Where the Southern Cross and Big Dipper Meet

First meal ashore!

On January 15, 2025, Gary and Crew Brian and Allan made landfall in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos. It was a long, bouncy ride for the boys, but otherwise a fairly uneventful passage (read: no major breakages). The clear in process involved 10 authorities, everyone from Immigration, Customs, Parks, Navy, Police, Port Captain, Agriculture, Diver (to check that the hull was clean), to our agent. All of them crammed into Sea Rover’s cockpit for an hour or two, but thankfully the check in process went smoothly. Soon after the officials left, the boys went into town and had a celebratory dinner. The next day was spent putting Sea Rover back together and cleaning for the arrival of the wives. Mari, Velvet and I arrived at about 4pm the next day after an uneventful 2 days of travel involving 12 different modes of transportation!

The only cactus you can hug!

After a celebratory glass of champagne, a swim was in order as it was insanely hot. Having left 0 degree temperatures in Vancouver the day before, 27 degrees with humidity was welcome, but hard to adjust to. As I remembered from last time, the anchorage in Puerto Ayora was extremely rolly! Thankfully it didn’t seem to bother anyone but me, but I was land sick every time we got off the boat, which we tried to do at least once a day. There is no place to tie up the dinghy to go ashore, so we used the yellow water taxis, which run 24-7. We enjoyed a number of dinners off the boat (it was too difficult with the swell and heat to cook on board) and tried out a number of the cheap restaurants offering a set menu for $6 US. Most of the dishes in the Galapagos involve fish and rice, but who can complain about that?

Wild tortoises on Santa Cruz Island

The 6 of us did an all day paid tour to the island of Santa Fe, about 12 nm south east of Santa Cruz. We did two really good snorkels, the second where we got to play with sea lion pups while the big daddy patrolled the beach. We then stopped at one of the local beaches to check out some marine iguanas and ended up helping to push one of the other tour boats into deeper waters after they had marooned themselves on a sandbar. Not sure what happened to their guests, but the tour operators were happy to head back into port.

The 4 crew headed over to Isla Isabela for a few days of exploring while Gary and I stayed on board in Puerto Ayora. We visited the Darwin Center again, then did a taxi tour to a ranch where the local giant tortoises hang out. They are wild and come and go as they please, but the ranch has a few watering holes so they seem to like it there. Our guide was excellent and so we learned quite a bit about their life cycles, habits etc. And we even saw a pair mating!

En route to San Cristobal

After the crew came back from Isabela, we packed up Sea Rover and headed off for an overnight sail to the island of San Cristobal, 40 mn to the east. It was a clear, moonless night and so the stars were incredible. At about 3am I looked out and saw the Big Dipper to the north AND the southern cross to the south! This must be one of the only places on earth where that is possible. I said goodbye to the Big Dipper about halfway to Easter Island on our passage in 2018, so it was nice to see it again (from the boat). The best part of the night was watching the dolphins play in the bow wave. We watched them streaking through the water in a bath of phosphorescence for almost an hour. They make different noises than the ones that used to swim with us in Chile – further proof that we are indeed moving farther north. Gary and I took turns doing watches in the cockpit while our crew slept. Everyone was up before 6am though in time for our 6:30 arrival in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal. There were only 2 cruise ships in the bay, so we had the choice of pretty much any spot we wanted. We opted to anchor in basically the exact same spot as in 2018. It was good to be back.

Watching the wildlife

Our crew spent a few days doing tours and walking around the town and then it was time to move on to the next leg of their trip: Peru. Gary and I have spent the last 2 weeks anchored in the bay. We were the first sailboat to arrive here, but were joined the next day by another Canadian boat. And then a Belgian/American boat. And then another Canadian boat. And so on. It is clearly now Cruising season. There are 7 Cruising boats currently anchored around us, with many more on their way from Panama, including the World ARC, which will bring over 30 boats here by the end of next week! It will be interesting to see how they fit in amongst all the mini and large cruise ships that come in and out every day.

We have spent our time here working (me), doing boat jobs (Gary) and hanging out with the other Canadians (both). We’ve made it in for lunch a few times (set menu for $6) and for dinner once. Once again there is no place to leave a dinghy and so we are reliant on the water taxis. Unfortunately they only run until 6pm, so doing things in town in the evening has been a challenge. On the weekends we’ve walked to a number of different beaches for a swim and snorkel. While there isn’t much coral to speak of, our wildlife sightings have been pretty good. We saw 2 octopus and a stingray at one beach, and about a dozen sea turtles at each of the other beaches. Plus the regular tropical fish that live in these waters. We’ve had some close encounters with friendly sea lions as well.

Pups having a snooze

San Cristobal is known for its sea lion population. There don’t seem to be nearly as many as there were in 2018, but there are still quite a few around. They seem to really like boats. They spend a huge amount of time swimming around the perimeter of the boat, then diving below to blow bubbles on the hull. They do this all day and all night. It is very weird. We aren’t sure exactly what they are doing or why, but it seems to make them happy.  We have also enjoyed watching the frigate birds, blue footed boobies and pelicans feed on the fish ball that seems to come by every morning.

Overall, it has been a serene few weeks. The only black mark is the boat traffic. There are a HUGE number of cruise ships here. Most are small, with between 16 and 30 passengers, but there are 3-4 really big, several hundred passenger ships (Celebrity X, Nat Geo, Silver Sea etc). There is almost constant boat traffic from the dinghies ferrying passengers to and from shore. And there is always one that has a loud, extremely annoying generator. We are always thankful that we didn’t pay thousands of dollars to be on that ship! There is more garbage around than previously (the towns have removed all the public garbage containers for reasons that are unclear to us) and it has a bit more of an exploited feel than before. The wildlife isn’t as abundant, but we are coming out of a hard El Nino year, which is typically quite challenging for the animals here so that is perhaps not surprising. And of course there is H1N5, or bird flu. We hear a lot of sea lions coughing. None of the guides will talk about it so who knows if it is a thing or not. But, we still feel extremely privileged to get to spend so much time living in and exploring this special place.

 

Swimming lazily along the hull at dawn

Baby marine iguanas 

A Passage in Pictures

Still in Algarrobo. Look at that clean bottom!

Sea Rover II has been on passage for 15 days and has ~650 nm to go before reaching Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos. The passage has been slow and rolly, two of Gary's least favourite things. While no one is seasick anymore, the Captain still finds it difficult to sit down below at the Nav Station to work on the computer. Instead, the Crew have been sending me select photos from their trip. In lieu of a written post, I thought I'd share the passage so far in pictures. 

As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words"...

Prepping the boat for passage. 

Motoring out of the marina in Algarrobo. Bye bye Chile! Thank you for a wonderful 6 years!

First boat invader! Brian and the Squid.

Watch your step!

No land in sight!

A new invader! Allan and the first flying fish. Must be in the Tropics!

Motoring along in light air...Brian and Gary.

Algarrobo, Chile to the Galapagos - Week 1

As conditions on board Sea Rover for the last week have left a bit to be desired, Gary has asked that I write a few posts about their progress to date. He and I have been talking daily, thanks to Starlink, which is switched on once or twice a day when they are running the engine to charge the batteries. It has been nice to communicate by means other than just emails sent through the satellite phone. It is so different from our last ocean passage in 2018!!

I think all on board would agree that the first week was a hard one. Algarrobo is not a protected port, and so once you are out of the shelter of the marina breakwater, you are in the full ocean swell. To make it worse, wind conditions were light, but the sea state was significant (over 7 feet with a 7 second period - perfect barfing conditions). Gary and Crew Brian and Allan all succumbed to the mal de mar fairly quickly. In an effort to get off the coast and find some wind, they motored a fair amount the first few days. Even though Starlink was running a lot of the time, we didn't hear much from the Crew. After a few days of this, they decided they needed to conserve fuel and so the boat went dark while they bobbed in the waves and all privately hoped to die. Here are some snippets from some of Gary's emails: "The first week was as expected, brutal. 2-3 m seas with no wind.  What wind we did get was luckily not as forecasted and came from the bow otherwise our progress out of that zone would have been even slower. We had a few things break on the engine and a couple of sailing blocks explode which kept us all busy fixing things when we weren't barfing.  None of us ate anything but dry crackers for the first 3 days."

South Pacific dive at 30S76W

But then things started to look up. The promised wind started to fill in and their stomachs started to settle. By Sunday the boat was moving, food started to be consumed and spirits started to look up. Then the first 'issue' happened. Our MaxProp refused to feather, and after repeated attempts to get it to lock in place, Gary thought 'oh oh' and looked out the back of the boat. Yup, they'd caught a line. Here is the story in Gary's words: "Yesterday we finally made it into some good consistent breeze and had the potential for our first 100NM day. That was thwarted by a blob of poly rope snagged on the prop causing the prop to rotate and heat up the gear. We had no choice but to dive the boat in 2 m seas and no way to slow it down below 1.5 knots. After an exhausting 3 hours in the water I managed to clear it without drifting away from the boat much to the relief of the boys tirelessly managing the many lines attaching me to the boat." 

Happy New Year from Sea Rover!

"Today (December 31st) we finally seem to be getting in a rhythm. We haven't had to change the sails since this morning and there is talk of raiding the snack cupboard for a post dinner snack. We are doing 2 hours on, 4 hours off which seems to be working for everyone on board. The boys have stepped up their game in the kitchen so we won't starve."

Thanks to Starlink, I was able to ring in the New Year with Gary on a WhatsApp call. He was able to talk to a small group of us for a few minutes before the clock struck midnight. I think the Crew were able to connect with their families as well, so it was a special moment for all.    

The wind continues to blow (apparently things are 'sporty' on board at the moment) but they are making reasonable time and distance north. From the tracker it looks like they are about a third of the way there. Fair winds and following seas. 

Permission Granted to Leave Chile!

Sea Rover and Crew in Algarrobo

Despite some paperwork hick-ups, Gary and Crew Brian and Allan managed to successfully leave Chile on Christmas morning en route to the Galapagos. 

Sea Rover's boat visa expired at the end of September, but due to a number of issues, we knew we would not be able to go down to Chile to sail her away until December. In July we started the process to request a 3 month boat visa extension. We sent in our request and received a nice letter back stating that we had to wait until the visa expired before we could formally request the extension. So, on September 30th we sent in our request. And heard nothing. We flew down to Santiago on December 1st and rented a car from the airport. This would enable us get to Algarrobo, a 1.5 hour drive from the airport, where Sea Rover was patiently waiting on the hard in the Confradia Nautica del Pacifico marina. But more importantly, it would also enable us to drive to the town of San Antonio, an hours drive south of Algarrobo, where the nearest Aduana (Customs) and Immigration offices are located. 

As we were very concerned  about Sea Rover's official status in the country, we immediately headed to the Aduana office in San Antonio after we arrived. San Antonio reminded us a lot of Puerto Montt - a working port and definitely not a tourist destination. The drivers are impatient and generally insane. After a very scary drive through town, we found the office and went in to find out what we needed to do to make Sea Rover legal. Thankfully one of the staff spoke excellent English and we were able to show her our previous correspondence with the Aduana in Punta Arenas, where our last boat visa had been issued. The wonderful staff immediately got in touch with the Punta Arenas office and promised they would get it sorted in a day or two. And true to their word, we received our extension until December 30th a few days later. There had been talk of us potentially needing to pay a fine, but the extension letter didn't mention it and we didn't hear anything further so we assumed everything was in order.

On December 16th we returned to San Antonio to start the official clear out process. I was flying back to B.C. on the 17th and would be returning the car to the airport and we hoped to have all the San Antonio trips completed before Gary no longer had a set of wheels. Gary's first stop was the Aduana, where he was informed he couldn't clear out until we had paid our fine. No problem, he said, but we haven't been contacted about a fine. Could they tell us what it would be? He would happily pay it that day. Of course fines are dealt with by a different department, the 'Illicit Traffic' office, to be precise. While this office had been contacted by the Aduana a full 10 days before, they had not responded to us. The kind Aduana staff contacted the Punta Arenas office again, who then contacted the Illicit Traffic office, who then assured us we would have the fine by the end of the day. The end of the day came - no fine had been received. No fine was received the next day as well. On Wednesday, Gary emailed the Punta Arenas office and was once again assured that the Illicit Traffic office had been contacted. Nothing was heard on Thursday. At this point our Crew were running out of jobs to do on the boat and were getting antsy. Spirits were low as they wondered if they would ever be allowed to leave.

On Friday Gary found his way back to San Antonio on public transit. He returned to the Aduana and pleaded his case. The next week was Christmas, and if he couldn't get this sorted before then, it was very likely we would overstay our visa extension, which would cause an even bigger problem than we already had. Despite it not really being their problem, the Aduana staff once again went above and beyond to help. One of the staff, who also thankfully spoke a bit of English, started making phone calls. After a long day of backing-and-forthing, the fine was agreed upon and issued. Thankfully it was reasonable and Gary went to the bank and paid it right away. As the Aduana was closed for the weekend, he returned to the boat (on the 'chicken bus') to make final preparations to leave early the following week. 

Gary and Crew Allan and Brian

On Monday he was back in San Antonio. The Aduana cleared the boat and stamped the official exit paperwork (known as a zarpe). The visit to the Immigration office was a bit rocky, but in the end they also stamped the zarpe. Another trip to the Port Captain's office, and Sea Rover and Crew were cleared to leave the country.

The boys set sail the next day. As conditions have not been conducive this last week for sitting at the computer for long periods of time, Gary has asked that I write a few posts on his behalf based on his texts and emails to me. Stay tuned. 

Change of Plans

As all good sailors know, sailing plans are made in the sand at low tide. And such it is with us. We had, of course, planned to leave Chile and sail the boat to Ecuador this season. Then Ecuador declared a state of emergency in January due to the rampant drug crisis, which meant we had to change our final destination from leaving the boat on a mooring ball in a river (used to be very safe) to pulling her out of the water in an uber-fancy, expensive marina in the heart of gang-land. Then Sea Rover needed much more TLC than expected to get her ready for the challenging, 2500 nm sea voyage we had ahead of us. This took a huge amount of time and energy. Then we got the price to enter Ecuador back from the agents, which was somewhere between $2000 and $3000, just for the privilege of clearing in to the country – to a place we didn’t really want to go. Then the season started to change and the comfortable weather windows for traversing the Southern Ocean were becoming fewer and farther between.

When we put it all together, we decided that maybe we had done enough for this year. Maybe it was time to think about a change of plans.

The plusses of leaving the boat in Algarrobo:

1.    We made it out of Patagonia, where travel is dictated very much by the weather. We are now far enough north that we aren’t weather-dependent. According to the pilot charts, the wind and seas are similar in April and September so there is no advantage to leaving now versus in the Chilean spring.

2.    We had a chance to explore some of our favourite places this season. We actually enjoyed our time in Puerto Montt – it surprised us with its hidden beauty. And we loved checking out old haunts in Valdivia, a place where we have very fond memories.

3.     We discovered an interesting, cool new place. So far we like Algarrobo. It is a resort town with an interesting malecon and lots of heladerias (ice cream shops). It has an abundance of interesting wildlife, from penguins and blue footed boobies, to pelicans and marine otters.

4.    The marina is top notch. The yard guys are professional and know their stuff. The climate is ideal: 15-20oC in the summer with no rain, 5-10oC in the winter with some rain (but only about 20% of what they get in Puerto Montt).

5.   El Nino might be over in the fall and the Humbolt Current will be back to carry us north.

The negatives of staying in Algarrobo:

1.    We are delaying our inevitable departure from Chile.

2.   Conditions might not be favourable when our boat visa expires in September and we are asked to leave.

We carefully weighed the Pros and Cons and decided to haul the boat out for the Chilean winter.

Sea Rover and friends

While having foreign Cruisers haul out here is not the norm, the marina has been gracious and accommodating. We hauled out on Friday morning with a minimum of fuss. They blocked the boat better than she has even been blocked before (Gary was delighted). And, best of all, Sea Rover will not be lonely this winter. She has lots and lots and lots of little new friends to keep her company!

We will be returning to Piers Island at the end of the week where we will rest up and dream about the adventures that next season might bring.

Champagne in a can...delicious!

This brings Season 10 to a close. Fair winds and following seas. See you next year. Cheers!

Algarrobo

Cofradia Nautico del Pacifico

Following a tough passage from Valdivia, we have spent the last few days licking our wounds in Algarrobo. We had been given some intel about the marina before making the decision to come here, but still didn’t really know what to expect. A google maps search showed a resort town, and indeed the first thing you see when you sail in from offshore are the miles and miles of tiered hotels on the seemingly endless beach. But as you get closer, you can see it is much more than that.

Bird sanctuary in the marina

The marina itself is situated in the middle of a National Park that was obviously formed after the marina had been developed. To generate the marina, they made a breakwater between the shore and a very large, distinctive white rock. As it turns out, this rock houses a colony of…..PENGUINS!!!! Yes, we have Humbolt Penguins living 100 metres away from us. They look a lot like the Magellanic Penguins in the south, but they have slightly different markings. There are also hundreds of gulls, pelicans and other shore birds that call the rock home. Things get noisy in the evenings.

Humbolt Penguins - found on the coast of Peru and Chile

Back to the marina. It is quite small and as mentioned in our last post, uses a med-moor type tie up system for all the boats. Despite the breakwater, the big seas just outside the walls do make their way into the basin in the way of surge. The mooring system alleviates any issues that would occur if they were using a regular dock-finger type system like we are more used to. Plus, they can fit in more boats. This is not a Cruisers marina. All the boats here are owned by locals (ie, people from Santiago) and are used primarily for day sailing (yes, out in the big, 2.5m+ swell just outside the walls – as I said before, Chilean sailors are crazy). In addition to the bigger sailboats that are kept in the water, there are fleets and fleets of different kinds of race boats lined up out of the water. There are also small sailing dinghies and a few powerboats. On a weekend, the place resembles the Jericho Sailing Club with people doing every watersport imaginable. It has been fun to watch. During the week, it has just been us and the marina workers. They all seem a bit perplexed that we are here, but have accepted it. The facilities are more geared to day use than overnight, but there is a large bathroom with toilet and shower stalls. Unfortunately there is no laundry… I think we are back to hand washing for a while. Sigh.

The local beach on Easter Sunday

The marina is at one end of the National Park. From the gate, there is a trail that travels for a couple of miles along the shoreline to another large, white rock (probably filled with more birds…). There are a couple of stunning beaches in between. We went for an exploratory walk on Easter Sunday and were expecting to have the trail to ourselves. We came around the corner to….thousands of people on the beach! It was a sea of umbrellas for as far as the eye could see. We watched the people for a while, then walked up through the neighbourhood back towards the marina. It is a nice little town that reminds me of a mix of California and the Galapagos. The backstreets in the neighbourhood are sand, not paved. And it has a sunny, ‘California’ vibe. We haven’t walked the whole beach yet as I’ve been busy this week with work, but that is on the agenda for one day soon.

We are slowly recovering and enjoying our interlude in this quiet place.

Shakedown Cruise #2

After a bumpy ride from Puerto Montt to Valdivia, we were ready to re-explore the town where we first arrived in Chile 6 years ago. The marina was much the same, and much to my delight, one of the marina dogs, Samantha, was still around. Like me, she is older and grayer, but seemed happy to see us again. 

We spent our time wandering around the town. We had a delicious banana split at the EntreLagos chocolate store, visited a few of the local fish, fruit and craft markets, caught up with some old friends and made some new ones. Gary was excited that the movie Dune was still playing at the local theatre. We thought we were being smart by going to see the English version (with Spanish subtitles), but it turned out that much of the movie was spoken in a weird alien language instead of English and so the Spanish subtitles didn’t really help. We did our best, but we may need to watch it again as I’m pretty sure we missed some key information. Overall, it was a relaxing week. 

Typical street market in Valdivia

As a weather window started to open up the week of March 25th, we began discussions on next steps. Even though we had run the engine for a solid 30 hours on the trip up to Validivia, Gary was concerned about leaving for a long offshore passage where checking on and working on the engine would be difficult. The new engine belts and a bolt or two were all quite loose by the time we pulled into the marina in Validivia and he expected he would have to make a few more adjustments after it had run for a few more hours. As such, we decided to do a second Shakedown cruise to the town of Algarrobo, 450 nm north of Validivia. 

There is a small, local marina there, with a haul out facility. Algarrobo is just south of Valparaiso at latitude 33oS (same as Santiago) and effectively out of the Patagonian ‘weather’ zone.

The weather window looked good. Seas were expected to be mostly from the south between 1.7 and 2.5 m, with winds in the mid-teens to early 20’s from directly behind. Sounded pretty perfect. 

We planned to leave at first light (ie, 8am) on March 27th. As usual, things didn’t go as planned. We were up early to do the final preparations. As it was Gary’s birthday, I was making a special batch of banana pancakes. Halfway through cooking the propane sensor went off. I shut everything off and waited for Gary to get back from the shower. We did some quick troubleshooting to determine whether we had an actual propane leak or if the sensor was malfunctioning. We had an actual propane leak. It was like Sea Rover didn’t want to do the passage... We determined that the leak was on the tank side and not at the stove, so we pulled apart our very carefully packed back lazarette and got to work. Gary found the cracked fitting and spent the next few hours replacing the defective part. We put everything away and were ready to go again. 

We said goodbye to our new friends at the marina and were motoring down the Validiva River just after 2pm. By 3:15 we were in the open ocean and hurtling along at 8 knots with winds on the beam. The Crew instantly felt ill in the big swell and so the Captain manned to boat for the first few hours. The Crew dragged her carcass up on deck by dusk for the beginning of our 3-hour on/3-hour off watch schedules. As the evening wore on and we made our way north, the wind and seas clocked around to be directly behind. Unfortunately, the short period of the waves and the brutal cross swell made for an ugly and uncomfortable combination. Doing anything below was out of the question. By morning the seas were up and the motion even more uncomfortable. The Southern Ocean was not going to let us go without making us remember her awesome power. I was awoken on Thursday morning by a particularly violent wave that caused our 3-tier hanging fruit basket to blow apart. I spent the next 10 minutes in a groggy daze chasing avocados, tomatoes, plums and Easter eggs all over the inside of the boat. After securing them the best I could in one of the lee clothes, I dragged my carcass on deck for my watch while Gary gratefully fell into bed. As so it went. It was too rough to cook so we ate what we could grab from the fruit basket, although neither of us felt hungry. I hadn’t intended to give up caffeine on the trip but ended up doing so as it was too hard to boil the kettle. Trips to the bathroom were a nightmare. Sitting down was fine, but we were literally beaten to a pulp for the 10 seconds needed to pull up our pants. I had read an article years ago where a woman described this bathroom experience as being in the ‘hurt locker’ – an apt description. You’d think you were in a good brace position but then a sneaky wave would come from the opposite direction and you’d find yourself hurtling in a whole new, unexpected direction. It got to the point where we both stopped tying to undress when we went off-watch. We lay down in our foul weather gear, with our boots and life jackets still on. The seas moderated a bit on the second night as we were blanketed by a thick, drenching, bone chilling fog. A meal was eaten and we both got a bit of sleep. But the seas and wind were up again the next day when the sun finally burned off the fog. 

Despite the hardships on board, we made good time. By Saturday morning we were beginning to believe that we might make it into Algarrobo by dusk. We shook out a reef, sucked it up and pushed to get there in daylight. Sea Rover seemed to want out of the mess as well as she bore down and picked up speed. By 5pm we were rounding the headland and heading towards the marina. 

Walking the plank

And then came a new challenge. Weekenders!! Despite the 2.5m seas and breezy conditions, there were people out on the water doing everything you can think of – paddle boarding (on knees), sailing in small dinghies, small and big sailboats, jet skis, water skiers, kite surfers, etc etc. God Chileans are tough. Gary didn’t know which way to turn. We finally made it to the mouth of the marina, not having a clue where to go. 

Luckily one of the marina guys saw us coming and made the correct assumption that we needed help. He jumped in his dinghy and came out to meet us. The marina uses a med-moor style of docking that requires you to grab a mooring ball at the bow and then back into a dock, where you then tie up. I told the guy we had never done this before – he said ‘no problema’ and beckoned us to follow him. He took us to the far end of the marina – this required an act of faith on our part as we could see that the fairway was getting narrower and narrower and there would be no way we could turn around. For once the wind gods were with us and had piped down to a gentle 7 knots, which made things much easier. With the help of our bow thruster and the marina attendant, we got attached to a ball, and Gary managed to back us up to the dock where another kind soul was waiting to take our stern lines. We were fully moored by 6:00. Phew.

Time to rest, reflect and think about next steps. And to explore Algarrobo which supposedly has the worlds largest swimming pool!