Blog

Tuesday 16th Feb

Deserted islands, rain forest islands, jungle rivers, flat seas and steady 12-15 knots. Almost perfect.

We've been circumnavigating the Las Perlas islands for the last few days exploring the islands and rivers with Dave and Linda on Purrrfect. They parted company wi us at 06:00 this morning heading for Costa Rica. Sorry to see them go as that leaves us on our jacko with just the pelicans diving for fish all around as company. They're not really designed fro plummeting from 50 feet. They crash dive like a train wreck, folding their wingspan at the last moment. They then emerge like a bad hair day, all ruffled scruffy feathers. But it seems to work as they stuff themselves picking up fish at will in what seems like abundant stocks. Me, I've had two giant Yellow Fin Tuna up beside the boat but both escaped as we tried to get the aboard.

Yesterday's Bonito wasn't so lucky; he's in the freezer awaiting dinner.

Basically, we're killing time as, with Machu Pichu plans binned, we want the World ARC to get a phase ahead of us. They land in Galapagos from about tomorrow. We plan on leaving on Friday so, with a 7-10 day passage that should leave us clear.

Meanwhile we're heading away from the Galapagos, heading upwind, back to Contadora to replace the old victuals that we scoffed this week, top up with water and fill up my air tank in case the Galapagos barnacle police find some and want me to gather them for inspection.

I spent 45 minutes under the boat a couple of days ago scrubbing and scraping so hopefully we shouldn't have a problem. If they find any, stories are they send you 60 miles offshore to gather the ones they've counted and photographed. You then need to bring then back in a plastic bag to be counted. Meanwhile, nine flights a day unload hundreds, nay, thousands of tourists and I'll bet they don't have to pay $1300 for inspections, fumigation, customs agents and all that stuff. Now I think of it we should probably have left boat in the marina and booked a hotel holiday tour. We'd probably have saved money.

That and had a bath!