Santa Cruz is the final island we visit on our tour of the Galapagos. It’s the most developed island, quite a tourist hub offering tours to all of the other islands, and providing a pick up point for the small cruise ships that ply these waters. It is also the best place to provision for our upcoming Pacific Ocean crossing. Having seen all of the iconic Galapagos animals it feels like our visit is winding down as we shift focus to the next stage. Nevertheless Santa Cruz was well worth exploring as two important questions remain unanswered: 1. Do those marine iguanas really swim? (and if so what stroke do they do?) 2. Can Lynda fit inside a giant tortoise shell? Read on to find out.
Isabela to Santa Cruz
From the island of Isabela to Santa Cruz is 40nm heading NE. The forecast was for very little wind but filling in by the afternoon but as we were getting 8kts of breeze by 9ish in the anchorage we decide to up anchor and go for it. We had a pretty good sail for a while with the gennaker, but eventually lost the wind and motored the last 3 hours. Lost 2 lures along the way and caught nothing. We arrive into the anchorage to meet up with the crew of Miles Away, Mowzer and WildThing2, part of the Santa Marta crowd. Everyone is sympathetic about our fishing woes, our reputation is by now well known in these anchorages, its embarrassing, however it does mean we are regularly donated recently caught fish by those more proficient than us (and whose freezers are full!) In this case Mahe Mahe from The WildThings, who also offer to give us a much needed fishing lesson!
The town here in Santa Cruz is a much larger, more developed and substantial town than San Cristobal, lots more supermarkets, tourist shops and restaurants, not to mention paved streets. We walk up to the Darwin Research Centre, which hosts researchers studying the unique flora and fauna of the Galapagos. There is a small exhibition hall with a big whale skeleton and some tortoise shells we can look inside. It’s super hot and we are getting very sweaty – so we check out a couple of beaches along the path. The sand is lovely and soft and the black lava rocks are teeming with marine iguanas – so far none seem that interested in giving us a swimming demonstration though.
Tortuga Beach
One afternoon we walked across to Tortuga beach – a reasonably long walk on an undulating concrete path to a beautiful, long white beach with the softest sand. It is fringed with black lava rocks which hosts the now familiar marine iguanas. The strong waves and current make it challenging for swimming but we managed to cool off in the shallows. The marine iguanas have heeded the warning signs, and again none of them are up for a surf. It’s a super hot day and as much as we enjoy walking, it is really draining so we have to stop for an ice cream on the way back. There is no savouring it though, you have to eat it really quickly or it is running down your arm!
Into the woods
We joined Gill and John from Mehalah to take a taxi tour up into the hills. Our first stop was Los Gemelos (the twins) two really big craters side by side. These are not volcano craters but were formed by the collapse of lava tunnels beneath. The craters are deep and heavily forested, and we have a lovely walk around them and through the rainforest. This area is famous for its lava tunnels and we visit one that we can walk all the way through. The tunnel is well lit and about as wide and high as a subway station - there is one short, section where we need to get down on our hands and knees to crawl through and of course this is where the water collects so it gets a little muddy. The tunnel looks fairly stable although here and there we can see where a large chunk of rock has fallen some time ago (we hope). It is interesting to be in a cave with no limestone, no stalactites or stalagmites, it is all lava rock. Our final stop is the Rancho Primicias which is actually a cattle farm which provides a large, free range area for giant tortoises to roam about. They have a great display of a tortoise skeleton with shell as well as a shell that you can climb into. Yes! I can fit into a giant tortoise shell! I manage to do a couple of push ups with the shell on, which is pretty impressive as the shell weighs around 80kg, which is more than me! No wonder those tortoises are so slow getting around. We walk around the grounds with a guide and he points out some of the regular tortoise visitors. The animals are not fenced in and are free to come and go as they please, it’s not a breeding or rescue centre, just a safe place for them to roam. There are some pretty big tortoises here, and although we have seen them before they are still very impressive and special. It’s a much wetter environment for them than on San Cristobal and they seem to enjoy wallowing in the water and feasting on the lush vegetation. They come to the ranch to hook up with mates and breed, but then the females then head down to the lower and warmer ground to lay their eggs. The parents don’t take any care of the young so once the eggs so they are on their own.
Puerto Ayora (Academy Bay)
Academy Bay is the main anchorage in Santa Cruz. As with the other islands, taking your own dinghy ashore is not the done thing. Water taxis are the best way to get around, although getting bulky shopping back on board, and past the seal defences on your transom can be challenging when the afternoon swell kicks in. It’s a really bouncy anchorage but the water taxi drivers are very handy and fortunately we avoided any mishaps. The seals in the harbour have not really paid us much attention, having moved on to easier targets. WildThing2 is an Outremer with large sugar scoops who have used their SUPs to create a barrier, leaving a small area exposed – the seals seem to prefer this to ITIKI. The main public dock is a great place to hang out and watch the aquatic wildlife including turtles, small reef tip sharks and YES marine iguanas swimming around. We finally see our first swimming specimens in action. They are much more streamlined and gainly in the water than on land, using a funky, latin-inspired hip wiggle to give them momentum, they cruise around the bay very elegantly.
Fun times with families and friends
After a day of boat jobs in preparation for the next leg of our journey we joined some fellow cruisers for an evening of R&R ashore. There are 3 "kid boats" all anchored nearby and it was quite exciting getting aboard the water taxi with kids and scooters and explaining in our dodgy Spanish to taxi driver that they need to go to this boat, then that boat, then back again because someone forgot something and then finally unloading everyone and their gear at the other end. There is a street set back from the waterfront which is buzzing in the evenings and lined with great value restaurants serving local fare. They display today’s catch on ice and we chose one that can manage to organise a table for the 10 of us. We enjoy a lovely meal of local seafood, lots of talk, sharing plans, tips, tall tales and plenty of laughter – followed by ice cream on the way back and a little more fun getting tired kids (and emotional adults) and scooters back to our respective boats. Such a fun crowd to share great times with and we know we will meet again soon in another anchorage, in another country.
Playa Alamanya
Went ashore one Sunday morning to try to visit Las Grietas, which is an river canyon where you can swim and snorkel, similar to Los Tunnels on Isabela. Enjoyed a walk along a path to Playa Alamanya (German Beach) which is a mangrove lined beach, then walked on to the entrance of Las Grietas to find that the 10:30 tour was full and departed. Its very busy today being a Sunday and locals can go for free so we book in for the 11:30 tour, pay our money and go to the beach for a swim. The shores are lined with mangroves and the tide is coming in so the beach will soon disappear, but the iguanas seem to like it and we see several of them swimming around - pretty cool! Sadly the 11:30 tour to Las Grietas did not eventuate, Sunday is not a good day to do it as it’s so busy. Clearly it wasn’t meant to be. We caught up with some fellow cruisers on their return from a tour to Isabela, where they had hiked the volcano. Had a drink and said our farewells and continued onto have a lovely dinner at the Midori Sushi Pub, Japanese food with fresh local tuna.
A little bit of diesel
As we are about to head across the longest single stretch of our journey, 3000nm to French Polynesia, we want to make sure we have full fuel tanks. Getting diesel in the Galapagos is a bit of a saga and can be quite expensive. Of course the supply is strictly controlled as it has to come a long way from mainland Ecuador. We refuelled on arrival, organising it through our agent to be delivered to the boat, but the cost was double the price at the pump! We also had to deal with unwieldy 15 gallon drums. Having realised we already paid for a “fuel permit” we pushed our agent to provide this for us, so we could go directly to the pump and fill our own Gerry cans at the pump price. If only it were that simple… Having been given the run around and drip fed information about the process, we eventually managed to piece together the puzzle. The permit will only be issued by the agent within 24 hours of departure, once we have booked our exit inspection, so we have to wait until we are sure we are leaving, confirming weather etc. On the appointed day/time, we head to our agent’s office with our empty Gerry cans, drop off our passports and we are escorted to the fuel station by our agent’s offsider in a taxi to the gas station. Our permit papers are scrutinised and stamped in triplicate. They refill our 5 x 5 gallon jerry cans, managing to fit 29 gallons in… They only take cash so I whip out the $50 notes I brought for the occasion, only to be told they don’t accept $50s or $100s! We managed to scrape together the $99 we needed from smaller notes and coins before dropping the agent back to his office and being off loaded at the cargo dock with our loot. Getting the Gerrys cans back to the boat was fun as there was quite a swell running. Keith jumped onto ITIKI while I handed them up to him. I think we surprised ourselves that we managed to get them all back on board without mishap! We are now officially read to leave the Galapagos and head to to Hiva Oa, French Polynesia, 3020nm away.
Oh but wait!
The morning of our departure we were up early and trying to remember everything needed to do for final preparations. Well we cant just up anchor and sail off into the sunset. We need to have an exit inspection. The official Inspectors, along with our agent rep, arrived just after 9 and filled in more paperwork, walked around the boat in their hobnail boots and took pictures. I guess that they need to make sure we are not souveniring a tortoise or two! A few more final preparations, removal of our Galapagos garbage signs, some mindful breathing exercises and it was time to depart on our longest single passage since launching ITIKI. Lifted anchor about 11:30, John and Gill from Mehalah waved us off and that was it, we are on our way. Spoiler alert, we made it to French Polynesia – a full report of our passage is coming soon!
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Iguanas to the left of me, Boobies to the right...Wreck Bay, San Cristobal to Puerto Vilamil, Isabela
From Wreck Bay in San Cristobal island we sailed the 83nm to our next stop, the western most and largest island of Isabela. This made for a very long day trip, by-passing Santa Cruz. We will back track to Santa Cruz to do our provisioning and check out (which can’t be done on Isabela). Lifted the anchor just before 6am to discover that our anchor chain counter had stopped working. Seems that our quick-fix, cheap and nasty magnet has rusted away and destroyed the sensor. We have a work around though, which is a piece of electrical tape on the windlass. I have to count the number of turns, each of which is 40cm… I am hoping the next anchorages are not too deep, as I imagine becoming hypnotized, very dizzy or something weird like that.
We had enough breeze to put the main up and unfurl the gennaker and we were able to sail a lot of the way. As the breeze shifted onto the nose we unfurled the genoa and could come up a bit. Eventually though it was too high and we had to stick the motors on and push into it. As night fell and I came on watch about 7pm it started raining. We had squalls on and off for the rest of the evening and it was quite cool. The bimini has started leaking and so I put some plastic sheet under the frame. We have a hard top bimini on our wish list for when we return. There is a reasonable amount of light despite the cloud, as it is a full moon. I started to see the outline of the a few of the smaller islands and rocks in the gloom and then some lights from the shore around 10ish. We ended up anchoring at Puerto Vilamil, which is on the south east coast of the J-shaped island of Isabela, at about 11:40pm. There are 4 other yachts here, all monos and we set to the west of them, a little bit exposed to the swell. It’s quite shallow at 3m and of course tidal.
Even though we have only come 80 odd nm to another island in the same group, in the same country, we have to do a formal, local check-in process. Manuel our agent, came over at 8:30am the next morning with the Port Captain for our local check in. It’s much easier than the initial check in, just filled in a few self-reported details in a ledger which the skipper signed and stamped. Wind has gotten up significantly and we are getting 21Kts from 230 degrees. It’s very bouncy in the anchorage and we decide rest up and get settled in before going ashore. After the onslaught of seal invaders at San Cristobal we still have our defences in place, but there are not as many seals here. We just had one come by and have a little sleep on our transom for a bit.
Downtown Puerto Vilamil
Isabela is the largest island in the Galapagos group, famous for its many volcanos. We are told the most recent eruption was only a couple of weeks ago! Ahh ok. The small population lives mainly around the town and few of the roads are paved. The hinterland is thick with vegetation and barely habitable.
Unlike San Cristobal, you can actually take your dinghy ashore and there is a dinghy dock, although it’s not much chop. We hit a couple of rocks on the way and taking a chunk out of the prop on the way in, as we didn’t keep a wide enough berth as advised. The dinghy dock is on a floating pontoon that the commercial boats and water taxis use for pick up and drop of. We only take the dinghy ashore once, next time its water taxis! Ashore we can see a few seals on the pier, but not as many as San Cristobal. The town is pretty basic but there are quite a few cafes and hostels as well as souvenir shops and tour booking offices. There is a church with some lovely painted scences with saints watching over the native fauna. We walk up to the obligatory tortoise sanctuary, completely missing the path through the wetlands and walking along the road instead. It’s a small sanctuary and we are obliged to take a guided tour at $10, but we learn a few new interesting facts. They feed the tortoises 3 times per week on a plant called Elephant Ear, which is close enough to cactus that they would normally eat. Luckily this is a feeding day so they are a more active than usual. There are tortoises of varying ages as well as some mature ones from the mountains of Isabela. The mountain tortoises were rescued when there was an eruption, and a couple of them bear the scars from burning lava that must have hit them during the eruption. Their shells are much flatter than the other lowland tortoises and they their necks are shorter, as they feed mainly on the lower, mountain vegetation. The mountain area of Isabela is quite rugged and inhospitable so finding the tortoises after the eruption was challenging, then they had to be sedated for the trip by helicopter to a waiting boat and finally by road to the sanctuary. They will eventually be released back to the same place, a costly and onerous undertaking! Further up the road there is a small lagoon where there are some flamingos, well four to be exact, and they dutifully posed for photos. Back in town we have lunch at Cesar’s which was really good value, 3 course menu dias for $8. Los Tunels
The highlight of our time in Isabela was a small boat tour of the site called Los Tuneles, which is west of our anchorage along the southern coastline of Isabela. There are quite a number of small boat tours departing around the same time to different destinations and the port police are making a big show of regulation, checking everyone has a life jacket on, taking pictures etc. It’s a small power boat, maximum 10 people, but with big, outboard engines and we have the company owner on board, as well as a guide and skipper. There is quite a swell running from the west, so we are bouncing into it. Our first “stop” is Union Rock which is a large vertical volcanic rock sticking out of nowhere. There used to be more of these rocks but as water level rises, and they erode away, they disappear. There are some black footed or Nazcar Boobies here and one, lone blue-footed one. We learn that the foot colour is due to their diet. Red-footed boobies have a diet of squid, blue foots eat Sardines and black foot eat pelagic fish. The populations don’t compete with each other for food. Our skipper slows down as he spots an enormous Manta Ray, it must have been the size of the boat! We watch it swimming around for a while before continuing on. We arrive at Los Tunels and it is like another world – we enter a natural lagoon which is very protected from the swell. There are lots of low, black lava rocks in the water and some of them form tunnels and archways. There are some tall, skinny cacti on some of them. We motor around them, its like an aquatic, lunar landscape, with a bit of desert-like vegetation, before tying the boat up to a rock and walking ashore.
Los Tunels was formed during the last ice age when the water level was much lower. Isabela is a highly volcanic island with several volcanos, a couple of which are still active. The lava flows dried on the outside due to the cold, and underneath the lava kept flowing out, eventually leaving hollow tubes as it ran out. When the sea level rose the water could come in, creating this unique habitat. I was really excited to see the small colonies of the Blue-Footed Boobie and it is mating time so they are doing the boobie dance. Its amazing to see it. The male lifts his feet, marching up and down on the spot and also raises his tail in a polite but evocative curtsey. The male and female clash beaks and sometimes he will pick up a small stone and offer it as a gift or just move it around. He has to work pretty hard, dancing at least twice a day for up to 1 hour at a time. He also has to build a nest, so even though he might win over a mate with his fancy footwork, once she gets to the nest she may be disappointed and give him the flick!
We can see that some of the birds have brighter blue feet, apparently this means they are getting more sardines, and are better at fishing. Males with bluer feet are more attractive to the females. We also go snorkeling here with our guide, which is weird because the water is not that clear and not all that warm either, even though I hired a wetsuit this time. Still there is a lot of sealife, including large turtles who are oblivious to us. We also see small white-tip reef sharks sleeping in the mangroves and caves, and a few rays cruising around as well. Our guide finds a small seahorse, sleeping attached to something on the bottom. It’s a pain snorkeling with such a large group as everyone is flapping around, scaring off the fish and one guy with a life-ring keeps banging into everyone. The guide takes a lot of photos which is good as my GoPro wasn’t charged and I missed a lot of stuff being at the back of the pushy group. We have a bite to eat on board as we head back to town, and the trip back is a lot quicker with the wind and swell behind us. The Wall of Tears / Muro de Las Lagrimas
We hired push bikes for the day and rode a well maintained coastal trail up to the Wall of Tears, stopping to look at some wetlands along the way. Passed one giant tortoise crossing the road, why?! Ask the chicken! The Wall of Tears was constructed by prisoners as a bit of a pointless, hard labour exercise. It’s quite a substantial dry stone wall but it serves no function whatsoever and is just in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say many suffered and died in the process, and that may have been the objective. Its wickedly hot here now and in the full sun, breaking rocks would have been brutal. Although the ride was fairly flat there were a few sections we had to pedal hard to get up and over, and let’s just say our butts are not really cycle-fit! We made a few stops on the way back checking some beaches, white sand contrasts with the with the black lava rocks that the marine iguanas frequent. We see a couple of them fighting in the sand (or maybe they were courting – where is David Attenborough when you need him?!) We are yet to see them actually swimming so Keith tries to encourage one into the water, unsuccessfully. Well that wildlife experience will have to wait until we get to our next and final stop at the island of Santa Cruz.
Seals to the left of me, tortoise to the right
After arriving in San Cristobal and passing our inspection, we are free to explore, as long as we follow the rules! One of the many rules here in Galapagos is that it’s not permitted to use your own dinghy. Frankly you wouldn’t want to as the surge on the docks is pretty bad so there is really no where safe to leave it. In addition we see the local boats here using barbed wire to keep the seals off, so any dinghy left at the dock would be fair game. To get ashore you hail a water taxi (or taxi aquatico) on VHF14 - US$1 per person. The drivers nudge their wooden boat into your transom and you jump on/off, we got very good at this by the end of our three week stay. I think our pronunciation of “taxi aquatico” even became quite convincing!
The small town is fairly colourful and chilled out, not too crowded. Kinda has a holiday / back packer feel. The Seals have the run of the foreshore taking up most of the available seating along the pier and lounging around under them as well. The famous marine iguanas are sunbathing on the black lava rocks which line the foreshore as well as wandering happily along the street, completely oblivious to humans. I guess they know they are protected! There are numerous statues of Charles Darwin around the town and we also visit the Darwin interpretation centre, which gives some insight into the flora and fauna of the islands, as well as Darwin's travels and time here. The centre is also a gateway to some walking paths around the headland.
The headland walk from San Cristobal is really lovely, although challenging in the heat. We head all the way up to a mirador (lookout) facing north west. We can see kicker rock and down along the west coast of San Cristobal island. The lava rock paths are wide and mostly shadey and the walk takes us down to the largest statue of Darwin, overlooking a few of the iconic animals of the Galapagos. The beautiful white sand beach at Punta Carola provides a quiet place for the marine iguanas to bask in the sun and watch over the light house. There is no postal service in The Galapagos so to send mail (postcards mainly) we must rely on other travelers to take mail back with them and deliver it by hand. No stamp required but no idea how long that might take. We pass one of these on our walk and check the contents, but no mail for Australia... The walk back takes us via Playa Mann, the beach facing the anchorage, and its time for a refreshing swim and to relax and watch the young seals frolicking in the surf. They just dont have a care in the world, and are fortunate that we feel the same!
HIGHLAND TOUR
The Galapagos taxi is actually a twin cab ute (don’t ask me the brand) and the three of us fit comfortably in for a half day taxi tour of San Cristobal island. Fantastic. The tour takes us through the centre of this volcanic island and across to the east coast.
KICKER ROCK
A highlight of our stay on San Cristobal was a day tour by small power boat to Kicker Rock. It lies off the north west coast of San Cristobal, not far from the coast, and we passed it as a distance as we came in. We motor slowly through a small, protected lagoon along the coast of San Cristobal where we see some frigate birds in the mangrove trees. It is breeding season so the male's red throats make them stand out. They puff these up to impress the females. Of course we see plenty of seals resting on the rocks and then our first sighting of the famous blue-footed booby! So exciting, hopefully we will see more of these in the coming weeks. We anchored off a beautiful white sand beach and were ferried ashore by dinghy for a walk along the beach and a swim in the pristine waters. Here there are plenty of marine iguanas sunning themselves in the sand and dipping their toes in the water. They are very hard to see on the black lava rocks and I almost step on one as I try to get a photo of another one. There are turtle nesting areas on the beach so those are off limits but there are clear turtle tracks heading across the sand. There was a small reef shark swimming in the in the shallows.
On to Kicker rock for a snorkel, the water is freezing! I mentioned that Galapagos is at a convergence between two currents. One minute you are swimming along and the water becomes freezing cold, and just when you think you can’t take it any more you swim into a blissfully warm patch, which hopefully was not generated by the person in front… Snorkelling is not that great and I bail out early. We went back to the boat and the skipper went chasing dolphins, which were playing around with the boat for a while. We also saw some hammerheads sharks swimming on the surface and were able to follow these for a while. Super large turtles as well. I went back in the water a little later and rejoined the group and I am glad I did as I saw reef tip sharks and a hammerhead swimming around below us. Also followed a turtle with lots of fish stuck to its back. We had a simple lunch on board and on the way back Keith went up to the helm and the skipper gave him the wheel! Arrived back at 3 and had a rest before heading out to a farewell dinner - Morrie’s treat for his last night. Had a wonderful meal at Midori, sushi restaurant. Excellent food and a great way to end our time in San Cristobal.
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AuthorAfter more than 5 years of (minus time off for Covid) and more than 27,000nm Lynda has finally got the hang of this cruising life Archives
January 2024
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