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