Tyee3 - Catana 431: SailBlogs

Hotel del Aquarium

Theo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:53:00 -0600

Living in Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island is like living in an aquarium. Every morning, we wake up to the sound of sea lions snorting outside our windows and penguins chasing bait fish. This morning, Simi tried feeding them leftover waffles but they preferred the unlimited supply of sushi. When we got back from town, two sea lions were on the bottom transom steps sleeping in the sun after a beautiful breakfast. They weren't happy when Mom chased them away but one took refuge in our kayak which Papa was happy to take over for a ride to "Stray Kitty", our friend's boat. The sea lion then jumped off the kayak and hopped on their boat, we all laughed. Last night at dinnertime, we witnessed a blue-footed booby battlefield bombardment with no mercy. Thousands of birds flew by Tyee and started torpedoing the billions of fish in the bay. It was a bloody massacre enjoyed by all watching. All in all, our anchorage is a great aquarium full of life. (View Post...)

Puerto Ayora disaster!

Lucie — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:20:04 -0600

After a few days in busy Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, we decided to move along to the next port. Well!!! Puerto Ayora was a disaster. The Arc Rally (+/-30 Boats going around the world in 15 months) were there which did not help it but nevertheless, it is the busiest port of Galapagos and unfortunately the worst situated of the islands. It faces the incoming south swell and wind, there is hardly any protection from the elements and we felt seasick at anchor. The waves were crashing over the bow of the boat, it made it extremely difficult and dangerous to catch a water taxi which you have to to get to town. The town itself is lovely, a larger more commercial version of Ganges, SaltSpring with many artist shops. We only stayed for 2 nights just enough time to get our passport stamped ready for the Marquesas. We then left for Isabela Island. On the way over, we fished and it was great, we caught 2 yellowfin tuna, John was cleaning them into nice fillets and Bill threw the line back in. Again the BC salmon plug was a winner bringing us in another tuna but this one we had to share with the sharks who had smelled the blood of the first two. It bit the whole body off and left us the head. We gave it a break to hopefully lose the sharks and half hour later put the line back in and this time we had to share with a sea lion who got our fish but as John was pulling it back in to examine the lure another tuna got on before it got to the boat. This one was the biggest of all and when we got to the anchorage we had a nice potluck on "Stray Kitty" with Kamaya and Elcie, 9 kids all together, we had a blast. (View Post...)

Tsunami evacuation

Lucie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:59:00 -0600

After six days at sea, we were happy to set the anchor down at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal. We arrived on a full moon night which helped a lot, the chartplotter being 1/4 mile off directing us towards rocks. We had a very peaceful night with only the noise of the sea lions trying to get on the boat bumping on our barricade. Saturday morning, the boys were up early and excited to the outcome of going to land and also catching up with some friends on the boat "Kamaya". There was a lot of movement in the harbour and a mast exodus, we thought that something must be wrong and soon after a large motorboat yacht told us to evacuate, Tsunami warning! We switch on the radio to channel 16 and listen to the reports of the Capitania del Puerto. We hurried to tie off the kayak, windsurfer and many bumpers which were use for sea lions barricade. We then noticed that there was no movement on Kamaya and we should alert them. We pulled the anchor up and headed in towards their boat, Simi was blowing the conch horn and I had the boat horn going. Finally we got them up and told them to hurry out. It was quite unnerving not knowing exactly what to expect or where this giant wave was coming from. They finally came on the radio and said that the earthquake had been in Chile and that it was coming from the south. We then headed north in deep water in the lee of the islands. After a few hours, we concluded that the wave had gone by without any noticeable change. We took advantage of this disturbance to go snorkeling at Kicker Rock where only tour boats are usually allowed to go. We all jumped in the water except for John and Ruth who respectively stayed on Tyee and Kamaya. The snorkeling was amazing, Galapagos white tip, black tip sharks, turtles, eagle rays and thousands of bait... We then returned to port to anchor for the night and to officially check-in the country. (View Post...)