.  With no rent on throwing out an anchor, no mortgage fees for a paid off boat, no car or car insurance, and all the accompanying fuel and toll fees and oil changes eliminated, we can live on a much reduced monthly allowance than we did while on land.  When someone asks us to pay ANYTHING, it can be a shock, so a price tag of close to $1000 (for us, $1085 to be exact) to throw out our anchor in waters deemed to be available to anyone with a visa, is an adjustment.  However, we simply can't imagine anyone sailing close by these islands that have so captured the imaginations of generations of scientists, and given rise to so many world-wide arguments about Darwin's "Theory of Evolution", without stopping.  In the whole scheme of things, the "pay to play" bill we have been handed is a pittance, and we are happy to pay.

What do we get for $1085?  We get to spend 3 months in this pristine natural environment, interacting on an "up close and personal" level with iguanas, sea lions and penguins.  Yes, we've been "up close and personal" with all of those in the past, but surely you can see that being able to count yourself among the lucky few that have been to THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, has some bragging rights' merit.  We get to visit three separate islands, and the fees include various agencies, gov't officials, the picking up of trash, the inspection of our boat to make sure there is no contraband, the services of our agent Sr. Bolivar Pesantes who will submit all fees and paperwork to the appropriate officials (and for anyone that has been to Latin America this alone is worth it's weight in gold) and our national park fees.....(we paid $105 each when we went to visit Peru's archaeological sites, too) so in reality, it's understandable, and we are willingly handing over the cash.

In preparation, we have to stop some 40 miles offshore and do an additional scrub of our boat bottom to make sure we are not importing strange 3 headed-pests, we need to separate our trash (we do that in Canada, so no problem there) but other than that, we're pretty well set.

Our reading lists for the next few months include Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos, Eric Simon's Darwin Slept Here, and a dipping of the proverbial toe into The Origin of Species.  Of course, tales of the Kontiki and Thor Heyerdahl, and anything having to do with The Bounty and James Cook are to be followed soon after.  Books open up my world, and have lead us to visit many places in Mexico and South America that we wouldn't have known to visit.

For those of you reading this blog who have no intention of exploring the world in a sailboat (it really is NOT for everyone), good authors can give everyone a glimpse of this fantastic world we live in, whether we are "up close and personal" with it, or whether our imaginations are fired from the cozy confines of an armchair.  The only thing I know is that watching the grass grow, (and then having to mow it) and keeping a fastidiously clean house, is not the way I want to live my life.  In the words of Irma Bombeck, I will NOT have on my headstone "ah, but she kept a clean house". 

To all you non-housekeepers out there, the world is a wild and wonderful place!