Day 164, Year 1: Back Home in Academy Bay, Puerto Ayoro
Date: Thursday, March 30, 2006
Weather: Clear Blue Skies; Wind in the Anchorage
Location: Academy Bay, Puerto Ayoro, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos
We have returned to Windbird in Academy Bay after a fabulous four days of touring aboard the Sulidae. In a nutshell, experiencing Galapagos wildlife was phenomenal, food was great, but sleeping was a challenge. The cot-like bunks were barely padded and we traveled every night and tried our best to sleep to the sound of the very loud 280 hp engine lullaby. We chose the “economic cruise”-below tourist superior class, first class, and luxury class-so although the Sulidae was not perfect, we feel we got what we expected. The reason for the trip, seeing the Galapagos wildlife, was a phenomenal success. So we are very happy.
We left the island of Espanola around 1630 on Wednesday and arrived here in Puerto Ayoro before midnight. Before the 0700 breakfast, the launch took Mark, Heather, and Justin to Windbird with all of our bags. When they returned, everyone aboard ate breakfast, and then we were off to the Darwin Center. Mark and I had visited it prior to this, but it was the first visit for Heather and Jed. We saw the baby tortoises being raised in pens and then saw different varieties of giant tortoises walking about in the early morning. When Mark and I visited before it was later in the afternoon and most of the tortoises were hiding, so seeing so many of them was a pleasant surprise. We also got to see Lonesome George this time. They have him in an area with two females of the most closely related sub-species, but he is just not interested in mating with them. There is a search underway to find females of more closely related sub-species. He is the last of his species, so if this fails cloning will be the next step in trying to continue his line.
We were finished with our tour by 0930 and all of the other people in our group said their goodbyes and headed to the airport. All but one was flying back to mainland Ecuador on a noon flight. We shared some wonderful experiences together and will always remember our time with Julie from Michigan, Louis and Evelyn and Michael from Switzerland, and Steffi and Patric and Maike and Soeren from Germany. We will also remember the cheerful Sulidae crew, Henry, Jorge, Leo, Captain Max, Naturalist Lenny, and our fantastic cook, whose name we unfortunately did not get. He rated an A+ for his culinary delights.
We ended our Darwin Center tour and said our goodbyes. At that time, we were standing next to the Darwin Center “store”. Heather and Jed took advantage of the location to do a little souvenir shopping. We then headed to the research station offices to get help. Jed had accidentally dropped a roll of exposed film from the tour inside the fence surrounding the baby tortoises. He had tried to retrieve it, but no luck. We hoped that someone in the research station could help. But as it turns out, scientists do not have keys to the area; only National Park personal can get you into the fenced areas. Heather and Jed continued the search to get help and Mark and I stayed by the pens and tried to figure out ways to get the film. Jed had tried using sticks to grasp it and could not. Mark found an Opuntia cactus pad that had dried and curled and tried to use that as a scoop. Still no luck. Heather returned and suggested that we put a handle on the scoop. Bingo! That did it. Then we had to find Jed and call off the National Park search for the misplaced film canister.
We all strolled slowly back to town and did a little more window shopping on the way. I think we all realized that we were now in charge of our own tour and we started thinking of all the things we needed to do before departing Santa Cruz for our next stop-Isabella. We headed back to Windbird and it was good to be back home. But that settled feeling was quickly disrupted. The Sierra Negra, a large National Park vessel, decided to reset its anchor. This vessel had been anchored next to us shortly after we arrived here, and we were hoping she was not returning. It is unsettling to be in an anchorage next to such a large vessel, especially when the wind is blowing as it was today. We watched as she moved and then all of a sudden, she was being blown down onto the sailboat in front of us, the Mia II from Victoria. It looked to us like the Sierra Negra’s anchor chain had caught the anchor chain of the Mia, and all of a sudden they were playing bumper cars. No one was aboard the Mia, but soon crew from the Sierra Negra hopped aboard to fend off. We were afraid that the Mia’s anchor was going to break loose, setting both boats down on us, so we started the engine and were prepared to do whatever was necessary to avoid a catastrophe. Eventually the Sierra Negra was able to release the stern line they had set and move forward. They continued to struggle, but finally got an anchor set in a safe place. About that time, Paul and Julie from the Mia returned to their boat. I took pictures of the collision and we were asked by Paul and Julie of Mia to write an accident report and print some of the pictures for them. It is really scary to think that all can be well one minute, but then the wrong move of one other boat can truly cause huge problems.
The rest of our day was spent in town dealing with business matters that seem to take forever in this part of the world. Just trying to send pictures to the website can take hours and sending or receiving a fax is even worse. At the end of the day, Heather, Mark, and I took Patrick and Margaret from Aqua Magic out to dinner. They watched our boat while we were gone, and after witnessing the Mia incident, we sure were glad to have someone watching after us. Patrick conveyed that conditions had been rough while we were gone, but we only sustained one casualty-one side of our anchor snubber broke in the huge swell-but all was still fine aboard Windbird.
I will be posting logs from our tour in a day or so. Pictures from here are very hard to send, so it might be a couple of weeks before those reach the US and get posted. In the meantime, I will try to do my best to keep you up-to-date on our adventures through these logs.
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| 060330 Day 164 Galapagos Tour Day 5–Darwin Center, Santa Cruz |
