Our Stay in the Galapagos

April 11

Dawn awakens us at 8 AM. In what will turn out to be "typically Ollie fashion" we get a slow start getting up and organized, finally hauling anchor at around 10 AM. We motor into the anchorage, where about 20 private sailboats are anchored, along with about 30 local vessels, mostly 25-40 foot cruisers which we learn are the local charter tour boats.

While shopping for the ideal place to anchor we pass close by the 40 foot Amel  that Panacea had the encounter with in Panama, resulting in the Amel's mate getting cut badly by Panacea's wind generator. Having had one run in with her, we decide to give her a wide berth and choose a place considerably distant. Most boats are anchored bow and stern, with the bow facing the swells, so we do likewise, with a rope rode off the stern, attached to a nice big Fortress anchor.

We deploy the dinghy, involving carrying it from the forepeak, through the main saloon, up the companionway and topside, forward  to the foredeck and inflate it with the foot pump. It's let over the side with a halyard winch, the outboard motor clamped to the transom and we are ready to head to shore. All this takes a considerable amount of time as the crew is doing it for the first time with the help of Instructions from Ollie.

With everything finally ready,  and ship's papers and passports in hand, the five crew members, plus some day gear, the wheelchair, canes, fuel can, dinghy tool bag, oars, etc., etc. head to shore. Our first dinghy trip proves to be like many in the future- wet. We vow to attempt to reduce the passenger list in future trips. With about 6 inches of freeboard, any small wake or wave breaks over the dinghy bow and soaks the people in the front.

Waterfront landing

After a one quarter mile dinghy ride, and with wet butts all around, we arrive at a very primitive dinghy landing.  A small floating landing is useable for Ollie to land, but the dinghy must be left at another landing wall, with a set of stone steps, slippery from being flooded by the tide. On shore we meet Jeffery, a very formal, authoritative local official about 30 years old who purports to be in charge. He tells us the ropes of dingy landing procedures, directs us to the Port Captain and Customs Office, and says he can find someone who can address our engine alternator problems. Also, he will be pleased to provide diesel fuel and water for us from a small barge, at prices to be determined. I suspect if we had said we needed some women, he could have taken care of that as well.

Esther and Jeffery at docks

The Port Captain's office is several blocks down the main street, along the waterfront. The town of Puerto Ayora is wrapped around a south facing bay. Most buildings are 1-2 stories and simply constructed, mostly of concrete blocks. Vehicles are universally pickup trucks, absolutely no automobiles were seen the entire time we were there.  Most buildings are small, with shops crowded together. The main business district is perhaps ten blocks deep and a half mile long.

The Port Captain was a very official looking small man in his 40's with an air of self-importance. In halting English he explained that the official policy regarding private vessels is a maximum of a three day visa, but stays of a week are no problem. We explain again about our electrical problems and he assures us help is available. Down the street a few more blocks, Customs officials interrupt their volleyball game,  put on their pressed shirts, and  process our tourist visas. With the passing of  $15.00 US  each, we have our passports stamped with Ecuadorian stamps. We have to fill out two pages of answers to questions in Spanish regarding personal information. Tony again is a great help as a translator. The official exchange rate is 2990 sucres  per US dollar, but US funds are readily accepted by all merchants and officials.

Customs Office and Panacea crew

Walking around town reveals much new construction using block walls, and poured in place concrete floors mixed on site with Portland cement and local ground lava rock aggregate. Concrete blocks are made in place in box forms, and the uncured concrete floors are supported by very closely spaced 3-5 inch bamboo poles placed in  an X arrangement. It seems every other store front in town is a very small cafe serving cold drinks, and light food, seemingly only to the locals. All the tourists come to these islands by plane, first to Baltra, then by ferry and bus across this island to Port Ayora. They stay in what appear to be second or third class hotels, or on the small tour boats.  Thus, there are seldom big crowds or groups of tourists in town at any one time. What the small shops persist on remains a mystery. Most have a few locals hanging around, most of the time.

Building construction details

Several small bakeries nearby the waterfront offer sweets and breads. Also, along the main street are many small shops with souvenirs and t-shirts. The fresh Mercado (Market) day is Saturday, when produce is available as well as meats, fish, and flowers. We find that the local time is two hours later than Eastern Daylight time, or the same as Montana. After a week at sea we have a very long list of things to modify or change on the boat, and hardware items to look for.

Captain Ollie at Market Day

April 12

Dawn is about 6:30 AM local time.  Tired from using our land legs for the first time in 10 days, we all have an excellent sleep.  Tony and Brad head ashore to do a bunch of errands. With Tony's good Spanish, we appoint him as the designated shopper and negotiator. Around 9:30 Port Official Jeffery and his mechanic friend Marcel show up in the port captain's gig to check out our electrical problems. They are very official looking in their Ecuadorian Navy uniforms, but quickly change to matching blue jumpsuits. They remove and disassemble the alternator, and find broken brushes which we know about, but no key in the keyway shaft, which we did not know about. Its hard to believe that the guy Ollie hired to rebuild it in Panama would assemble it without a key, but there it was, or was not in fact!

Dennis and Ollie with mechanic Jeffery

It turns out both Jeffery and Marcel are full time Ecuadorian Navy personnel. Since the Navy does not have too much to do, they are available on their own to assist private yachts. Both are interesting characters. Jeffery takes himself very seriously, while Marcel is full of fun and joking all the time. Many funny exchanges are had regarding English vs. Spanish terms for parts and tools. A favorite is the term for a short screwdriver, a "stubby".  They take the alternator, plus one of our two other spare units  to see what can be done locally. With these islands nearly 1000 miles away from the home government, they are, not surprisingly, very self sufficient and resourceful.

Esther, Dennis and Ollie go ashore in afternoon for some more local exploration. The local medical clinic does not seem to have any Hepatitis B vaccine, which both Esther and I were hoping to find as a booster to our earlier vaccinations. Oh well! We also check out the local telephone service. The process is to stand in long lines out to the street; then pay the operator, then wait while she dials long distance, and then pages each caller to one of five interior booths where its incredibly hot and stifling. Tolls are $5.00 per minute to the US. Fax service is available at $6.00 per page.

Galapagos Telephone Offices

During the evening we start the engine to charge the batteries. The engine overheats and boils a couple of quarts of coolant overboard before we realized we have a problem. We find no water being pumped through the engine and discharged over the stern. Two weeks on the boat, and we have already had more mechanical problems than I've had on Sadie B in two years. Is she haunted? Ollie takes it all in stride. "We sail", he says, "to be able to work on the boat in different surroundings".

April 13

Up early to attack the water coolant problem. We check the impellers on the sea water pump as we are getting no circulation. The impeller looks OK, but we are about to pull the pump and change the impeller anyway when we decide to check the thru-hull fitting and strainer. Fortunately the strainer can be accessed from the top of the thru-hull fitting and we discover the strainer clean, but something has plugged the hole at the outside base of the thru-hull. Probing with a piece of life line  reveals something very tough plugging the intake hole near the outside of the hull.  We get Brad (junior crew members get all the less desirable assignments) to go over the side to investigate the situation from the outside. He can't  see much in the dark water three feet below the sea surface, but is able to stuff a short screwdriver  (stubby) in and out of the hole from the outside and it seems to be clear now. We  have no guess as to what might have been in the hole, but it appears to have grown there.

Dennis, Esther, and Tony go ashore in mid-morning to Market Day, held weekly on Saturday morning. Its is the only place to find fresh produce, meat, and fruit. The only store, right on the waterfront, has only non perishable goods. Locally grown produce such as bananas are very cheap, while imported things like pineapples and melons are very expensive. We buy enough to get us through a week, but don't attempt to provision for departure until the next week. Esther is, not surprisingly, turned off by such things as freshly killed chickens, beef quarters and goat sides hanging in the open air with no refrigeration. Often the fowl is kept alive until sold, then butchered on the spot to insure freshness. Definitely not your typical U S supermarket!

Mercado scene

We share a pickup taxi returning from the market with Nigel and his wife and two children, eight and six years old.  They are from the yacht Rose of Wight, an English boat. It was the young lad's birthday. 

Back on Panacea, we find Ollie and  Brad, along with Marcel and  Jeffery in coveralls working on the wiring. Several systems have been worked on recently by several different people (Ollie most recently), and there are lots of old abandoned wires running all over from the alternator housing to a junction panel, and back to the ignition switch and gauges in the cockpit. They trace and replace several runs of wire and finally reinstall a newly rebuilt alternator with a new key. Still a very low charging rate. They decide to change the voltage regulator next.

When they prepare to leave we realize the dinghy is missing! Brad defended his having securing it with a half hitch. Captain Oliver suggests that half hitches are best for horses and women. Bowlines are best for boats.  A properly chastised Brad hitches a ride to the dinghy dock on another dinghy, and is able to find our's safely pulled up on the shore about one half mile from the dinghy dock.

We dinghy ashore again in late afternoon to try the miserable phone system. Two tries, with faxes to Tammy (My daughter, managing my business) and the Islander, the local newspaper in our home town. Each try involves 10-20 minutes of line waiting, then waiting again for a phone line. The system is located in a building about 20x30 with one employee located behind a bank-like wicket. We are told that any off-island calls must be made in this way, even private residences and commercial phones have no off island service.

Back at the boat, Ollie and Marcel work until 7:30 PM. When the work is being done, everything is in a turmoil. The saloon sole is mostly removed, isolating the head and galley, the cockpit is filled with tools displaced from lockers to access wiring. So when a project is underway, little else can get done. It looks like the newly renovated charging  system works well.

Tony and Brad head to shore for pizza for dinner. They are having a lot of fun together as father and son. Esther, Dennis, and Ollie are too tired for anything but a light dinner and bed. Marcel is scheduled to return at 8 AM for additional wiring problems involving house lights, the solenoid valve for propane, engine tachometer, fuel gauge and other issues I don't even know about, yet.

Dennis and sea iguanas

April 14

Tony and Brad leave early for a bus ride and then a walk to a tortoise preserve for the day. We stay on board Panacea and work with Marcel and Ollie, mostly on instrument gauges. We install  a separate fused line for the auto helm, and install new fuel gauges. Most of this stuff is quite exposed to the weather as well as to salt water washing into the cockpit in heavy seas, so its life expectancy is not very long. Several snarls of electric wires are unscrambled from old add-on projects and replaced with new.

Galagagos Seals

Esther and I head to shore in mid-afternoon, spending some time shopping in the waterfront shops. Then walking to the gate of the Darwin Center, at the other end of town, about a mile. Most retail shops are small, often only 200-300 square feet, but very tastefully laid out with lovely merchandise, much of it created by local craftsmen. Continually it seems that there are way too few tourists for all the shops to be successful.

Brad and Tony are booked to leave for the States in two days. They must fly to Quito, Ecuador and then on to the States. The tickets are frightfully expensive but I didn't note how much. Interestingly, they run into a local girl who is flying to Ecuador for a shopping trip, and her government subsidized fare is only a small part of their's. Esther and I try to line up a tour trip to St. Bartolome Island  for the 3 of us. This tour was suggested by a very helpful young man at the local bar on the waterfront.

April 15

Tony, Esther, and Dennis go to shore early for a transfusion of funds from the local bank. It's a trying experience with a 1 1/2 hour wait in line at the bank for the Master Card money withdrawal. No such thing as an ATM. The bank seems to be one of the social centers of the town, with people happily chatting as they pass hours in line for even simple transactions. I  met the mother of the local hardware store operator at the bank, and she routinely spends up to two  hours per day waiting in lines. She always takes some work or reading with her.  "This is the new bank",  she says, and "the situation is greatly improved over the old bank".

We leave some of Ollie's and our laundry at a small store where the wife does laundry on the side. We traipse through an alley behind the small store, into an anteroom of living quarters. The charges are $25 for Ollie's and $15 for ours, for perhaps the equivalent of three and two loads, respectively.  The charge is by the piece of laundry, and the proprietor (he) makes a big deal of counting each piece very theatrically.  We are very concerned about Ollie's laundry because of his infestation with scabies. We have recently heard via telephone and letter that several recent visitors to Panacea at Christmas time returned to the states with these critters, so we are all nervous about catching them. The best remedy for eradicating them from clothing and bedding is washing laundry in boiling water, but we have no practical way to do that. We are sure that if we try to explain the problem to the laundry people, they  would refuse the laundry. So, we make a deal with the friendly young man at the waterfront bar to use his chest freezer. For several days, we move a few big fish or other goods around in his enormous chest freezer to make room for one or two big sail bags of Ollie's laundry, hoping that freezing will kill them the same as boiling would. This pest, little known in civilized regions, is a microscopically small burrowing mite, responsible for an awesome rash, as well as persistent itching. Three weeks after Ollie's initial diagnosis and treatments, he shows no signs of improvement.

After lunch, we go with Ollie to the Darwin Institute for a visit. The paths were very primitively built and it was a considerable struggle for Ollie in the chair, and for us as we pushed him much of the time.  We were finally rewarded by finding several tortoises in large stone walled pens in fairly natural looking habitat. They are enormous creatures, very placid and slow moving. The most impressive thing was to find two of them mating. It was an awesome sight, proving that you don?t have to be in a hurry, or quiet, to procreate. These creatures were nearly brought to extinction by early whaling vessels capturing them for meat, as they could keep them alive in ship's holds for months at a time on long voyages. Another reason for the Galapagos being a common whaling vessel stop was the relative abundance of fresh water available.

Darwin Center Trail

After the tour we come across a pizza place for lunch, and on the way back find the only real hardware store in town. Bodega Blanca is run by a young man, Jason, who is a native, but who went to school in California and speaks excellent English. It is a very complete hardware store, and over the next few days we will make many trips there for project materials.

"Makin more tortoises"

We take a taxi pickup truck out of town for desalinated  water, diesel fuel, and  gasoline for the dinghy. Gasoline and diesel is about $1.00 per US gallon and water about $.80 for a six gallon Jerry can. The taxi charge is 4000 sucres, or about $3.00 US. Late in the afternoon Brad and Tony return from a snorkeling trip to a small island at the mouth of our bay where there are many sea lions both on land and in the water. They reported seeing a whale as well.

Ollie with mating tortoises

Dennis and Jerry jugs at de-sal-plant

April 16

Up early as Brad and Tony are leaving early for the bus trip to

Galapagos ONLY gas station

Our "Tour Boat", Ollie on Bow

We offload the bus at a small parking area and wonder where our  tour boat  is. The two or three officials dinghy  out into a very small anchorage and retrieve a very decrepit looking 25 foot inboard-outboard cruiser. It turns out that all the 12 non-English speaking people on the bus with us are also going on the tour,as well as the crew of three.

We head out of the bay and across open sea at about 15 MPH on plane in a flat calm  sea  toward Bartolome  Island, first passing close by  another island. Both are incredibly desolate, with practically no vegetation, looking like very recent volcanoes. To land on Bartolome, we drop a stern anchor about 150 feet off shore,  and slowly nose the bow pulpit up  to a rock outcrop  about the same height. Ollie has to stay aboard while the rest of us  and a guide with only very limited English  pick our way up a rather primitive unpaved path toward the top of the volcano. The top is 130 meters above sea level, a steep walk of about one mile.

Bartolome from top of path

At the summit, the view is spectacular in all directions, with perhaps 15 clearly visible volcanic peaks in the distance on adjacent islands 10-20 miles away. A monument states our position as 00 degrees, 016 minutes x 90 degrees, or almost exactly on the equator, and one fourth of the way around the globe from the international date line.

Esther at Equator momument

After the hike we reboard the boat and go a short distance to a sandy bay. Being invited to swim before lunch, I jump over the side and am promptly greeted by several sea lions in the water, seemingly curious about who I am, and why I am in their swimming pool. After lunch most of the fellow tourists also swim and walk the beach for an hour or so before heading the 25 miles back to the main island and the return bus trip. With the tropic sun and clear skies all day, almost everyone is both tired and sunburned by the time we return to the bus.

We get back to Puerto Ayora around six, pick up our laundry from the freezer, and head to the boat for a quiet evening. A word about dinghy access. The dinghy dock area is a large stone jetty extending  around an estuary and out into the bay perhaps one hundred yards. A small floating ramp and dock is available for loading and unloading. We usually land there and off load the wheelchair and other gear, and then move the dinghy to a set of steps leading up to the jetty surface. The tidal range is about 8 feet,  and often there are 10-20 dinghies tied up to only about 30 feet of bulkhead. The steps are very slippery at low tide and the water is quite shallow. Often one has to tie up and then walk over several other dinghies to get  to the steps.  It's particularly a challenge when trying to load groceries or fuel and water at low tide.

The only grocery store!

A fleet of pickup truck taxis is always waiting near the landing. Everyone except one passenger and the driver rides in the truck bed, usually standing and holding onto a grab_bar over the roof of the truck. One afternoon I watched as a small child rolled out of a truck taxi as it turned a downtown corner at slow speed. The driver stopped, Mama got out and picked up the child, put her back into the back of the truck, and off they went. Nothing unusual!

We  generally walk around town, except when going for water and fuel.  I am beginning to understand that the water and fuel facilities are practically never open at the same time, as it's bad for the taxi business. The supply of diesel fuel and gasoline is particularly unreliable. It looks like all the fuel comes by primitive tank truck from across the island and is stored in above-ground tanks at the fuel station. We never did figure out how it got to the Islands, as there certainly was no refinery capability there. The fuel station was rather like 1950's US gasoline station. The desalinated water facility was a long way from the waterfront, and empty jerry cans had to be carried perhaps 100 feet down a rather steep grass slope, and back up full, at 42 pounds each.

Bikes are the main transport

April 17

This is the first day on the boat with a short crew, and we all are enjoying the extra space and the seeming lack of confusion. The pace seems more relaxed as well, as Tony and Brad were going to be with us only for a short time and thus were trying to cram in as much activity as possible.  We take another load of laundry ashore again today. Ollie has a tremendous amount of clothing and bedding on board, and we are trying to get it all  washed and given its turn in the freezer at the restaurant for scabies control. The charge this time is $50  and seems to be about $10 per load, but the man assessing the charges seems to charge the same amount for a sheet as a pair of under shorts or socks. This store is also one of only a few places doing film processing on site. We leave perhaps ten rolls of film there between the three of us. Two days later we collect a uniformly blue-green tinted collection of slides and prints.

Ollie seems to be in slow motion today but by mid afternoon we get him into the dinghy to take a ride out to the island at the mouth of the harbor, where Tony and Brad raved about the sea lions in the water. There were hundreds of them, both on shore and in the water, many of them very playful, actually surfing in the big swells as they came ashore.

We meet Mike and Jennifer on Sea Otter who bring us up to date on the time schedule and frequencies of a Pacific net radio communications with other yachts. We go ashore in evening with Ollie to visit the medical clinic. A Spanish only speaking Doctor gives Ollie another prescription for BHC shampoo and gives him a note for the Port Captain, hopefully to allow us to stay a few extra days. The official policy is a visa for one week, and we are already several days over that, although no one seems to be pressuring anyone to leave. However, most of the private yachts in the harbor have been here a shorter time than we.

Galapagos ship construction

Lewis at the waterfront bar continues to be very happy with allowing us the privilege of using the restaurant freezer for scabies control. I told him that we were trying to control crabs, as I assumed he would know what they were.

I had my first beer today in several years. I think I was overcome by the boredom and feeling of not being in control. It's frustrating for me to have to adapt my schedule to Ollie's. His sense of pace is considerably slower than mine so that I am often stalled,  feeling like I am waiting for him to get going, so I or we can go ashore. We are slowly learning just to announce our plans in the evening, and often we go ashore early and then come back to get Ollie after he gets going in mid morning. He puts new meaning to the term slow starter.

We listen to the Pacific net tonight for the first time in 10 days. We actually get a hail from Bill and Kate in  Colon, Panama, old friends of Ollie's who have lived at the Panama yacht club for several years.  We report to them the big fix the mechanic at the Panama Yacht Club was supposed to have done on Panacea's alternators seems not to have worked.

Around 8 PM we realize that the stern anchor line is loose, having been cut, apparently by a passing  launch's propeller. The locals seems to delight in passing as close by the stern of anchored vessels as possible,perhaps so they came come out and dive to recover the anchors. Anyway, we reset a spare anchor from the dinghy, planning to dive or grapple for the anchor rode tomorrow.

April 18

One week here today. I am sick today with some sort of intestinal problem like Montezuma's revenge or maybe just stomach acid. Anyway, it turns out to be a day of frustration. I swam around dragging a boat hook trying to find the missing anchor rode and  anchor with no luck. I go ashore with the fuel and water cans, and Marcel hooks me for a ride back out to Panacea. When I finally get back to the fuel depot, there is no diesel. Getting the water jerry cans down to the dinghy at low tide strains my back, so now I have both an upset stomach and stiff back. Finally back to the boat and I find that Esther's stomach is uneasy as well.

I hang out on the boat for a while, then head to Bodega Blanca, the hardware store, to look for someone who can rig us up with a larger propane supply. We have two five pound cylinders (refillable) on board, but Esther is cooking so much more, and better, than Ollie ever did, and it's obvious that if we want to eat well, we need to find a larger tank of propane, as well as a way to refill our small tanks while at sea.

At 4:30 PM I'm back on shore again to get water and fuel. This time the fuel depot has diesel, but the water desalination  plant is closed. It is beginning to look like a conspiracy by the taxi drivers. This, coupled with the time honored siesta time from noon to three, when many business are closed make it difficult to schedule when to do anything.

I leave off some more laundry, and take another load to the freezer. I have no idea what the other employees of the restaurant think about the Americano visiting the freezer regularly and exchanging large parcels. Back on board, the boat is a mess with Ollie and Marcel working on the main saloon wiring, trying to eliminate several problems caused by poor grounds.

At 7 PM  I go to bed with no meal for the whole day still not feeling well. When we start the engine, it started very hesitatingly. Ollie thinks it might be the fuel filter. Another project for tomorrow's list.

April 19

I woke up feeling much better as does Esther. Spend some time this morning catching up on the journal. The saloon electricity is back in operation, as is the remote switch for the propane at the stove. The incredible mess of last night is cleaned up by Ollie and it seems that things are shipshape for the first time in a week. I work with Ollie for a while installing a new sea water shower head in the cockpit. A raw water pump already was installed and we tapped into that line and led a piece of tubing aft to the cockpit. In the past, the only option for a sea water shower was to hang a small bilge pump over the side, so this will be a great improvement. Also we install a new sink faucet in the galley, as the old one has been leaking into the silverware drawer below. Thanks goodness for Bodega Blanca, the hardware store. I am getting to know Jason and his inventory well, and he is enjoying speaking English.

I go ashore in early afternoon for gas for the dinghy and several cans of water. To reduce the number of things I have to take ashore, I put the oil in the fuel can before I get the taxi up to the gas station. But, the gas station is closed. So now I've got a very smoky dinghy engine for another day. I also walked to the business of the uncle of Jason at the hardware. He is the main mechanic on this island, with  large shop in several buildings, and perhaps 10 employees. Its very cluttered, because these people throw away nothing as everything is so difficult and expensive  to get shipped out here. Everything may have another use in the future.

This man also sells propane and we discussed for an hour the best way to adapt a fifty pound propane cylinder  to be able to fill our small five pound canisters. He says he can build something and have it in a few days.

On the way back to Panacea, I find a tour boat loading scuba tanks and asked them if it would be possible for someone to dive for our missing anchor. In about an hour they hailed me to come over and pick up a diver. In less than two minutes of diving he found the anchor rode and anchor.  I happily give $20 dollars for our $400 Fortress anchor. But, I wonder if this all a part of a business plan of theirs.

Late in the afternoon, my stomach started to feel uneasy again. Esther still feels OK though.

 
April 20

Awake and still feeling an uneasy stomach, we leave the boat for the market at 7:30 AM.  We quickly realize that the dinghy motor shear pin is broken. Not having one on board, we make one out of a cotter pin, and put shear pins on a list of hardware items.

The market is much like those we have seen in Mexico. Open air, lots of produce vendors, live animals like chickens, turkeys, and pigs, as well as freshly butchered. No refrigeration is visible anywhere. It's a very carnival like atmosphere. While on the way to the market we realize that Ollie's canes are missing. Try as we can, no one can remember just when we saw then last. They are usually transported on the back of Ollie's wheel chair when on shore, and perhaps we left them on the dock when we either came ashore or left for the boat.

We buy a bunch of produce, but not the big order that we will get when we are ready to head out. Since the market day is Saturday, its obvious Ollie's planning on another week here. We return from the market with a taxi driver Oswaldo, who is trying to get all a monopoly on all our taxi business. We share the ride with the English family again. They are planning on leaving tomorrow.

Back at the dinghy dock, Ollie and Esther head to the bank for a cash transfusion while I haul the groceries out to Panacea and unload them. Then off to the hardware store for shear pins and a replacement bulb for a mast spreader light. They had the bulb, but suggested a small stainless steel bolt for the shear pin. Jason says the locals all use nails or bolts as he does not  stock all the possible shear pins. Unfortunately the canes have not shown up yet.

In the afternoon we do some stitching repairs to the genoa sail, then its Dennis'  turn up the mast in the boatswains chair to fix the spreader light and lubricate the mast track for the mainsail, as well as  inspect fittings at the mast head. It's incredibly high up in the air, but I make the best of it and pretend not to be scared stiff. Even with the very light swells in the bay, the mast sways considerably, maybe 6-8 feet sideways, but the view is spectacular. Next time up I'll use another line for a bucket full of tools and my camera for some great shots.

My stomach is finally feeling better. After spending about $70 on groceries we decide to go out to dinner as the cook (Esther) is tired.

April 21

Awoke well rested and feeling good after several days of some kind of intestinal problem. Had breakfast early as Oswaldo is picking us up for a truck tour. Ollie felt poorly during breakfast so he decided to stay on the boat while Esther and I take the tour. We wait for Oswaldo for a half hour, and then decide to walk instead to Tortoise Bay. So much for his monopoly. It is a two to three mile walk on a very tortuous path to the very south end of the island. It's a spectacular beach, popular with young people most of whom walked there as well. It's accessible only by foot or boat. After returning to Panacea, we laze around the afternoon, taking a snooze in the hammock. In the evening we go ashore for laundry and a coke, then return to the boat to watch 60 Minutes (a tape several months old) and a movie on the ship's VCR.

The boat's library is terrific. I just finished several Tristan Jones books, and am now starting on "Sensible Cruising". Lots of classic  sea stories and early explorations on board as well. For example, all the voyages of Captain Cook, Darwin, Magellan, etc. Ollie has obviously been thinking of this for a long time.

I'm getting antsy to be going, but Ollie shows no signs of being in any hurry. Tomorrow we will have been here two full weeks.

April 22.

Ashore early for water. All the tanks are nearly full, finally. When full, I will have brought out about 100 gallons in 5 gallon jugs. Mail letters to Larsens, Schneiders, and Marybob, whose owners we had met on the Mississippi. Postage from here is about $1.00 per letter or post card. The post office has no one who speaks English. 

We go ashore in late PM for several errands. We need to find replacements for Ollie's canes. We mislaid them, and have been hoping that someone would return them, but no luck so far. When walking to Marcel Gaillard's to get the propane storage and filling system he has built, we pass by a small open air lumber yard and cabinet shop. They agree to make Ollie two new teak canes, to be ready in a couple of days. Gaillard has made up a hose with fittings on both ends which will allow us to refill our five pound propane cylinders at sea. He also supplied us with a 50 pound tank which we will tie above decks. Esther was charged with sewing a cover for the new tank.

Galapagos cane maker

All kinds of food supplies are in short supply all over town for the past several days. Especially, there are no eggs in the whole town.  When  we arrived,  the local store had hundreds of trays of eggs on display, without refrigeration, but there are none now. The barko (boat), we are told is expected soon, with eggs and many  other supplies.

Esther and I go ashore in early evening for another laundry/freezer  run and a walk. Evening temperatures are very comfortable for walking. We are planning tentatively to leave on Wednesday, depending upon the arrival of the ship with supplies. Eggs are important to us as we are eating no meat, in deference to Ollie's being a vegetarian.

April 23

Go ashore early with Esther to go to the Mercado for last minute produce and other provisioning and another load of water. Back to the boat for a bunch of odd jobs like sail repair and rigging the preventer, a sail and boom control system which is still evolving.

Esther and Dennis spend the afternoon with Patti and Andrew Atkins of Wasabi and Toronto, Ont. We visited two large meteor craters, each 180 meters wide and 100 meters deep. It staggers belief to consider these enormous holes being caused by extra terrestrial objects being hurled from the sky.

Later, we toured a lava tunnel 880 meters long, and perhaps 5-10 meters in diameter. Both these sites were completely undeveloped, with the lava tunnel apparently being privately owned. The lava tunnels were formed as the volcano raised itself from the sea, and the sea cooled the lava from the outside, while the interior continued to flow.  We walked by ourselves through the tunnel with small flashlights and were met at the other end by our truck driver who had driven around to meet us.

The truck trip back to the village was enlivened by our coming along the same broken down truck two times. First we gave them some wire to hold up an exhaust pipe, and while we made a small side trip to find a bamboo whisker pole for Andrew, they passed us. A short while later we came across them again, this time with a flat tire. At this point our driver swapped a spare tire for a large red snapper for his dinner.

Andrew's new whisker pole

Back on Panacea we turn on the handheld VHF just in time for hear Mike on Sea Otter hail Panacea about a call on the single side band from Grenia in Panama. We asked them to listen to the radio tomorrow as Ollie was on shore and we did not know how to tune the radio.

We had dinner on shore with Judy and Mike from Perth, Australia traveling on S/V Darling. Mike is a retired MD and was helpful with Ollie's scabies diagnosis and treatment while we were in Panama. They are very experienced sailors with lots of advice. They emphasized taking our time and waiting for the weather to make for comfortable passages. Their point being we have all the time in the world, so there is no need to rush ahead in anything but perfect weather. For example, they say there is only one good month to travel the Indian Ocean, so set your trip schedule to be there then.

Ollie received a fax saying that our laptop computer which we sent back to the States with Tony was fixed. We will try to come up with an address in the French Marquesas to send it to.

April 24.

Dennis and Esther up early and go to town to phone daughter Tammy and do some errands and a walk. Back to the boat in midmorning for more boat repair projects. Around 1 PM we all go ashore for more phone calls and faxes for Ollie. He talked with Gayle for 35 minutes at these astronomical rates. His phone bill for the less than one month he was in Panama was over a thousand dollars. So much for long distance romance and business.

We walk to the lumberyard to pick up a board they have sawn out to act as a vent and cutting board for the fridge top. As we are not using the fridge, we need to ventilate it better to use as a vegetable storage.  They sawed and planed a lovely  teak  plank which will work great and looks good as well.

Late in the afternoon we are at the waterfront bar having a beer when we see lots of activity  at the waterfront. Small barges perhaps 20x8 feet. filled with all sorts of goods are being pushed by outboard motorboats into the harbor. The town is suddenly alive with activity and it's obvious that the long awaited barko has finally arrived. It looks like everyone in town either is waiting for the goods to be unloaded or working as stevedores. The cargo ship is perhaps one half mile out in the bay and a fleet of perhaps 10 barges is ferrying goods in from the ship. It looks like the goods are all loose loaded in the ship and loaded on the barges equally randomly. The only thing handled carefully is eggs. At least one whole barge is loaded with flatted eggs. Produce is loaded loosely on the barges and very roughly handled, often being walked on by the crew loading the barges. At one point a barge loaded with stalks of green bananas passes us with a new washing machine piled on top.

Offloading the supply ship

Back on Panacea I realize that I had left our new fridge top board at the bar and had to go back. I went into the store to check on the progress of restocking and saw that they now have the eggs out for sale. I picked up 4 flats or 144 eggs for 42,000 sucres or about $14.00. After checking out I found I had 2200 sucres or just slightly more than $1.00 in my pocket. Close figuring!

Restocking the grocery store!

April 25

I had thought we were working toward a departure today, but with typical Ollie pace we decide to wait for another day and do a few more projects. Several of these things could have easily have been done in the past two  weeks we have been here, if Ollie had mentioned them. I finished the sanding  and planing job on the new top for the fridge (now vegetable storage) and it looks great. If I had had the exact measurements to give to the wood shop it would have been way less hand work sanding and planing. The waterline needed cleaning again as sea life grows incredibly fast here in the tropics, even with the cool Humboldt current.  Gooseneck barnacles especially are prolific and hard to remove from the waterline.

We go ashore in late afternoon to clear customs. We have heard horror stories from other cruisers on how long this might take. We walked in and found the Immigration Officer and had the papers stamped and left, about a ten minute operation. Then, proceeding to the Port Captain's office found it closed (shades of the taxi business).  In late PM, Andrew on Wasabi stopped by the local watering spot and told of being held up in the Port Captain's  Office for 2  hours.   Mike and Jennifer showed up and reported an equal amount of time. Several departing boaters assembled in the local water front bar, all about to depart on the next tide. Since we did not get off the boat early enough, we will wait until we can check out with the Port Captain the next AM.

I'm beginning to get more and more frustrated with Ollie's completely different sense of pace from my own. I suspect it is my controlling nature, wanting to be in charge. But, it's his boat and his dream. I had never even thought about sailing around the world until a month or two ago. And now I am in a hell of a hurry to get going. It does not make sense, but there it is.  We get to a remote anchorage (the Galapagos is about as remote as one can get),  and I want to hit the shore running, while Ollie wants to do a few projects, arrange the tools, sort the laundry, and enjoy the ambiance of the harbor. Even after a year of retirement I have a hard time thinking of days going by without having any real sense of accomplishment.

April 26

Up early and ashore to head to the Port Captain's Office to check out. Got there around 8:15 AM in time to watch some sort of ceremonial activity in front of the office. The Port Captain's Lieutenant looked over our papers and gave us hell for staying almost three weeks. They did a lot of paper shuffling, and found Ollie's Doctor's note suggesting he needed three additional days of medical attention for his scabies problem.  With stacks of paper all over the office, a computer sat unused in the corner, while a lower ranking employee was dusting the window ledges with a small paint brush. Third world economy; it's cheaper socially to have people do it than to do it with machines.

The Port Captain related that, as we had overstayed our visas, under no circumstances could we cruise to Post Office Bay on Floreana Island. The westerly most of the Galapagos Island is the most often used jumping off point to the French Marquesas, 3,000 miles away. So, armed with 144 eggs fresh from Ecuadorian chickens we headed out to Panacea, weighed anchor and headed to Floreana Island and Post Office Bay. This departure time insured that we could arrive in a strange anchorage after dark.  About 2-3 miles out the engine overheated again, so Ollie and I got to spend a couple of hours working on our bellies on the hot engine pulling the water pump and changing  the impeller. We arrived just after dark as per unspoken tradition, but had VHF radio help from vessels already anchored negotiating the reef.  Sea Otter, Wasabi,  and Angelique were there, having left the day before.

April 27

Esther at Post Office Bay

Post Office Bay is so named as a result of so many whaling vessels stopping for the  high quality and plentiful water, as well as a formerly plentiful supply of Galapagos tortoises which were  a prize food source. So many vessels stopped there in fact, that outbound boats, headed to the Aleutians would often leave mail in the  "Post Office", a simple box on the shore, and homebound vessels would pick up said mail and return it to home ports in New England. The mail box is still there! Now it's a 20 gallon wine keg on a post, and regularly used by tour boats to deposit and pick up mail. We used the service. Fifteen days later when  Ollie was talking with his Essex Junction, VT, lawyer on the single sideband radio from the middle of the South Pacific ocean, the lawyer asked  Ollie where he was, as he had just gotten a postcard  postmarked Tulsa, Oklahoma. The card had gone to Oklahoma  via a tour  boat passenger, and then on to Vermont via the US mail.  A favorite photo of ours is of the post barrel,  with a signboard nailed on saying  "Mad River Glen, Ski It If You Can"; Mad River being a favorite ski resort of our grandchildren in Vermont. 

Panacea's signboard being readied

Ollie had made a signboard for S/V Panacea as well and we placed it on the post with many, many other yacht sign boards. We need to obtain some Vermont flags as we have promised them to several waterfront bars and yacht clubs. Also, I did a lot of skin diving with Andrew Atkins of Wasabi here. Andrew is a qualified scuba diver and had plenty of equipment to loan me. It was my first of  many skin diving experiences in the South Pacific. Way more exciting than the Florida Keys and Caribbean experiences I had had previously. But, I did manage to swim into a mass of jelly fish which much reminded me of stinging nettle weeds of the northeast.

We went ashore in the dinghy and got very close to many, many sea lions on shore. They bellow loudly when disturbed, but did not seem particularly threatening. We got a nice 35 mm photo of one attempting to climb into the dinghy with Ollie, who looked a little speculative about his newfound friend. That night we all had dinner on Angelique and made plans for the next passage, 3,000 miles across the South Pacific to the French Marquesas. It is my understanding this is the longest crossing of any ocean in the world without an alternative landfall. We (Esther and I) don't have a clue what's involved. It seemed to us the passage to the Galapagos was easy, plus we had on board more crew and less space than we needed. No problem Mon.

Ollie and new friend in dinghy

We spend the middle of the day anchored and washing all of Ollie's bedding and the settee cushions with the BHC shampoo prescribed for Ollie's  skin condition. We have some more information now as a result of several conversations with the Australian Doctor and have learned that meticulous care needs to be paid to laundry and bedding. we are fearing that we really did not control them with his skin treatments. Ollie's rash and itch continue unabated and uncomfortable. What we don't appreciate at this time is that the symptoms of intense itching persist for months after the critters are dead.