Day 153, Year 1: A Lazy Sunday
Date: Sunday, March 19, 2006
Weather at Anchorage: No Change–sunny, clear blue skies
Daytime Air Temperature: 82 degrees F daytime
Water Temperature: 77 degrees F
Weather at Anchorage: No Change–sunny, clear blue skies
Location: Academy Bay, Puerto Ayoro, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos
In response to yesterday’s log reporting on our explore starting at mid-day, our daughter Heather wrote: “There’s an old saying you might have heard … ‘Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun.’ There’s a reason for that.” I guess we are mad dogs, because I know we aren’t Englishmen (Sorry, Margaret and Patrick.). We’ll try to remember not to head out in to the mid-day sun again!
This place is amazing. The water in the anchorage is so very clear and the sky is always blue. We sit on the boat and watch blue-footed boobies float by and pelicans dive from high in the sky. There are no large fish that we can see here in the anchorage, but there are thousands of very, very tiny fish all around us. Today there was a very brown bird that I have not seen before. It looks like a tern and has not one bit of color other than brown-brown eyes, brown feathers. Not sure what this bird is but it is beautiful in its simplicity. When we take the water taxi to the town dock, we always see marine iguanas, loads of red crabs, and more blue footed boobies. They are not a very remarkable bird, except for those robin egg blue feet-a strange twist of nature. But the combination of blue feet and red crabs that are everywhere is quite picturesque.
During the night, a southern swell came in and kept us rocking and rolling all night long. We changed our stern anchor position today and hope that tonight will be a little calmer. But the rocky night meant we didn’t get as much sleep as usual, and as a result, we decided to take it easy today and work on the boat. Mark has been trying to find a time to replace the gaskets in all of our hatches since this trip began, and today was the day. I worked on the inside, rearranging things to get ready for Heather and Jed’s arrival on Friday. Mark took the opportunity of working on the hatches to reverse the way our front hatch opens. It has always opened backwards which does not let enough air come into the cabin, so it now opens the right way and allows a breeze to come in.
I went through all of our fruits and veggies that we have had stored since Panama City. All but one of the red and green peppers that are wrapped in waxed paper is still fine. We still have two cabbages left and a few oranges. We also have carrots, potatoes, and onions that are surviving the tropical heat. I am amazed that you can keep tomatoes and peppers this long-20 days so far-without refrigeration. But I sure am glad it can be done. We ate our last mango yesterday, and I have to say that the mangos we bought in Panama, grown in Peru, were the best we have ever tasted. We still have apples, but the bananas are long gone. When I listed the vegetables and fruits we bought for the passage from Panama to the Galapagos, I did not mention chocolate. I got an e-mail from my friend Sue Robichaud back in Concord noting the void. No worries, Sue. I stocked up on chocolate before leaving the US and still have plenty aboard. That’s something I wouldn’t be able to travel without.
Mark was also able to get my IBM ThinkPad computer to talk to our printer today. Since the loss of our main computer, we haven’t been able to print anything. Not sure why it is so hard, but we have found it difficult to get different computers to print through our Hewlett-Packard printer. We are fine for now, but when Heather and Jed get here with our new computer, we will probably have to start all over.
We will turn in early tonight to try and make-up for the loss of sleep last night. So far, the new stern anchor position seems to be keeping us from rocking and rolling. Let’s just hope this lasts through the night.
