Smoke on the Water
19 April 2016
07:00 yesterday. All checked out. Zarpe in hand (that's a piece of paper from customs you can buy for only $15) we headed out from Isabela, waking our cruising buddies to Mike Oldfield's "Tattoo" at full blast. And that was Galapagos. Tortoises seen. Iguanas trod on. Sea Lions smelled.
The three islands we had access to, San Cristobal, Santa Cruz and Isabela are all quite different. San Cristobal a quaint small town existing on its airport and mini cruise ships. Santa Cruz is the tourist town with its chopping and hostals. Isabela, a one sandy road town on an island that's hard to get to. This keeps it quiet and sleepy. It's shallow bay seems to limit the number of cruise ships so no ferry RIBs zooming in and out all day. Anne loved it all. I could take it or leave it. The Galapagos islands are all fairly unimpressive, low lying scrub land and its only its wee beasties that make it unique. I'd say over-hyped but I'd get a slapping for being cynical.
Anyway, we were done and dusted and heading out.....to the faint smell of burning. I've a rotten sense of smell so I went up to ask Anne to come down and have a sniff. However, as I turned back round into the cabin you didn't need a sensitive hooter to know something was burning. Smoke was coming from behind the instrument panel. Don't panic! In the previous night's tsunami activities I'd used our "melt ice art 200 yards" super high power searchlight to wake up one of the other yachts. It must have seemed to them like they were about to be beamed up. This searchlight comes with a casual, over the shoulder battery pack for those moments when you want to move about the boat. Somehow, maybe the RF from the SSB, the battery shorted and was in the process of melt down. Fortunately we caught it before any damage was done....other than to the battery pack which is a congealed mess.
Light winds took us out for our first night at sea to waken to thick fog and later rain. This WAS NOT in the brochure. After a decent breeze this afternoon, we're back to nil speed, the main crashing around and a night of rolly polly ahead. Until we hit the Trades in another 200 miles or so south I think this will be the pattern. Same old!!!