Author: Pete

Location: 00º 57.866S’ 90º 57.747W’

Date: 17:00 March 17 to 17:00 March 18

Day 9 at sea.

Landfall in the Galapagos!

Last night we had our last set of night watches for this passage!  In the dark a turn appeared over our bow, flapping powerfully as it welcomed us to the archipelago.  Not sure what he was doing.  He never dove for fish, nor swooped to our deck for a rest.  He just led us to harbor like a good spirit guiding us to safety.

Had trouble connecting and sending email in the last days as we were motoring and had some weather affecting our signal.  Trying to send position updates to the blog via the radio.  The thing astounds me (when it works).  It turns text into sounds into radio waves, received by an onshore station which turns the signal into something digestible by the World Wide Web, and fires it out as email.  Neat.

During the day we had a long, rainy, approach upwind to our intended harbor, Puerto Villamil on Isla Isabela.

We slowly approached then passed north of the sickle-shaped island on Isla Tortuga.  The island was a conical volcano at one point, now collapsed into a caldera, whose southern side has been eroded away by the prevailing southerly winds.  It draws schools of hammerheads apparently, and schools of divers to visit them.

As we pulled into the Villamil harbor we noticed the prevalence of the local fauna.  Pelicans and frigates soared, sea lions frolicked, and something else… shark fins…  Two black, sleek fins cruised back and forth like in the pirate cartoons.  I cried a little inside.

On the positive, as we motored around the breakwall and into the anchorage, a double rainbow lit up the sky, terminating on the little town of Islabela.  Our pot of gold at the end of this long rainbow of a passage.

We put down anchor, made some dinner, and were asleep by nine.