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archipelago

San Cristobal, Galapagos

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Smooth check-in (formalities), despite not following procedure.  Our agent, Javier Plua Rizzo with YachtGala proved his worth in gold and made the magic happen.  We were supposed to notify him 24 hours prior to our arrival so he could schedule the 8-10 officials who needed to clear us into the Galapagos.  But, our SSB went out half way through the trip, so we were not able to contact him until 12 hours after we arrived.  Within the hour, he was able to schedule the arrival of the officials and fumigation for 10:00am.

We left the boat during the fumigation and met the Barkers at Midori Sushi.  Matt and Diana arrived into San Cristobal before we did and stayed at the beautiful Golden Bay Hotel.  They enjoyed an awesome dive at Kicker rock, scoped out the town, found the market, and discovered the unofficial sea wolf breeding grounds.

Sea Wolves (Sea Lions):

The beach in front of the Golden Bay Hotel is where all the sea wolves gather.  Here, they learn to swim, nurse, look adorable, sunbathe, and hang out with their family and friends.

Sea Wolves in front of Golden Bay Hotel

Sea Wolves in front of Golden Bay Hotel

Diana spent hours watching the sea wolf mayhem while imagined how they could smuggle one home.

San Cristobal Tourist Sites:

We walked around the small town a bit and took in the sights during the late afternoon.  Lots of “marketing” opportunities in this small town.

We came across a giant San Cristobal branded surf board and took a photo with Sugar Shack in the background.  They had lots of these “cactus trees”, a cool pond with the entire Galapagos archipelago laid out, and Charles Darwin and the Beagle.

Galapagos Sights

Galapagos Sights

We called it an early night after sunset cocktails at Golden Bay – Matt and I are still recovering from the 6-day passage.

Coming Up Next:

We sail to Santa Cruz and pick up Wayne for more adventures.

Cruzing to Isabella

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Sugar Shack is moving and shaking.  We set sail to Isla Isabella in order to enjoy time exploring a new island. Everyone was up early for a 0600 departure.  We motor sailed the 40nm because winds were light. However, it was a lovely day and we made it to Isabella by 1300.

A representative from Yacht Gala and an official came to do formalities and welcome us to our 3rd port of call.  Per Ecuador law, we are only able to bring our big boat to San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, and Isla Isabella.

We anchored and got settled.  With a little downtime, we decided to tackle the radar project.  Matt opened the radar box and to our surprise, they only sent the radar dome and not the cables or the RI10 component.  We were surprised, shocked, and pissed.  We talked to the B&G rep several times and triple checked that they were sending the entire radar kit.  All we could do is plug in the dome and hope that particular pieces is the piece that is not functioning.

With fingers and toes crossed, Matt used our old cable to plug in the radar dome at the nav station and to our surprise and great joy, it worked!  Now we just need to plug it in at the spreaders and hope the cable running up the mast worked as well.  We hoisted Matt up the mast with the radar dome and 45 minutes later we were installed and running.  What a huge relief.

Isabella Sight Seeing

Isabella Sight Seeing

All at once, everyone started falling asleep.  So, I took advantage of the down time and made jello shots and bite size cheese cake.  Yum.  Welcome to Isla Isabella.

Exploring Isla Isabella coming up next.