Hopefully today is our last day in the Galapagos, so as you can imagine we are dashing around trying to get the last minute things done. We are potentially looking at 28 days non stop at sea, it is 3,000 miles from here to the Marquesas our next destination. Nobody is really looking forward to it but we know that it has to be done, this trip is just about one of the longest sea crossings that you can do. It isn’t on any major sea lane so we hope that everything goes ok as help can be a very long time coming. There are around 30 plus boats heading out that way as well, and although we don’t have SSB radio we have the satellite phone and could call up one or 2 of them to relay messages or ask for assistance.
The boat is well stocked up, we figure we have enough canned goods on board to last for around 3 months which by the time they start to run out we should be in places where we can stock up on some reasonably sensible stores. So until then we have to run with what we have got and then rely on things that we can buy in the islands, oh goody! Fish and coconuts and more fish and coconuts. Our meat should last us for a week and then it is on to tinned meat, the only tinned meat that any of us could get was Spam and Corned Beef, so I will have to use my imagination well and truly. Yesterday I made my first bread onboard, didn’t come out too badly, Nigel and Ted ate it and didn’t complain too much. They’d better not as that’s all they will be getting between here and Tahiti.
Although our water maker is turning out fresh water quite happily, we are always happy to take advantage of free water when it comes. Last night it rained like no mans business so this morning the dinghy was full of fresh water – yippee free fresh water rinse for my clothes. We still have plenty left so as an extra treat I will have a fresh water hair wash rather than the saltwater wash and fresh rinse – sheer luxury I tell you. I have even set aside some in a container for 5 days down the line when I can have another one.
Tonight will also be my last night sleeping in the forepeak, after that it will be back to my sea bunk in the main cabin – best bed in the house! You wouldn’t really want to sleep up front enroute, not unless you were a glutton for punishment. So it will be back into the watch system again, 3 hours at night and 4 during the day, Pilates exercises 24 hours a day – its amazing how toned you become as your body constantly compensates for the movement of the boat.
Anyhow this will be my last update for at least a month or so, I’m not too certain what the facilities are for the internet in French Polynesia. Please think of us occasionally, especially as you are tucked up in your comfy bed of a night time – long gone are my days of comfy beds, constant running water and a kitchen that doesn’t move! But – I do have desert islands, sandy beaches and palm trees to look forward to. One last piece of info for you – we have been told not to swim off the boat in the Marquesas – Tiger sharks are coming into the anchorages now that there are more yachts doing the rounds of the islands. Scrub the hull? ………. I don’t think so!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Pollywogs and Shellbacks
Well Honalee has now officially crossed the equator and in true mariner style we held a ‘Crossing the Line Ceremony’. Neptune (Nigel) summoned the 2 Pollywogs onboard (Ted and myself) to be on deck addressed in the appropriate attire.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with crossing the line, Pollywogs are those that have never crossed the line, where as those that have are called Shellbacks. Nigel already being a hardened Shellback was Neptune’s helper, Neptune communing with him through a conch shell (in our case the measuring jug). We duly paid our dues through a series of forfeits and the eating and drinking of disgusting items and drinks ie oysters, anchovies and a shot of extra strong rum, washed down by a bottle of champagne.
So here are the photo’s for you! Ted will never live this one down and we intend to make sure that copies of this make it’s way to the Swan Inn in Olney to all his old drinking buddies. As a foot note – a message was put into the champagne bottle and set on its way. Normally we try not to littler the ocean but we thought that on this occasion we would in time honour tradition put a message in a bottle. Who ever finds it has been directed to Ted’s pub in Olney!
PS Sorry folks, internet too slow today to downloard photos!
For those of you that aren’t familiar with crossing the line, Pollywogs are those that have never crossed the line, where as those that have are called Shellbacks. Nigel already being a hardened Shellback was Neptune’s helper, Neptune communing with him through a conch shell (in our case the measuring jug). We duly paid our dues through a series of forfeits and the eating and drinking of disgusting items and drinks ie oysters, anchovies and a shot of extra strong rum, washed down by a bottle of champagne.
So here are the photo’s for you! Ted will never live this one down and we intend to make sure that copies of this make it’s way to the Swan Inn in Olney to all his old drinking buddies. As a foot note – a message was put into the champagne bottle and set on its way. Normally we try not to littler the ocean but we thought that on this occasion we would in time honour tradition put a message in a bottle. Who ever finds it has been directed to Ted’s pub in Olney!
PS Sorry folks, internet too slow today to downloard photos!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Not another Iguana!
You can’t come to Galapagos without seeing the giant tortoises, we saw Lonesome George, incredible to think that this guy was alive when Charles Darwin was here. Most of his life was spent in solitude on Pinto Island, they figured out that he had spent at least 100 years living all by himself, he is know in a compound with 2 females, bur apparently he has forgotten what to do with them!
Nigel was looking forward to seeing the Blue Footed Boobies (now why doesn’t that surprise you!). These guys are incredibly comical, huge bright blue feet, they look at you with what appears to be a big grin over their faces. Nigel wants one of the ‘I love Boobies’ tee shirts that are for sale in the shops here. There are so many birds it would be too boring to list them all but I will post some of the incredible shots that Nigel got of them.
Iguanas are everywhere! the land ones are quite handsome as iguanas go, but the marine ones have to be the most ugliest thing you have ever come across. You can be quite happily snorkelling along the reefs, pop your head up and be confronted by the grottiest looking mini dinosaur looking you straight in the eyes. Only their mothers must love them!
Penguins pop up when you least expect them – Nigel surfaced from diving to be confronted by a little guy looking straight down at him. Its incredible that just 10 minutes away from the penguin colony is a flock of flamingos who live in the crater of an underwater volcano.
The landscape is amazing, no trees just cacti and the odd low growing bush, everything is black volcanic basalt rock, but you do come across white sandy beaches where over thousands of years the coral has broken up and formed fine white sand. These form the most beautiful swimming lagoons, sapphire water where you can see rays and sharks swimming along the bottom.
Finding Nemo!
Well if anyone had told me that I would ever swim with sharks, let alone Nigel (who has had a life long fear of things that lurk in the sea) then I would never have believed them! This week I have swum within a few feet of 2/3 metre sharks, we didn’t see a hammer head but we were told that if we had we could have got within 20 feet or so. Sharks here don’t bother people (?) as there is too much marine life for them to go hungry.
One morning a huge manta ray came gliding past as we were snorkelling, apparently they are deep water fish so we were incredibly lucky to see it. It was amazing to see this giant ray in amongst the 10 of us, just glided on by, with 10 of us fast on it’s tail. Seal lions would swim right up to us and play around us as we snorkelled, if you blow air bubbles at them they blow them right back at you. Nigel and I had a big male come and swim around us as we dived off the reef. There were so many reef fish that it would be boring to tell you all of the fish that we came across, but we did come across Nemo and his buddies.
One thing I must mention, we were snorkelling above a huge shoal of fish (millions to be precise) we were all hovering above them when suddenly huge reef sharks appeared from under the shoal, darting in and out feeding as we watched – incredible! The same dive we came across a turtle busily grazing on the bottom, it didn’t faze it at all that he had us all peering down on him.
An Amazing Adventure
We have returned from our trip round the Islands – what an incredible experience – this place is amazing! You think that what you see on documentaries is exaggerated, well I can honestly say that this place is even better than the tv.
We went to see a local tour guide to see if there were any spaces left on the local cruise boats, most people who are here on the Blue Water Rally had booked theirs over a year ago – but us non BWR are rebels and decided to leave it to the last minute. As per usual Nigel left all the talking to me! We told her that we wanted 4/5 day tour and asked what was available, there are dozens of small tour boats that do the rounds, for around $1500 you get a bunk/food and tour guide. Geoconza (strange name) asked me straight away where my accent was from? As usual I said English – she said No No – where in England? Norfolk says me! Thought so says she – I worked in Suffolk – us Norfolk/ Suffolk girls we stick together! I’ll find you something!
Find us something! Let me tell you – we had a suite, separate toilet and dresser, we had a BATH in a separate room off our cabin, and to top it all we had our own balcony, along with food and cocktails. Normal price was $2500 each – we paid $700! So you see at times it does come in handy to have a good old Norfolk accent!
We have had an amazing time, doing and seeing things that we never thought that we would ever do. We were swimming with sharks, lolling around on beaches with sealions, a hair’s breath away from penguins, and we became quite blasé about iguanas (marine iguanas are by the way the most ugliest animal/reptile I have ever seen!). Billy the official Galapagos guide( you are not allowed anywhere without an official guide) made the tour for us, he was so knowledgeable and passionate about the wildlife here, he knew where to find everything and knew everything about each animal we came across.
So what have we done? Well the next few pages of my blog will be about some of the things we have seen and done. I don’t really want to bore you with all the in’s and out’s but I’m going to split it into 2 parts – one page for the land and the other for the sea. Unfortunately we don’t have an underwater digital camera so not too many shots from under the sea, we do have a couple that we got from a Swiss guy onboard.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Galapagos Arrival
We finally arrived in the Galapagos Islands yesterday afternoon after a fabulous sail. We were very lucky (VERY) that we had such a great rip, some of the other yachts coming over had a really rough time of it. One was dis-masted, another had a fire onboard, others had no wind and had to motor most of the way – we were fortunate and long may it last.
This place is truly awesome folks! I remember watching David Attenbourgh when I was little with the giant tortoises and the marine inguanas, Nigel and I have often spoken that if we ever had the chance we would visit here one day. Not ever in a month of Sunday’s did I ever think that I would get the chance to actually sail here. I just wish that Heather and Robb were here to share it with us!
The anchorage is teeming with wildlife, so far we have been visited by dolphins and turtles, pooped on by pelicans! On our trip in to town last night we saw several sea lions lazing around the town, we have been told not to leave our dinghy in the water over night as we’d find that it would have a ‘resident’ sealion in it the next morning.
We spent our first night in the Galapagos catching up with friends from the San Blas Islands, we all had a few rum and cokes and dinner from the street vendors. Today we have to complete the officialdom and hopefully get to see the giant tortoises this afternoon. Because you are not allowed to tour with your own yacht we are intending to take a 4 day guided tour around the islands – great someone else to sail the boat and cook the meals!
This place is truly awesome folks! I remember watching David Attenbourgh when I was little with the giant tortoises and the marine inguanas, Nigel and I have often spoken that if we ever had the chance we would visit here one day. Not ever in a month of Sunday’s did I ever think that I would get the chance to actually sail here. I just wish that Heather and Robb were here to share it with us!
The anchorage is teeming with wildlife, so far we have been visited by dolphins and turtles, pooped on by pelicans! On our trip in to town last night we saw several sea lions lazing around the town, we have been told not to leave our dinghy in the water over night as we’d find that it would have a ‘resident’ sealion in it the next morning.
We spent our first night in the Galapagos catching up with friends from the San Blas Islands, we all had a few rum and cokes and dinner from the street vendors. Today we have to complete the officialdom and hopefully get to see the giant tortoises this afternoon. Because you are not allowed to tour with your own yacht we are intending to take a 4 day guided tour around the islands – great someone else to sail the boat and cook the meals!
Doldrums – we didn’t see no stinky Dlodrums!
At 10:30 the next morning we decided to head out for the Galapagos Islands, which is s journey of about a thousand miles or so. The winds for the first few days were looking good and after that it was going to be the Doldrums, which you all know mean no winds and scorching heat!
Well – let me tell you – we had 37 knots of wind on the stern and it turned into another Cartagena trip. We have now gone into a 3 watch routine so I am now doing night watches by myself – let me tell you it is VERY interesting doing a solo watch in these conditions! Still I am here to tell the tale. Just to tell you how interesting it got in the morning we found part of a fishing net on the end of the boom. So yes we had the boom in the water at one point!
As for the Doldrums – we didn’t come across them and we had a fabulous sail the rest of the way to the Galapagos. We stuck the engine on for 12 hours because we wanted to go an extra knot to allow us to get in in daylight.
The wildlife over was awesome! We came across a huge leather back turtle bumbling along oblivious to the rest of the world and really not interested in what we were doing. For several days we were followed by blue boobies who swooped around the boat feeding on the flying fish that we disturbed along the way. We were accompanied by several pods of dolphins who thought it great fun to frolic in our bow wave. A thresher shark jumped out of a wave behind us – just to remind us that ‘yes’ there are large fish around us.
The highlight of our trip was the fish that Nigel managed to catch. He caught an 8 foot marlin/sail fish – it was truly awesome – especially when it leapt out of the water about 30 feet behind the boat. There was absolutely no way that it was going to stay on the line and it duly ran away with Nigel’s line and favourite fishing lure. So somewhere out in the Pacific is a pretty ticked off sailfish with a fluorescent green and yellow lure stuck in his mouth.
Well – let me tell you – we had 37 knots of wind on the stern and it turned into another Cartagena trip. We have now gone into a 3 watch routine so I am now doing night watches by myself – let me tell you it is VERY interesting doing a solo watch in these conditions! Still I am here to tell the tale. Just to tell you how interesting it got in the morning we found part of a fishing net on the end of the boom. So yes we had the boom in the water at one point!
As for the Doldrums – we didn’t come across them and we had a fabulous sail the rest of the way to the Galapagos. We stuck the engine on for 12 hours because we wanted to go an extra knot to allow us to get in in daylight.
The wildlife over was awesome! We came across a huge leather back turtle bumbling along oblivious to the rest of the world and really not interested in what we were doing. For several days we were followed by blue boobies who swooped around the boat feeding on the flying fish that we disturbed along the way. We were accompanied by several pods of dolphins who thought it great fun to frolic in our bow wave. A thresher shark jumped out of a wave behind us – just to remind us that ‘yes’ there are large fish around us.
The highlight of our trip was the fish that Nigel managed to catch. He caught an 8 foot marlin/sail fish – it was truly awesome – especially when it leapt out of the water about 30 feet behind the boat. There was absolutely no way that it was going to stay on the line and it duly ran away with Nigel’s line and favourite fishing lure. So somewhere out in the Pacific is a pretty ticked off sailfish with a fluorescent green and yellow lure stuck in his mouth.
Sponge Bob Square Pants and a Tsunami
This morning we had set our alarms early as we heading out towards the La Perlas Islands in the Gulf of Panama. As we were getting ready to raise the anchor Daniel and Nicholai from the Danish ING boat were heading towards the marina. ‘Hey you guys what are you up to this early in the morning?’. Well it appears that their boat wasn’t sailing for the Galapagos as planned so they had both decided to jump ship and Nicholai was taking Daniel ashore to catch a plane to the Las Perlas for some diving before heading out to the Galapagos. We duly offered him a lift which he gratefully accepted and jumped aboard.
Whilst this was all going on ‘Natibo’ a big cat with Sponge Bob Square Pants on her sides was also lifting her anchor and came steaming over to us with the skipper shouting ‘Tsunami is on its way from an earthquake in Chile – we have to get out into deeper water before 08:50 – pass the message on’. Our anchor came up so quick and we duly passed the message on. We headed out to sea and within half an hour as we looked back towards Panama the whole fleet was heading out behind us. Luckily Honalee can take big waves so we knew that once we got out into deeper water we would be relatively safe. At about 09:15 we had 2 bigish waves come beam on to us, we are still not certain whether this was the result of the Tsunami or not, it could have been the wake from a big boat miles away - who knows!
Nigel caught his first fish today – two infact! One was a dolphin fish (don’t panic it wasn’t Flipper!) the colour of a rainbow and the other was a tuna. The dolphin fish was soooo good to eat – the best fish I have ever eaten! The tuna was not so good, far too bloody and the meat was very dark more like a piece of steak. They were both b*ggers to kill, and even the copious amounts of alcohol poured into their gills didn’t have much effect. In the end Daniel clubbed them to death, I think we need stronger booze – Ted’s 4 year old Greek Ouzo couldn’t quite cut the mustard
The Isle of Contrador was our first stop, it’s the Panamanian version of Mustique where the rich and famous have holiday homes. Nigel and I went ashore to look for a bar or hotel and the usual internet. A guy saw us struggling up the beach with the dinghy and came down to help us lift it up the beach (we now have to contend with tides now we are in the Pacific). Turned out he was a builder working on one of the beach front villas and he invited us up to the property and even sent one of his builders to show us the way to the hotel. It cost us 4 beers but hey we got to nosey round a million $ home and they got to practise their English.
Over run with Pelicans and Cormorants
The Las Perlas Islands at this time of year are visited not only by whales but by thousands of pelicans and cormorants, all taking advantage of the millions of shrimp and krill brought in by the Humboldt current. It seems at times that the sea is boiling with fish and all around we are surrounded by wildlife in various forms. Whilst we were anchored off the Isle of Viveros Nigel hung off the transom and did some night fishing, the boat was surrounded by quite literally millions of fish. Quite by chance as we had the dive torch on the water we were visited by a very ‘large fish’ it was either a barracuda or a small shark – Nigel quickly moved his legs back into the boat - toes look like bait!
March 3rd (Steph’s Birthday)
Today we are anchored off the Isle of San Jose at the southern tip of the Las Perlas. This is a huge bay which I have to say is not the most scenic and there isn’t as much wildlife about as the others. I decided not to go ashore with Nigel after reading the guide books – too many wild pigs, snakes and crocodiles ashore. Apparently there are Boa Constrictors ashore that live on the wild pigs, I figured if they are happy to attack wild pigs they wouldn’t be too unhappy at taking a pop at me as well! Nigel is quite happy to go poking about in the undergrowth, well he was until the other day when a French guy on Viveros warned him about the constrictors. He duly went off to explore the mangroves until he figured that it looked like something out of a movie scene and didn’t hang around to find out whether he was up to the Johnny Weisenmuller part of wrestling a boa in the jungle.
I guess if we hadn’t have been to the San Blas Islands then I would consider the Las Perlas quite scenic, but by far I think the San Blas out weigh them by a long shot. Nigel and I have joked about getting tattoos at the end of our trip with the Lat’ and Long’ of our favourite place – mine so far is Porvenir in the San Blas. From someone who is very anti tattoo - it’s going to have to been a pretty special place to be etched on my butt for eternity!
Isla Del Rey
This was to be our last stop before heading out towards the Galapagos Islands. We anchored up just of the mouth of a river which was supposed to be great to explore on a rising tide. Lorrigray a boat that we had met on several occasions was anchored up beside us so we all decided to take a little sojourn up river into the jungle on our dinghies.
Wow - what a way to spend an evening! We carried on up river surrounded by jungle, not something that I ever thought I would ever do (especially in close vicinity to salt water crocs!). The mangroves were amazing, and the birds calling to each other was out of this world – we felt like we were on a movie set. We decided to head back when it began to close in on us and vines started coming down into the river – not only was it mozzie heaven we thought that we were getting too close to things that lived on the river banks.
We spent the rest of our night on the back of Honalee with the crew from Lorrigray enjoying a ‘few’ sundowners!
Whilst this was all going on ‘Natibo’ a big cat with Sponge Bob Square Pants on her sides was also lifting her anchor and came steaming over to us with the skipper shouting ‘Tsunami is on its way from an earthquake in Chile – we have to get out into deeper water before 08:50 – pass the message on’. Our anchor came up so quick and we duly passed the message on. We headed out to sea and within half an hour as we looked back towards Panama the whole fleet was heading out behind us. Luckily Honalee can take big waves so we knew that once we got out into deeper water we would be relatively safe. At about 09:15 we had 2 bigish waves come beam on to us, we are still not certain whether this was the result of the Tsunami or not, it could have been the wake from a big boat miles away - who knows!
Nigel caught his first fish today – two infact! One was a dolphin fish (don’t panic it wasn’t Flipper!) the colour of a rainbow and the other was a tuna. The dolphin fish was soooo good to eat – the best fish I have ever eaten! The tuna was not so good, far too bloody and the meat was very dark more like a piece of steak. They were both b*ggers to kill, and even the copious amounts of alcohol poured into their gills didn’t have much effect. In the end Daniel clubbed them to death, I think we need stronger booze – Ted’s 4 year old Greek Ouzo couldn’t quite cut the mustard
The Isle of Contrador was our first stop, it’s the Panamanian version of Mustique where the rich and famous have holiday homes. Nigel and I went ashore to look for a bar or hotel and the usual internet. A guy saw us struggling up the beach with the dinghy and came down to help us lift it up the beach (we now have to contend with tides now we are in the Pacific). Turned out he was a builder working on one of the beach front villas and he invited us up to the property and even sent one of his builders to show us the way to the hotel. It cost us 4 beers but hey we got to nosey round a million $ home and they got to practise their English.
Over run with Pelicans and Cormorants
The Las Perlas Islands at this time of year are visited not only by whales but by thousands of pelicans and cormorants, all taking advantage of the millions of shrimp and krill brought in by the Humboldt current. It seems at times that the sea is boiling with fish and all around we are surrounded by wildlife in various forms. Whilst we were anchored off the Isle of Viveros Nigel hung off the transom and did some night fishing, the boat was surrounded by quite literally millions of fish. Quite by chance as we had the dive torch on the water we were visited by a very ‘large fish’ it was either a barracuda or a small shark – Nigel quickly moved his legs back into the boat - toes look like bait!
March 3rd (Steph’s Birthday)
Today we are anchored off the Isle of San Jose at the southern tip of the Las Perlas. This is a huge bay which I have to say is not the most scenic and there isn’t as much wildlife about as the others. I decided not to go ashore with Nigel after reading the guide books – too many wild pigs, snakes and crocodiles ashore. Apparently there are Boa Constrictors ashore that live on the wild pigs, I figured if they are happy to attack wild pigs they wouldn’t be too unhappy at taking a pop at me as well! Nigel is quite happy to go poking about in the undergrowth, well he was until the other day when a French guy on Viveros warned him about the constrictors. He duly went off to explore the mangroves until he figured that it looked like something out of a movie scene and didn’t hang around to find out whether he was up to the Johnny Weisenmuller part of wrestling a boa in the jungle.
I guess if we hadn’t have been to the San Blas Islands then I would consider the Las Perlas quite scenic, but by far I think the San Blas out weigh them by a long shot. Nigel and I have joked about getting tattoos at the end of our trip with the Lat’ and Long’ of our favourite place – mine so far is Porvenir in the San Blas. From someone who is very anti tattoo - it’s going to have to been a pretty special place to be etched on my butt for eternity!
Isla Del Rey
This was to be our last stop before heading out towards the Galapagos Islands. We anchored up just of the mouth of a river which was supposed to be great to explore on a rising tide. Lorrigray a boat that we had met on several occasions was anchored up beside us so we all decided to take a little sojourn up river into the jungle on our dinghies.
Wow - what a way to spend an evening! We carried on up river surrounded by jungle, not something that I ever thought I would ever do (especially in close vicinity to salt water crocs!). The mangroves were amazing, and the birds calling to each other was out of this world – we felt like we were on a movie set. We decided to head back when it began to close in on us and vines started coming down into the river – not only was it mozzie heaven we thought that we were getting too close to things that lived on the river banks.
We spent the rest of our night on the back of Honalee with the crew from Lorrigray enjoying a ‘few’ sundowners!
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