Geoff and Sue's Big Adventure

The day before we departed, the supply ship 'Galapagos' anchored out and, as they had done for hundreds of years, the ship was unloaded by small barges to the town dock. 

As we were watching them unload, Babe departed wanting to be first away and first to arrive as usual, giving a rendition of the 'Babe Boogie' on the way past us.

On the day of departure we were up early getting ready for hoisting the anchor at 08:00 for the short sail from Cristobal to Santa Cruz. As we cleared Wreck Bay we picked up Dreams Come True heading South West at the northern end of San Cristobal. Proteus were cruising around Santa Fe (Barrington Island) ahead of us with their $250 per day guide aboard.

Extremely quiet passage, Susan went to sleep as soon as we were out of Wreck Bay and didn't wake until we reached Santa Fe. Proteus had weighed anchor and was leaving Barrington Bay as we approached. We put or nose into the entrance of the bay for a look - it was beautiful. It's renown for the very large Prickly Pear Cacti and for the Croton bushes which leave dark stains on your clothes which are indelible. We also spotted some Blue Footed Boobies.

As we came back out, to resume our course, we had a call from Proteus, their guide wanted to speak to us about not being allow in the bay without a guide and that heavy fines can be made to both ourselves and our agents - we decided it was all a storm in a teacup, petty protectionism and no more. We arrived Puerto Ayora at 15:00 and anchored in 12 meters.

That evening we went ashore with Amelie, Babe and Yantina for the happy hour at the Hotel Solymar most of the other boats seemed to be there as well. We then went on to Il Giardino for something to eat before returning to the boat by water taxi.

Statistics: 30.5 miles logged (43 miles GPS); Max wind F1; Only motored; Position: 00⁰ 45.1’ S 90⁰ 18.3 W

Normal happy hour at the Solymar to catch up with everyone and chase up our fuel delivery and paperwork. Went to Isla Grill to eat with Paul, Trish & Nelius.

Went into town for the internet and then to the bank to get enough cash for our fuel delivery ($885 for 150 US gallons). Once this was paid to Debbie from Oyster, the fuel ticket was produced and we were third on the list for delivery! We went back to the boat and waited for the fuel which we ended up getting it second after Proteus. It arrived in a converted water taxi, in plastic drums and was delivered by two very cheery chaps through an electric pump.

After happy hour at the Solymar Hotel where Ricardo gave us our 'zarpe' to get from here to Isobela, ten of us went to Angermeyer Point to eat tonight. Best meal in the Galapagos but expensive!

Up early to go to the fresh fruit and vegetable market. We got the water-taxi into town, then a pickup taxi to the market for about 07:30. There was plenty of produce left so was not necessary to be there at 05:00 as we had been led to believe - there was no possibility of getting Susan there for that time!

We delivered the goods into buckets of water on the boat then returned to town for breakfast, collected drinks shopping on the way back to the boat to wait for a local engineer. Eddie had arranged for the engineer to visit us regarding a 2 mm stainless steel pad we want for the lines over the saloon eyebrow - he finally turned up at 16:40, but we never heard from him again or got the stainless steel!

We all went to the happy hour to say goodbye to everyone then went to the Bongo Bar restaurant, where the disco is held, for dinner. Tony from Wolfhound joined us and we hope we managed to cheer him up after his drawn out delays in getting fuel. He kindly paid the bill for ourselves and Babe so must have felt better!