Back in Panama we got a few boat jobs done whilst we waited for Kurt and Kirsten to join us. One being finding out where the condensate leak from the air con is coming from that is running all over the floor in the cockpit.
One day Peter and I went to the huge Albrook Mall. The biggest in South America and 25th biggest in the world. 2 km long and 4 million sq feet of shopping and food outlets (I won’t call them restaurants, they were all junk food) Quite amazing. Some of the designer brands had one store at each end. We were trying to buy biodegradable products for the inspection in The Galapagos – not easy.
The ARC boats have been reporting no wind for large periods of time then monster squalls. They are having a hard time of it. We’re hoping to avoid some of that – don’t care about the motoring bit of course. We had dinner with Brian and Lyn before they left for G and they reported conditions back to us as well.
Finally, Max left, and Kurt and Kirsten, our new crew, arrived. They got in on a Sunday afternoon and we left the next morning for The Galapagos.
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We decided to not try saving any fuel and went at 10 knots most of the way with a bit of current in our favour for three days.
Putting up anti boobie flags
Kurt’s fish - mahi mahi
We arrived on Baltra Island to the fuel dock where the agent had organised our clearing in inspections and to take on fuel. It was quite the performance – 10 officials on board: health inspectors, police, narcotics, immigration, customs, biosecurity and our agents’ agent. All were very nice and polite, however and got the job done reasonably quickly. they had to look all over the boat: food stuffs, medications, rubbish separation bags, biodegradable soaps and detergents etc, holding tanks etc etc. As bad as NZ and Australia!
the inspectors in force.
Our sea state most of the way.
Refilling bladders. this took hours as they had a silly fuel pistol that kept cutting out.
the only place you want to see a blue footed boobie - on a rock, not your boat.
Finally we made our way to Puerto Ayora and connected back up with all the WARC boats after two weeks. Kurt and Kirsten took a couple of tours on their day off which they said were interesting but underwhelming in terms of the snorkelling. We are all a bit spoilt having dived in Australia and Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. Here is it mostly turtles, boobies, sea lions and marine iguanas. Not so big on the fish and coral although there are many little black tip reef sharks – but only small.
Jeff found this in a bar!
A sea lion relaxing on “Mulan”
One of the ARC boats guys fooling around.
Marine iguanas