Crushing Encounters

Our last few days in Galapagos were eventful to say the least! Whilst waiting for our replacement propeller (for the one that fell off on the way from Panama) we were crashed into by a Galapagos National Park boat who lost control of his engines and drifted onto us whilst we were anchored late Friday night. The massive chunk of steel managed to rip off our bow striker (important piece of the boat upfront) and left us unable to sail until it was repaired. Fun fun.

Mark & Theo surveying some of the damage the next morning.

Wreck in bay we reloacted to whilst fitting the prop under water. All went very successfully and it was great to enjoy another beautiful part of the island.



Sunset over the calm bay.


The patrol vessel Gaudelaupe River who crashed into us with their stern.


The channel between the islands of Santa Cruz and Baltra in the north where we relocated to have the fibre glass repairs done under sunnier and drier conditions.

Boat patchers, our crew and Galapagos National Park officials on and off the boat for a few days with repairs to get us ship shape again.

Beautiful sunset over Baltra.

Then, as though we hadnt had enough bad luck, we collided with a second National Park Boat (below) whilst tied stern to during repairs to avoid getting dust everywhere!

Though it did give us more time to enjoy the beauty of the Galapagos!

As good as new!

Our boat patcher Victor who did an amazing job (on both repairs!) and had us safely on our way to Hawaii!

LAD Newsletter III - Watch out Hawaii, here we come!

We are sailing into the sunset, jib up and two reefs in the main. Beautiful calm seas and a pleasant South Easter on our beam. We thoroughly enjoyed our amazing (and rather long) stay in Galapagos, but are ecstatic to be on our way and have the boat in one piece again! The last few days in Baltra have been beautiful as well, a much quieter anchorage with pelicans and Blue Footed Boobies diving around the boat and the rolling hills of Santa Cruz in the distance.

Local boat hole patcher, Victor, did an amazing job on the repairs, along with the electrician and mechanic who ensured that LAD is in ship shape condition again. Short mention of a minor catastrophe yesterday when tied stern to another Galapagos National Park boat (floating steel chunk research laboratory, Tiburon Marillo) in order to be down wind during the messy sanding process. We had a sharp and sudden change in wind direction, bringing our boat around and onto one of her corners with a series of nasty crunches on our starboard beam. It all happened incredibly fast and we were able to fend off, with human fenders amongst other things, any more damage. Thankfully we happened to have a boat hole patcher onboard at the time who finished up the repairs to the bow this morning and patched the new hole this afternoon (the guys want me to add that our bow-stricker is no longer stricken and it is now a bow striker again for the yachties reading this who will understand).

What really shocked us was not the isolated incident, but the ding in the context of a series of unfortunate events. From the freak collision with a sunfish in Table Bay (Cape Town) to the propeller falling off in the middle of the Pacific to a patrol vessel crushing our bow, one starts to wander. We are avoiding jinxing the trip any further, gave away many of the bananas on board and are happy to have not left on a Friday. Given the laws of probability, we are expecting a glorious sail to Hawaii! With a good month of sailing ahead of us, we will keep you informed of our adventures along the way. Warmest wishes to everyone from our crew and we look forward to hearing from you soon (zs6ajf@winlink.org).

LAD Newsletter II - Arrivals & Disasters

The sun is slipping softly behind the tree lined silhouette of Baltra and it’s seem an appropriate time to provide a short update of the last few days here in Galapagos. Our beautiful new propeller sped across the world in two days to arrive in Ecuador mainland last Saturday, it then took an entire week to make the few hours flight from Quito to Santa Cruz through a myriad of paper work, customs clearance and additional costs. In this week we had more time to enjoy Puerto Ayora, some beautiful snorkelling and a generally relaxing period whilst we waited patiently.

On Friday evening, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the prop on Saturday midday, we were aboard LAD watching our neighbours taking up anchor around 22h00. M/V Gaudelaupe River is a roughly 100ft / 85 tonne patrol vessel belonging to the Galapagos National Park that monitors the area for illegal fishing and other activities. We were all but waving them happily on their way, their anchor up and their motors started when they started drifting towards us. Firmly set with our bridal and anchor in place, we were sitting ducks as the large vessel crashed into our bow with their stern and ripped off our bowstricker with a heart thuddening crunch. They weren’t able to get the boat in gear and it wasn’t until one of the small boats onboard was launched that they were able to push her off our bow. Chaos is an understatement, with a diver in the water clearing our anchor chain off their rudder, our bridal snapped, bow mangled and this vessel being pushed away by a 6ft dingie in the dark of night.

In boat speak – “The vessel hit our bowsprit support, forced the bowsprit down which was tied to the bowstricker (the a-frame structure on the forward cross beam), pulling the bowstricker forward and ripping the fibreglass that held it in place off as well as crushing the nav lights. The vessel struck the cross beam in three places, though the damage is relatively minor. The only repair work is to resecure with fibreglass the bass of the bowsprit onto the forward cross beam to prevent it moving laterally.”

(For non-yachties, it’s a part of the boat that is crucial for keeping the big bar in the front down, supporting the sail in the front and ultimately the mast as well, and without which we cannot sail).

Chaos dissolved into the comical as our communications back and forth over VHF (with my limited Espanol) followed between ourselves, Gaudelaupe River, the Port Captain (Ecuadorian Navy), National Park Authorities and our agent, Peter Scheiss. All credit to everyone involved, they have been incredibly helpful and honest through the entire situation and the reason we have (hopefully) managed to come to such a speedy resolution!

Saturday morning passed quickly with Park officials and Port authorities back on forth on the boat and it was over a leisurely lunch that we celebrated the arrival of the prop! In the afternoon we relocated to a quiet (and very shallow anchorage) to fit the prop underwater, with a small motor boat accompanying us there incase our last hope of self propulsion (our starboard engine) gave in on us as well! Thankfully all went well, and Mark and Theo kitted up to begin the carefully planned and excellently executed fitment of the prop in poor visibility and cold waters! Piece by piece (of which there are 27!) and about two hours later, we were a fully propped boat again. Mark came out a lighter shade of blue, but all of us ecstatic.

No sailing to Hawaii just yet, we moved back to the bay of Puerto Ayora as the sun was setting. A very short mention of a retrospectively comical situation as we picked up another boats anchor chain as we tried to set out own, which had Mark down with scuba gear at night in rough waters and bugger all viz loosening us as we were being pulled onto the other yacht. Oh, and me shouting like a crazy lady for the water taxi coming to see what was going on to “vamos! por favor!”, trying to explain we had a diver down beneath his engine. Fun fun.

This morning we met up with our Park authority friends for breakfast, finalised the issues over what type of resin (epoxy vs. polyester) could be used (sourcing the right materials has been really difficult, especially over the weekend – but luckily everyone knows everyone’s uncle who owns a hardware store or 110V portable generator!) Thanks to John Shuttleworth, our designer, who has given invaluable input with regard to materials and repair methods via text messages and calls over the past two days. The other issue has been the frequent mists that roll in over Puerto Ayora and the dampness that won’t allow the glassing repair work to be done. We motored 25 miles north from Puerto Ayora to the dry, sunny and calm Itabaca Channel, between northern Santa Cruz and Baltra, this afternoon and are now enjoying a beautiful anchorage, good music and great company with plans for the repair work to be done first thing tomorrow morning and us to be on our merry way soon. We are hoping the repair will not take more than two days, but as we have experienced, things can change in the time it takes for a boat to rip off your bowstriker.

All is still well with us and spirits still surprisingly high, given our recent adventures and a bad dose of flu that has hit both Mark and I over the last week. We will keep the updates coming as we head out into the big Pacific. Hawaii 4300 nautical miles. Here we come!

LAD Newsletter I - Adventures in the Pacific

And then there were three. The departure of Shirley noted not only the end of our diary keeping days, but also our consistently cheeriest crew member, great chef and all round favourite. She will certainly be missed but is happy to be home with Tarryn again and the luxuries of a hot shower! With Mark’s reputation for notorious one-liner updates and Theo’s self admitted tendency to diarise in bullet-form, the task has been left to me to attempt to fill Shirley’s position. I apologise upfront for any poor grammar, spelling, short accounts or general ramblings.

For those who are not aware, we managed to lose a propeller on the trip from Panama to Galapagos, and are waiting for the new prop to arrive from Australia. For the yachties reading this update, it had something to do with a sheared locking bolt but to the rest like me, it kinda just fell off. We have been tracking the delivery with great anticipation and are very hopeful that it should make the last leg from Ecuador mainland to Santa Cruz by midday today. After almost two weeks of delays, misunderstandings with the suppliers and a lingering warranty issue, that all seems to pale in comparison to the task of fitting the ultra expensive fancy three bladed folding prop underwater in the bay of Puerto Ayora. Fun fun. If all goes to plan, we should be leaving for Hawaii and the four weeks of open water sailing it will take us to get there within the next day or so. We have stocked up on fresh supplies from the amazing local farmers market this past Saturday (photos from the previous market on the site – http://jess-travelling.blogspot.com) and other than being one prop short, are ready to hit the open ocean!

Our stay in Galapagos has been unbelievable and I can say with certainty that we have all loved every moment here. The islands are incredibly interesting and quite different from what we had expected. The first thing that struck us was how incredibly difficult it is to reach the islands! We beat for five days into ugly headwinds and confused seas under motor, though had some luck on the last two with a change of wind that allowed some sailing. (This was actually really lucky given our one prop fell off at the same time). All the winds seem to blow away from the islands, three major currents meet in the archipelago and they are covered in low lying clouds most of the time which gave rise to the name they have also been known as - The Enchanted Islands. We experienced this first hand when a slightly confused GPS put us about 300 metres of course and we came a little close for comfort to the heavily misted shores on our way in.

This all, of course, is part of the reason why the islands experience such incredible ecological diversity, combined with the fascinating geology that arises from them being active volcanic islands. The last major eruption was 22 October 2005 at Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella Island. We had the most amazing experience of horse riding up to the rim of the volcano and hiking along the lava fields last weekend on our trip to Isabella. The island has a much more laid back, non-touristy feel about it with sand roads, few cars and sea lions basking in the sun in the bay. We had an incredible time on our trip around the bay where we got to see the infamous Blue Footed Boobies, Galapagos Penguins, Marine Iguanas, White Tip Reef Sharks, Pelicans, Galapagos Fur Seals and even some Eagle Rays and Sea Snakes on our snorkelling adventures.

Mark and I have been enjoying the diving here as well, with two trips out to the well known Gordon Rocks dive site, as well as to North Seymour and Mosquiterra. The currents make for unique diving and we have been kitted up in 7mm suits (seriously thick!) with vests underneath to withstand the sharp thermoclines where the water can drop from 22 to 14 celsius in a few centimetres. The viz hasn’t been that great, but the marine life incredible. We have seen beautiful hammerhead sharks, quite a few turtles, schools of rays and some incredibly playful sea lions!

The town of Puerto Ayora is itself an interesting place. Beneath the laid back atmosphere there is an underlying tension between the port authorities, local fisherman and the tourism industry and the Galapagos seem to be struggling to balance growth and commercialism with conservation and protection of endemic species. Feral animals introduced with human settlement over the past few decades have decimated some species endemic to the islands and severely threatened others. To our surprise, farming is commonplace in Galapagos and almost all produce is grown locally. This has obviously created further problems with alien invasive species and the local conservationists view the guava tree as a pest!

All said and done, the people of Galapagos have been of the friendliest and most easy going I have had the pleasure of meeting. The kids are so well behaved, I think we heard a child crying once in the past three weeks and it was noticeably out of place. There is a strong sense of community, and perhaps our natural history guide Valario put it best - “You really cant afford to be cheeky in this town because everyone is knows exactly what you up to!”. He also knew everyone on the island and seems to be related to them in some way. He was our guide for the day when we had a whirlwind tour of the islands – the national park areas, massive sinkholes, lava tunnels and the giant tortoise reserve. Awesome guy!

Other than that, we have been enjoying the nearby bays with some great snorkelling and beautiful beaches when the sun makes it appearance for a few hours everyday. Worth a mention are the gastronomical experiences we have been enjoying as well! By now we have our favourite restaurants which serve up some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, but we are yet to have an unpleasant dining experience in Galapagos! A small street a couple of blocks off the main road gets blocked off by the police in the evenings and turns into a line of small restaurants with tables in the street serving up world class cuisine ridiculously affordably. Stunning fish and rice for $4 or lobster and prawns for $10 at William’s, to die for! I think we are savouring eating out, knowing that the next few weeks it will be us in the galley.

I think that both Mark and Theo have been relaxing for a change, with time for reading, chilling or, most of the time, talking about something to do with boats. We are all looking forward to sailing again and will be sure to keep you updated with our adventures as we head west. Please keep us updated with life on your side of the world with text only emails to Mark’s boat address (zs6aj@winlink.org) and check out the photos from our trip so far at http://jess-travelling.blogspot.com.

With much love from the Galapagos, Jess

Underwater Photos from Friday's Dive

Awesome underwater photos from our dives on Friday. Cant take any credit for the great pictures though, courtesy of dive leader Ben.

Two beautiful hammerheads close up as we started our first dive, incredible!

Massive school of fish circling above us

One of the divers from our group went up towards the school and they created a circling column around him, very impressive.

Playful sea lion just off centre inbetween the school.

Mark.

Super cool sturgeon fish with vertabrae petruding at base of tail {three white spots are actually pieces of bone sticking out!}

Beautiful school at the surface as we entered for our second dive.

Mark and I on our second dive.

Cool parrotfish!

Tortuga {turtle}

Lobster!

Beautiful Tortuga Bay

The gorgeous bay of Tortuga, a stunning walk through cacti and volcanic rocks to the west of Puerto Ayora and a great running track in the mornings.

Red mangroves to the north of the bay.

Forest of large cacti with marine iguana {below as well} to the bottom left.

Water a little mirky from algae but lots of marine life and birds all around, really beautiful!

Now thats what I call a mohawk!

Sunset from the boat over Puerto Ayora.


And worth a mention....

Mark prepping to go up the mast to check the rigging etc.

Mark up top!

Sierra Negra Volcano & Snorkelling with Sea Lions

A day of adventure around Isabella island!

On the back of the red pick-up on our way up to the base of Sierra Negra Volcano, with Joel, Christy & Tim who were also in our group.

A bad snapshot of Julio & Lady taken over my shoulder whilst riding up to the rim of the volcano.

Joel & Mark.

The crater of Sierra Negra in the background.

Second largest volcanic crater in the world!

The rest of our group making their way along the edge.

Our guide Julio explaining about the last eruption, 22 October 2005.

Hiking along the top to the lava fields and more volcanic cones.

´Áh-ah´ lava that is rather rocky, from the Hawaiin for sore.

Newer lava flow to the left, over older to the right.

A lava wave that burst out from the ground!

Super light and brittle rocks.

My crazy great-uncle, Mark!

The path we walked to the far viewpoint.

Becky, from Spain.

Massive male sea lion on the back of a small fishing boat.

Marine iguanas eating sea grass in the surf.

The infamous Blue Footed Boobies

Marine iguanas, my favourite!

Inlet with white tip reef sharks that get stuck with every low tide.

Inlet to the left where the white tip reefs were.

Protected bay with a colony of sea lions.

Galapagos penguins over beautiful swim throughs in the rocks. We spent the rest of the afternoon snorkelling around the corner from here - saw amazing sea snake, some beautiful rays and even swam with sea lions. Awesome day!