Galapagos

Monday 3rd March

We have now been on Santa Cruz in the Galapagos islands for a few days. 1st impressions of Puerto Ayora were that it is a small town, better than most of the other South American ones we have seen.

We arrived on Thursday, having motored the whole leg, which was a disappointment, but not unusual. We were met by Yvonne, the World ARC agent here. A very efficient lady with excellent English. In no time she had arranged our refuelling and inspection for possible fumigation for Tuesday. This is done for the same reasons as Australia, bio poisoning by strange creatures. Ecuador has gone to a lot of time, trouble and expense to remove non-native animals from several of the islands, and re-introduced native species that were wiped out by predators.

We have been busy. Fiona & David took us all, me, Val, Daire & Marcel, up to the Charles Darwin research centre. There we photographed the giant tortoises, including the famous George, of approx 160 years old. We were informed that his live-in companions, who we didn't see, are called Georgia & Georgina! The number of Iguanas is incredible, both the land and marine varieties. They are everywhere, there are even statues to them!

Yesterday it was off to the beach, after seeing Daire away to catch his plane to Quito and thence on to London. The beach is about a 4 k walk in the heat. We are only about 40 miles south of the Equator here, but it was definitely worth the struggle. The most incredibly fine white sand you will ever see, and the sea was so beautiful, both to look at and to swim in. We all got a little sun-burned very quickly. In the evening the 4 of us went off to a Sushi restaurant. Incredible food, very well served and quite reasonable too.

Today was our 1st excursion day. Floreana was the destination. A beautiful island south of here. A guided tour following a very fast boat ride. I reckon we were doing around 25 knots in front of 2 big outboards. There was a 40 minute walk to an idyllic little cove where we all went swimming and snorkling. Besides the coves beauty it is a seal colony, so we had to be carefull not to spook the seals and provoke an international incident.

Lunch was included on the island in a restaurant. Don´t go there for the food! But then there are only 80 inhabitants on the island. This one was colonised by a German baronness and her two male companions. A long story! Back to the boat and some diversions on the way back. 1st one to a small cove. Amazing place with blue footed Boobies, miniature penguins, smaller than Philip Island, seals of course and who knows what else that we didn't see. Further on is a volcanic cone submerged by the sea, but the very top still visible and breaking down. Into the water again, swimming with sharks (White tips) and sealions. Amazing. Someone else saw a turtle, and of course there were shoals of fish. These were all the tropical ones you see in fish tanks at home. I even saw a star fish moving.