April 21: Galapagos
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Dear all!

Now I have spent almost 3 weeks in Galapagos, and I have no plans of leaving just yet!
We arrived on Isla Cristobal, which is the administrative centre of Galapagos, and only stayed for a few days to get our passports stamped and stock up on the last items from “civilisation”. Despite being almost the last out-post of civilisation for the next 3000 NM to come (5400 km), we did find the most beautiful, untouched beach you can ever imagine!


Out-laws on Isabela
After 3 days on Cristobal, we headed off to Isla Isabela, where we are now. This is kind of the “out-law “-place were most sailors spend a few days before the final take-off across the Pacific. Although Isabela is the largest island, it has no immigration office, and since the natural park-law says that you can only visit one island with your own vessel, all of the sailors here are “illegal aliens”. Last week there was a big riot here when the port captain suddenly summoned all sailors to a meeting to try to enforce some of the rules. I ended up being the official translator at the meeting, and so I felt very important and indispensable! The out come was that the port captain is closing his eyes and simply pretends we do not exist.


Radio Officer: Tina
Another issue, that inflated my ego even more, was yesterday when I helped relay the co-ordination of a rescue action following a MAYDAY message from an EPIRB buoy in the middle of the Pacific. During 14 hours I was on the VHF and the SSB radio to relay and translate the conversation between the Ecuatorian Coast Guard, Panama, and Peru, the Honolulu Rescue Center, the port captain of Isabela, sailing vessels that were heading out to assist the MAYDAY, and various other radio nets that are managed by sailors for safety reasons. Filos has a very good antenna, and a very prominent Spanish/English-speaking radio officer aboard! In the end it turned out that the MAYDAY only concerned some mechanical problems that had already been solved... Fortunately for that vessel is that we don’t know its name, only the identification number, so we don’t know who to hawl by the keel just yet...


Animals outnumber humans
As for Galapagos, the animal life is spectacular! I am convinced a gene has gone missing here during evolution, for all of the animals are absolutely unafraid of humans! But why would they not be, when any species on its own by far outnumber us!
I was amazed to see all of the sea lions when I first came! They are around the boat at all times, and I have seen hundreds and hundreds of them by now! They are more common than dogs at home (and I come from a dog-breeding family!)! I still love to watch the sea lions, though, but I have stopped leaping out of the cock pit when ever I hear a splash or a “sigh” from a sea lion! They hunt around the boat in the mornings, and the other day Flori thought the boat was sinking because they knock the hull, and when they let out air bubbles underneath the boat, it sounds as if we are going down!


Snorkeling with 8 sea lions!
Of course I have snorkeled with them several times as well! Especially the young ones are curious and come really close to look at you, and then they swim all around making funny turns and leaps! It’s great, what else can I say?! The only non-great thing is that the day after swimming with 8 sea lions at a time, I spilled some hot coffee on my stomach and got burned, so now I have been out of the water for over a week. L So no diving so far...
Volcano-love affairs
Instead I have explored the lava islands around and taken some great pictures of Amazingly Unafraid Giant Iguanas (up to 1.5 m), Galapagos Penguins, Pelicans, Red Crabs, Blue Footed Birds, and Sea lions of course...
I also went up to one of the 5 volcanoes on the island – spectacular – and visited the tortoise breeding centre. There are 5 species on this island, one from each of the volcanoes, where they naturally live at the crater. Obviously the distance was too long for inter-volcano-love affairs, so they have evolved completely differently! Some of them have a shell which reminds of the bark of a cork-tree!
Swedish rotten fish

 

Apart from the animals, there are actually people living here as well and I have made friends with some of the locals! There has been a lot of socialising, both with them, and with the other sailors. Believe it or not, but of the 20 sailing boats at anchor here, 7 (SEVEN) are Swedish! Including a Norwegian boat and me, we have had loud reunions with 16 merry Scandinavians! I haven’t spoken Swedish for so long, that in the beginning it was quite difficult! After plenty of practice, I am able to speak it fluently again! The Swedes also helped me to confirm that we do eat rotten fish, because, as you know, Ben wouldn’t believe me!


Spear gun hunting Sharks!
As for our buddy-boat Gypsy Soul: Emma reached her final destination here in Galapagos with Ben, and has jumped ships to a Brazilian boat called Zazén and is now heading for the Marquesas. Ben is sailing across the Pacific single -handling, and sees it as a big challenge to conquer the Pacific Ocean on his own. He turned 40 the other day, so maybe it is part of some macho-crisis?! ;-)
Anyway, we arranged a big surprise party for him with all of the sailors at the “Yacht Club”. That same day Ben had gone out diving with our friend and Yacht Club Owner, Henry, who is also a fisherman. Because of my burnt belly, I could not join them, but probably it was better I did not. They went spear gun fishing, illegal of course, and caught a few snappers, and Ben himself, shot a White tip reef shark when snorkeling! He managed not to drown with it although the guys in the boat at first refused to believe him and so hesitated to help him when the Shark was dragging away with him! Later we had barbecued shark at Ben’s party, and it was actually very good. Although, I must admit, Snapper is less chewy!
Treasure hunting and ice-bears!
Here we have worked up a reputation of being “Untrustable Liars” instead of “Trusty Shellbacks” since we crossed the equator! Remember at the Treasure Island Cocos, where Ben found this old Silver Cross that I not for a second doubted belonged to a real treasure... Well, it was bought in Bolivia! Ben pulled of such a big joke on us, and we believed every bit of it! Ben was insisting that we, Filos and Gypsy Soul, go back to Cocos Island to search for the treasure! He even got another boat in on the joke and bought a metal detector from them right in front of our eyes to convince us it was true! Then he tried to play Flori and me against each other, to argue about the division of shares if we found the treasure...
Me and Flori, on the other hand, managed to fool Ben quite a bit on April the 1st, while we were sailing from Cocos Island and talking to each other on the VHF! We made him believe that we had heard of this great island called Isla Lirpa (read it back wards!), and made him change his course to reach this island, which - of course -does not exist on any map! We asked if his Yellow Fever vaccination was in order since the island belongs to Peru; we told him that a US air plane with plutonium once had crashed on the island, and that along with sea lions, there was also sea elephants and ice bears... He believed every single bit of that too, I must say, although I guess he must have been sceptic to the ice-bears... But come one, there are penguins at this latitude, so why not?!
We told him that we had the information from a non existing page in a cruising hand book, which he also has. He was frenetically looking for this page, and made sure he had the same edition as us. However, we claimed ours was from the 1st of April... and not until we spelt that out for him loud and clear several times, did he realise he was fooled! Later he showed us the sea chart where he had made Emma mark Isla Lirpa with a cross according to its invented latitude and longitude!
As four you, dear readers, there is no clue to whether all I am telling you is pure fantasy and lies...
So enjoy while your innocence lasts!
Tina, Untrusty Liar!

Updated May 27