One of life’s goals is to always seek to learn something new, right? New languages ✔️, new cultures ✔️, how to deal with a boat that is bucking like a bull at a rodeo and successfully tossing dishes and people across the room while at anchor? ✔️
Wait – can we check that off at the expense of a broken anchor and broken davit? Paul’s and Bella’s MacGyver’ing skills (and a math lesson in physics!) – was a positive thought, but the human connection proved the most valuable (a lesson learned over and over again!)
What the heck am I talking about? Hopefully you won’t just surmise that I wrote this after drinking a couple capirinhas at happy hour and will continue reading while I back up to explain.
We pulled into the Santa Cruz anchorage in Galapagos (a smooth 5.5 day passage complete with the time-honored tradition of King Neptune ingratiating our pollywogs to become shellbacks upon crossing the equator!)
Around 11:30p.m. it is so hard to get your bearings in the dark, so we went with Paul’s usual SOP, anchor far away from all other boats. We called in our coordinates to immigration, but upon shutting down (and, thus, losing stabilizers; we don’t have modern stabilizers at rest), we began rocking violently. Our full diesel tanks threatened to spill out of the vents and, not wanting a spillage, we decided to pull anchor and spin donuts for the night while we transferred fuel from the fuller tanks to the emptier tanks. Thank you to Bella, who stepped up and helped Paul drive throughout the night! We anchored just before our 10a.m. appointment with immigration before meeting with our yacht agent to help us efficiently fill up our days in the Galapagos with the best activities. We headed to shore for lunner and a tour of the Darwin Institute, breeding center for Galapagos tortoises which live until the ripe age of 200!
After ice cream, we head back to the boat by water taxi (we are not allowed to use our dinghy, kayaks, paddleboards or row boat here) and wonder how we jump onto that bucking bronco (I wish I had gotten footage; it was scary!) We made it, but sleep was futile with the crazy swinging. Luna and Bella opted to sleep on the bean bags in the salon (living room) because they were afraid of being tossed like rag dolls from their bunks.
Uncomfortable with the tight anchorage and seas, we tried to pull anchor but realized that the roller was gone and rod was bent. Thank goodness we have a port anchor! We anchored far out and Paul set out on trying to figure out how we could mitigate the roll. A couple of YouTube videos later and he tried to move the anchor bridle (reduces the shock of the anchor chain against the boat), to the port side and stern, to create a rear pivot point. Paul then had the brilliant idea to use the crane (davit) to move the anchor chain back and the wire on the crane anticlimatically popped (no crazy snapping noise). So no starboard anchor and no davit.
Throwing up our hands, the kiddos and I headed to Tortuga Beach to try out our new surf boards.
The quiet beach was one of the most beautiful I have seen, white sand, and perfect temperature, every shade of blue water, all to ourselves. Unfortunately, the waves weren’t ripe for surfing, although I used the board and got a couple of great boogie board rides in!
Paul met us onshore for dinner, declaring success, only for us to determine he was trying to make himself feel better and he was not so successful when we returned to the bucking bronco.
Night 2 was just as rough. Thankfully the guy Paul had called to see if he could repair all our brokenness (his quote, “The only thing better than a Galapaguenos mechanic is one from Cuba”), found a stern anchor for us, half the price of the quote that Paul got when he called! The next day, while the kids and I went back for a quick beach visit (via a 2 mile one-way beautiful paved walk through cacti, flauna, birds, insects and lizards).
There are a lot of marine iguanas, endemic to the Galapagos, everywhere, including prime beachfront homes.
Paul stayed behind to be the responsible captain and move the boat closer to town and meet with the mechanics. We all headed to the highlands to walk among the natural land inhabited by the Galapago tortoises. Such amazing, huge animals!
It was easy to see how Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was built upon seeing the Galapagos islands! From the tortoises, we rode rented bikes 20 km from Santa Rosa back to Puerto Ayora.
We had an awesome dinner and crawled back to the dock to catch the water taxi back to the…. NON-BUCKING Sea XII! Hooray for our new stern anchor!!!
We are learning that the animals rule here; humans must navigate around the animals without disturbing them. Especially the sea lions, which are everywhere! You are lucky to find a seat on a bench and shouldn’t be surprised to find your dinghy taken over when you return.
