Where in the world's Wally????: Cocos to Galapagos

Cocos to Galapagos:

We started out VERY slow, engine on and no wind. Only made 78 nm the first day out. Next day, we began to get hit with some squalls. Fun time, sailing again but just ½ hr and then dead again. Later at 1, squalls just kept coming through and we could dodge and shift between them avoiding the rain but getting the wind, finally we started to move. 103 miles that day and 127 the next and the eve before our arrival in Galapagos the winds came up so much that we were flying between 8-9 kts!! We finally had to reef down the sails as we would get in durning the dark. We finally arrived right at sunrise. It was beautiful!! Our agent was waiting for us in a panga and escorted us to a nice anchorage.

Checking in was long but because we had an agent, Senor Bolivar, that we had worked with already from 3 weeks before, our paperwork was in order and all went pretty smoothly. Later on we met another boat that had not checked in through an agent in advance and they were forced to waste a week in that harbour before being allowed to move the boat on to the other islands. In order to clear in we were visited by customs, immigration and agriculture. Agriculture gave us a real inspection and shake down. They are vigilent about the possibility of tourists bringing new plants, seeds or pets to the islands. Finally we got the water taxi into town. The town is occupied more by sea lions than people!!

They were everywhere! And what a smell!! When we got back to the boat we had our own 3 sea lion occupation to deal with!! One had even the audacity to be sunning on our sun cushions in the cockpit and what a ruckus when Ken tried to shoo him away. They bark something like dogs.

Our Galapagos welcoming party

Occupy S/V Dancing Walrus. 'WHAT YOU WANT ME TO LEAVE??'

More friendly Galapagos welcomes.

Sunrise over a neighbors boat

Sea Lion smile 'DOG BREATH DOESN'T DO IT JUSTICE''

Occupy San Cristobel, The benches had a sun shade above and the sea lions liked to be in the shade!

Volcanic Lake at the top of the island

Mom nursing a pup on the beach

Marine Iguana

Land Iguana

Local customers at the fish market

This sea lion looks for hand outs at the local fish market and so do the pelicans. I noticed pelican poop running down the cutting table and under the fish!

Today we took a walk to a place where 2 walls of volcanic rock opened up and resulted in a very deep crack with a salt water pond at the bottom. The pond had fish in it. The pond at the bottom was a wonderful swimming hole about 40 feet deep. Most water like this is quite warm but due to shading from the sun this one was nice and cool. Its a very wonderful place called Las Grietas which is less than a 20 min. walk along a trail just away from the main town.