We're here! We arrived about an hour before sunset, telling Tuomo our agent that we were here. “Yeah, that's great. Just to let you know the swell is quite bad at the moment, so you may want to put out a stern anchor when you arrive.” It's certainly not the calmest anchorage we have been in. We set about putting two anchorages down – the normal one at the front and then a stern one at the back (that doesn't mean he's angry – stern means back of boat, for all you land lubbers) This keeps us into the swell – or should I say surf? - whilst the wind is trying to push us sideways. If that doesn't sound nice, it's not. But here in Galapagos, the restrictions for yachts are such that we cannot anchor anywhere else so we're stuck here for the next two weeks. Lars from Yacht Luna came over to greet us and pick up his chartplotter that arrived by Pegasus Post (a much quicker and more reliable option than airmail via Equador!) and then warned us that their bridle on their anchor snapped and another yacht had been hit by one of the big boats whose anchor had dragged, so to be careful.
The next day, our bridle on our anchor snapped, so it has been replaced with mooring line sized ropes, with chafe guards. Mark stayed on the boat to check that the anchor was holding whilst the kids I and went to ashore to get the heads up from Tuomo about checking in and the touristy stuff. Once Mark felt happy, he ventured over to Luna to help Lars diagnose an electrical problem in the solar panels, which they did. Luna took us out for a meal to say thank you which was really really lovely and after the initial 'I can't talk to them, I don't speak Danish' the kids had a great time with Nana (12) Emil (9) and Jacob ( 7) running about in the streets whilst the parents compared notes. A lovely evening followed back by a trip in the water taxi (not brave enough yet to negotiate the swell in the tender yet!) and a leap of faith back onto Pegasus when the waves are right. Yikes!