Galapagos: Emergency Stop, Boobies and Seals on the Boat

These darling seals are everywhere close to the docks and on fishing boats and private yachts. They are like dogs sleeping much of the day and pooping on your boat at night, but not our boat.

Lessons learned: Be careful what you think because it can affect outcomes. Yes, karma is real, and I have list of people who it seems to have forgotten about, (starting with Anthony Fauci). I thought less of yachters that were not fully prepared with extra parts of all equipment and everything in top condition. We certainly have boxes of extra parts for all sorts of things, including pumps, filters, fan belts, etc. Only a few major things missing are an extra auto-pilot and water-maker. So, of course part of the water-maker malfunctioned! Within a day of heading out from Panama toward Marquesas, we started having issues. First, we found that our diesel tanks had saltwater in them, literally gallons. This was after we transferred the diesel from our reserve tanks to the main tanks, as rotation like this is suggested before filling up. This was most likely from taking big waves over the side of the boat on our passages down from Providenciales to Bonaire.

Next, our reverse osmosis water pump motor started flipping the main breaker. Then the salt water toilets were switching off, and one developed a salt water leak to the bilge. I guess fresh drinking water and sanitary toilets may be overrated, but they are definitely needed on a 25+ day passage with no sight of land! They are also what has resulted in decrease of many infectious diseases world-wide (not vaccinations, contrary to what Big Pharma wants you to believe...sorry, I couldn't resist).

So, despite Rob convincing me that we did not need to go to Galapagos and see the tortoises, penguins, blue-footed boobies, and seals (for $4000 for a week), we were in fact going to go to Galapagos to do more boat repairs, but under an emergency stop permit. The trip still cost us at least that, but we did get a couple of new pumps and had a good rest. We were expected to leave within 20 days, and that was great since we wanted to stop only for a week, anxious to try and catch up with some of our friends we met that are now in French Polynesia. We will get there when we get there....

Even days before we arrived in Galapagos, the boobies (Sula genus) found our boat and used it much like the dolphins do, to hunt for flying fish and squid at night. many of these creatures ended up on our boat deck every night, up to seven squid and a few flying fish.

Some of the flying fish and squid that died by jumping on our boat at night. I will make gia taku print out of some.

Land Ahoy! After eight days transit from Panama to Galapagos, we spot Isla Santa Cruz in the distance.

Boobies and other birds on the water

More quiet anchorage near Los Grietas

Santa Cruz is not the largest of the Galapagos islands, but is the most populated and touristy. The main town of Puerto Ayora is loaded with travel agencies, restaurants, gift-shops, bakeries, min-markets, and even a few chandleries and marine supply centers. We were able to call/text in advance to Vikos, a local that helps yachters and to communicate with the biggest chandlery, Bodega Blanca and another, "Electro-nautico" regarding what we needed. Everyone was very helpful, even with my conversational Spanish, I learned that "bujios" are spark plugs, and "bombas" are pumps. We were happy to get info from other cruisers that had even worse emergencies, like a broken mast!

We arrived at 3 pm on Saturday and had 6 or 7 customs/immigration and agency people on board by 3:30 pm. We expected them to lock up our meat and poultry, chia seeds, honey, and inspect our medical equipment, produce, garbage, the bottom of the hull, as the bio-hazards is what they are concerned about. As it turned out, I showed them all these items and they smiled and said, "don't worry". Per the agent, they did not want us to consume it while in Galapagos, preferring that we ate ashore and purchased their products.

Immigration process

Good cop, bad cop...the tall officer to the far right of picture was very friendly, the other one not so much. When we left I gave the tall officer a "My pillow" American flag pillow and he said that I have a friend in Galapagos.

Friendly seal was chasing fish up onto the boat ramp area, delighting the local kids.

We were surprised to see seals all over the water taxi docks and various high traffic places. I was reminded of the 6 foot social distancing (yes, stay back 2 meters from the wildlife), and immediately knew where Fauci had come up with his not-so-scientific recommendations that he later admitted to pulling out of thin air.

The sign says" Don't touch or feed the animals and maintain a distance of two meters" ...seal social distancing

This teenage seal was trying to suckle the larger seal.

I think I'll take a nap...here!

Lizard love: the little one has her arm around the big one.

Prehistoric-looking critters

"orchid tree"

The police were very friendly and had this muppet to teach kids that cops are the good guys.

Playing tourist and impersonating Blue-footed booby

Beautiful carved wood !

Saint of Animals

Many of the little restaurants on "restaurant row" have the same foods, the same specials, and same happy hours. They put their foods out in the front for people to see what they are ordering. Above are scorpionfish, octopus and slipper lobsters. The quality of food in these inexpensive restaurants was variable , and a fish dinner was $12-$18

Lots of stairs and walking in the national parks

This hike round trip, was almost 5 miles.

Beautiful paved trail to beaches, lined with the huge Opuntia prickly pear cacti that are largest on Isla Santa Cruz

Marine Iguana: (Amblyrhyncus cristatus)

Pelican hunting in tide pool: (Pelicanus occidentalis urinator)

Great wide beach, perfect for kite-boarding, but we only brought our frisbee

Good surf spot at this beach

The calmer beach, though pretty devoid of much wildlife.

Resting in the mangroves

View from Eloise Restaurant next to the Cave Hotel. Very rich history as Eloise was reportedly a dutchess that came to Galapagos in 1932 with two young lovers. She and one of them disappeared and their bodies were later found on another island, reportedly died from starvation. (Not sure if I am buying that).

Eloise Restaurant overlooks the anchorage with water taxis galore, several small cruise ships and a few private yachts. We were able to tie our dingy off at their platform.

The cave hotel cut into the rocks on the shore.

Path to Las Grietas snorkel area and Finch bay

Finch bay birdlife: small duck was my favorite

Insta360 camera captures great shots, but the files are too big to put on this website!

We heard an intruder on our boat at 10 pm and Rob and I walked out to find this teenager on our trampoline at the front of the boat. He had jumped onto the back of the boat and was able to waddle up three stairs to the front of the boat. He did not have a chance to make a mess, and when I asked him to leave, he barked at me and begrudgingly jumped off the front of the boat. He and his friends came back to the sugar scoops on the back of the boat intermittently, cleaning the algae off the back step.

How could you not just love this little guy?

Rob and I wanted a good work-out, so were told that the twin craters known as Los Gemelos ("The Twins) was only a 15 mile bike from the dingy docks. It was most all uphill, and the last mile or so was a challenge, but we made it. We then biked to the Primacias Turtle Ranch and Lava Tunnels, which is next to El Chato Turtle Ranch and Lava tunnels

The Grass IS always greener

First tortoise spotted before reaching ranch...actually we saw four on the bike path leaving Puerto Aroya.

Gigantic Turtle of Santa Cruz: (Chelonoidis porteri) This male is 150-160 years old

The only turtle interaction we saw was outside the ranch, walking back from lava tunnels. Fun fact: the male turtles can weigh up to several hundred kilos and the underside of their bellies is concave so as better to balance while mating.

After we had our fill of observing the tortoises eating grass and sitting in the muddy pond, we headed for the lava tunnels. This is one of the longest ones in the area and well-lit and maintained. There was a small narrow area that Rob and I had to crouch down to get under, but otherwise pretty open.

Entrance to Lava Tunnel, pretty steep wet steps

They had tunnels well lit.

Cute little restaurant at La Primacia, after our tortoise tour

On the way back, Rob and I stopped in the town of Bella Vista, looking for Suzuki Bujias (spark plugs), and we came upon some craftsmen in the industrial zone that made beautiful wood carvings. Too big for the boat!

Sunday, the day after we arrived, none of the supply shops were open, so we were able to set up a two-tank dive day at Gordon rocks. We booked through one of the agencies in town the night before, rather than directly with the dive center right in front of the water taxi docks, so the price was $250 each, but you can save $30 each if you book direct. There is a great water taxi service that picks up people from boats and shore and delivers many places around the port for $1 per person (VHF channel 14). We did find that we could take our own dingy in and leave it tied behind water taxi floating dock #4. We did not find any evidence of seals in the boat, but they are all over the docks. It was a bit of a challenge to load two mountain bikes, two people and backpacks and bags of provisions onto the dingy, but we made it work!

We are not big fans of diving on "cattle boats" with a lot of other people since we are spoiled by having access to our own boats. However, we met four other people that were on the dive trip with us and they were from all over the world, with various levels of experience. We took a taxi to Santa Rosa area to meet the dive boat, and it was a very busy port for dive boats.

We arrived at Gordon Rocks within 40 minutes. The cliffs were homes to boobies and seals and fur seals that were tucked into the cliffs sleeping.

Look closely in the rock crevices for boobies, seals and fur seals

seal sleeping on the rocky ledges

We all had our hopes of what we would see on the dives, mainly macro-fauna: hammerheads, Galapagos, black-tip, white tip sharks, rays, etc. No one, not even the dive master, was prepared for the treat of the day: a huge whale shark!

School of huge snapper

I have been diving for 43 years and have not dived with a whale shark before! This was a rare sighting in Galapagos!

Visibility was pretty poor, 50-75 feet, but you can see spotted eagle rays and snappers

Nice school of huge snappers@

Turtle with lots of beautiful fish.

Dive and etc videos will be edited and posted through link to Youtube soon!

Oh yes, guess I should include pics of boat repairs:

Examining a switch which overheated and not one but two CO2/smoke detectors activated. The first one we thought the battery was bad, but when the other went off, we started sniffing around and found the problem. Could've been a major issue.

These bottles were used to remove all the fuel from all the tanks, 1280 liters of fuel, and filter it both into these bottles, then filter back out into the diesel tanks. Now we should have perfectly clean fuel. Cost $400 to "polish fuel", cost $7 per gallon to top of diesel tanks.

Rob's additional filter for the new diesel fuel

Replacement pump for watermaker: This had some engineering to make it work, but it does!

All in all, it was a short stop that we were glad we made. We now have a functioning watermaker and good clean fuel. We wish that we had more time to visit the other islands in the Galapagos chain that are less commercial. I doubt it would be worth another trip out here on our boat. Galapagos definitely protects their tourism industry by insuring that all visitors, including cruisers, must have a guide to do anything. Rob and I are used to traveling off the beaten path!

Looking forward to next stop: Marquesas!