This week has seen us working towards leaving San Cristobal Island. Last week however, was filled with seeing the sights, sounds and tasting the flavours of the Galapagos.

Before we left Canada, our friend Dennis said that, when we got to the Galapagos, he'd like to come and visit. At that time, the Galapagos were a world away. Well, visit he did and he brought along his pal, Don from Saskatchewan. They flew in last Saturday heavily weighted with supplies from Canada; boat parts and cheese. Yes, cheese! Good cheese is hard to get in these parts, eh!

Dennis and Don are both film makers and both brought their broadcast video cameras. Don is a documentary film maker, with hundreds of documentaries to his credit. We were thrilled that our time in the Galapagos was going to be recorded. I've not been good at pulling out our video camera, which is actually Dennis's camera that he lent us just before we left Canada. My thoughts were on having our time here on tape and Don's thoughts were looking at putting together a documentary of Gromit's voyage so far.

After picking Dennis and Don up at the airport, we went to a local lunch place. Most of the smaller, 5 table diners, have a set menu at lunch. For $2.50 per person, you get a glass of juice drink, a large bowl of soup and a plate of the meal of the day. Usually this includes fish or a meat stew with rice and vegetables or small salad. From there, we got an ice cream before taking the water taxi back to Gromit.

The boys, Dennis and Don, got themselves settled in the aft cabin. Before long, Dennis was back in the cockpit looking a bit green. The anchorage was a bit rolly with the swell coming in and Dennis was feeling the effects. We chatted a bit and then took the water taxi back to land for a stroll around.

The next day, unfortunately, we didn't notice that while we were sitting in the cockpit, Dennis's legs and feet were in the sun. Having just spent a sunless winter in Canada and not applying any sun screen here in the Galapagos, he got a burn. In the afternoon, we went to a beach known for its sea lions. Sand, sun and surf and of course, lots of sea lions. We snorkeled and walked exploring the volcanic rock formations. On the path leading to the beach we saw large, black marine iguanas.

We explored lots around the island mostly with Don and his camera(Dennis's burnt legs and feet caused him to have to sit out some of these excursions). We went to the volcano, the tortoise centre, the interpretation centre and lookout, a bay for snorkeling where the kids and Don swam with some sea lions. We were invited to the local school by Cecilia Alvear, daughter of the first governor of the Galapagos. We went out for dinner, swam off the boat and dingied over to greet Artemo, all 7 of us, when they arrived on Thursday of that week. It was a non-stop, action packed, fantastic week. It was great to see Dennis again and meet Don. Easier guests you could not wish for! It was a joy to have them aboard. On Saturday, a week later, we took them back to the airport for their send off back to Canada.