Galapagos

Wow wow Wow!  Just book your ticket. Forget all the reasons not to go. 

It is the most amazing experience - in 5 days, I have been humbled by sea turtles, heartbroken by seal pups, taunted by swimming sealions, awed by shark, bemused by blue-footed boobies and forced to duck rather quickly by swooping albatross.

I´m dying to get the photos up here, but having issues!!! Hoping to get it sorted soon!

We set off from Baltra on Monday on a 48ft Jeanneau with our skipper Gonzalez, crew Mauro and Lenin and guide Cesar. Aboard: American Rob, Israelis Naama and Hoy, French Arnaud and Bruno, German Mario and I. First to Las Bachas beach - baby seaturtles and hungry frigate birds - Northwards for an early start on Mosquera Tuesday morning - a tiny little island 100 x 600m, covered in sealions, boobies, pelicans, sally lifeboat crabs, lava lizards and marine iguanas - beautiful solitude - we were the only boat allowed to land here because we were so few. Some of the boats have 80 people on board - you can imagine the rush ashore! On southwards to Isla Santa Fe, a 5 hour motor from the north canal (time to practise my spanish with the crew while everybody else sleeps below - my sailing vocab is great now!), and snorkelling - I managed to do this without drowning for the first time in I dont know how many years!!!  Lenin helped me track down seaturtles to swim with, they´re so graceful under water, but boy can they put on speed when they want to get away! The sealions thought it was hilarious to play with us - the human has very little say in this case! the water is electric blue, and there´s schools of angel fish, which are just stunning (I always wanted to see these), and a variety of ´finding nemo´characters - I really must learn my fish names!  Late long trip to Isla Espanola - I crashed out with tiredness, and got up to sail the midnight shift with the crew - ocean breeze, starlight, just-past-full moon, - what more could you ask for?

Wednesday we´re in Gardner Bay, and walking to see flamingos before snorkelling - we miss out on the flamingos, bar one solitary loner, but the snorkelling is great - huge shoals of fish. By this stage, it´s hot. Really hot. and i´m suffering!!! I´m sure my care label says 20 degrees only! We´re first of the tour groups at Punta Suarez in the afternoon to visit the albatross on the cliffs, and the blue footed boobies. We´re greeted on the steps (our only dry landing of the week) by a couple of sealions who have taken it up as their sunbathing spot, but they swim off as soon as Cesar claps his hands, though it´s clear they´re not that impressed with us! As soon as we pass, they resume their position. It´s about 32 degrees, and the sea breeze doesnt give much relief at all. The albatross are amazing though - just look at the photos when I get them up here and you´ll see how close we were to the nests, without them being bothered at all! Going through the inside of the island, we see hawks, finches and are joined by a mocking bird, who takes his name rather literally and hops down the path just in front of us, most of the way back to the beach. There´s just time for a quick dip - which turns into dives off the side of the boat, bellyflops and all - before our long trip to Isla Floreana this evening. I took up position mid afternoon forehead of the mast, under the jib, with a book and take a little nap... peace and quiet possible! Eventually with the sun gone down and the chill setting in, I have to give up my spot, and retreat to the warmth of the cabin to resume my snoozing. We get to Post Office bay late in the evening, and with the heat, the cabin´s a bit stuffy (even though I have the aft cabin to myself... Reina del Mar indeed!), so I swapped it for the cockpit - Post Office bay is peaceful and isolated in the moonlight and you can see the white coral beach shining - hard to think of reasons to sleep at all!  Up early on Thurs morn to visit the ´Post office´, and the lava tunnels below the island - torches essential! it feels hotter than before, if possible, though thats partly the result of sunburnt legs (the bits that escaped the shade of the jib!) so being in the tunnels is a welcome respite! Straight into snorkel gear then and round to el Corona del Diablo to spot some sharks - one straight beneath us as soon as we got into the water... that took the edge off! Inside the ´Crown´, the water is only about 5 foot deep in places, so it´s possible to get really close to the littler fish that populate the rocks on the bottom. The current is really strong though, and Mario and I both gash our legs on coral, so we can´t go shark hunting. Darn. ...

A visit to Puerto Ayora takes up Thursday afternoon, and I can tell you there are at least 30 shops stocking t-shirts proclaiming Í love boobies´. Tacky??? I didnt buy one for any of you, if that´s what you´re wondering. Friday morning (7.30am!) we get to the Darwin research centre to see the land tortoises and land iguanas - the older tortoises (170 years old... now you feel young, dont you?) are waist high when they stand up, with great big elephant legs. amazing to watch, and to interact with. we´re free to wander amongst the tortoises, and it makes the visit really something special. Totally different to your average zoo visit!

... promise to sort photos asap!