Birds, whales, dolphins, seals
13 May 2012 | San Cristobal, Galapagos
Pip
Loving it here in the Galapagos Islands. The passage here was one of the most interesting so far- such a variety of weather conditions, wildlife. and incidents.
We had 2 visitors on the boat- one a HUGE moth about 4 inches long, and the other was 'Fluffy', a juvenile red footed Booby bird who perched on our pullpit (the rail round our bow) for long periods on 3 or 4 days. We also saw frigate birds bullying terns; turtles, some small whales, and 2 different sorts of dolphins- a group of 4 big dolphins swam near us for ages, rolling over on their sides to look at us, then rolling back and slapping their tails on the water so we got splashed. The other group were smaller, they whizzed up to us, did a load of acrobatics, then whizzed off- and that was when we saw the whales; we are always a bit worried when we see whales because there have been incidents of whales sinking yachts- but these were small, and seemed to be minding their own business and not interested in us at all- thankfully!
I might give up fishing. In 8000 miles I've only cuaght and landed 2 fish. On the passage here I caught 3 things- first a seabird that spotted a shiny new lure of mine and dived to catch it- it was awful towing the poor thing behind the boat, so I pulled it on, onto the deck, threw a towel over it then managed to get the hook out of it's beak- and off it flew. Second was the marlin- I was down below and heard a huge bang- I thought something major had broken on the boat. Got on deck just in time to see an enormous marlin jumping out of the water, arching it's back, classic; thankfully the line had snapped near the boat becuase there's no way I could have landed it yet alone 'dealt' with it on board! Third thing I caught was- the line around our propellor... we had been tacking back and forth, trying to get a sensible direction to sail in after a squall had spun us round the wrong way, when I heard a strange humming sound- the fishing line was tight under the boat and when Kevin looked the propshaft wasn't spinning freely. Kevin had the good idea of turning the propshaft backwards by hand as I carefully pulled on the line- thankfully it worked and most of it unravelled before it snapped. When we got into harbour the firstt thing I did was dive down to see if the rest was still wrapped round the propellor- but thankfully it was clear, as is the water here- and an amazing amount of huge fish were swimming round the boat eating up the goose barnacles that seemed to have sprouted overnight. Then Kevin called me to get back on the boat quick- he'd seen some 'fins' in the water he didn't like the loook of- but it turned out it was just sealions. They're everywhere here- they lie about all over the harbour steps and on the park benches just like a bunch of dossers. They try and get on your boat; thankfully there is a water taxi so you dont have to eject 'visitors' from your dinghy when you go ashore.