The great Galapagos diesel war of 2014

So in my last post I described the process by which you purchase fuel. Now, on to the delivery. They are supposed to have a 1000 liter (250 gal) opaque tank on a water taxi. Marked and graduated to you can see how much fuel is being dispensed. Well, in reality, not so much. They show up with mountains of black jerry cans. 20-gallon size. Now these would weigh 160 pounds. If they were full. Which they were not. So they pump in 9 jerry cans and call it quits. No mass? Nope, no mass. Manana. Si, Si, manana. So I figure they come back manana with the rest of my fuel. Since they pumped about 90 gallons of the 180 that I need and paid for. And when I say pump I mean a little electric pump with a little Ecuadorian guy huffing away on one end of it to start priming the pump each time they switch over from one can to the next. That guy has got to have some brain damage. So they get to nueve cans and call it quits. Which would have been titties if the cans each had 20 gallons in them. But that’s just not how it goes here. This is the most screwed up refueling system/process I have ever been involved with.

So, I call in to rally control to let them know that I got ½ my fuel and they said they would be back tomorrow. The whole thing is about a day behind by now. One day into the process. One day behind. Gives you some idea of the process. Sound kind of like the barnacle exodus? I sat on the boat all day waiting for the fuel up. Now I get to sit all day again waiting for the fill up. So, I am second on the list for the next day but instead I get a visit from our “agent”. I will call him that but sometimes I call my proctologist that also. Same kind of feeling. So he comes on board and tells me that they did in fact deliver the 180 gallons. And that started the debate. I have ample, if circumstantial, evidence that they did not deliver the full amount. But it comes down to my word vs. them. Here is my evidence. Oh, and I am not alone. I was the fourth or fifth boat to get fueled and we all have our version of getting shorted on fuel.

Back to the evidence. Skip this if you get bored easy. Because it is boring.

My main tank is a big 150-gallon rectangular box. One inch in depth equals ten gallons of fuel. Easy. I open the inspection hatch and measure down to the fuel level. I need three inches fuel. 30 gallons. I did that math in my head. Impressed? In my secondary fuel bladder, which is completely empty, I need 150 gallons. What could go wrong? So filling the main tank from their jury rig set up they go through one, then two, then three 20-gallon jerry cans. To fill 30 gallons. Hmmmm. Me thinks something is amiss here. Maybe that huffing guy is getting more fuel in him than I thought. He should be a friggin fireball! Bob is giving me the count on the jugs as they empty them and set them aside. At this point I don’t care because I don’t care if it takes 9 or 18 or 40 jugs to get me filled up. Just get me the 180 gallons I paid $1100 for. So when they are done my fuel bladder is ½ full. The main tank is all the way full. I figure I got 90 of the 180 that I paid for. And they state that they have completed the delivery. Our “agent” says we will “get it worked out”. So I went to the “screw you in Galapagos” translator on Google and found that “we will get it worked out” means….  “We will wait till your zarpa (visa) is up and you have to leave (march 2) and then we will have a big party with all the money we F’ed you out of. Come back soon.“ Just kidding. I made up the part about “come back soon”. It doesn’t say that. The rest might be true though. So this will be interesting to see develop.

However, one boat did catch them with their hand in the diesel jar. I yelled over to a boat called Alpharatz and warned them about the goings on. Kept it off the radio. To figure out some way to measure or meter what they are getting delivered. And just in time. They were up next. They emptied an onboard 20-gallon jerry can into some 5-gallon cans and unbeknownst to the fueling boat filled it first. Out of sight of the fuel boat. When they finished the first 20-gallon can they had actually delivered 15 gallons. They pulled the jerry can up on deck and called them on it. So this should get interesting. Someone is skimming 25% of the fuel. 50% in my case. Their evidence is better than mine. And there is a lot of money involved here. They’re working on F’ing me out of $550 and I am in about the middle of the pack for fuel requirements. This is easily in the thousands of dollars.

But I still do really like the place. It just has some rather jagged edges sometimes.

So, time out on the diesel screwing and all. More on that will follow I’m sure. You do meet some interesting characters on this tour. Here are a couple.

So we hike off about an hour to a beach that is supposed to be really cool. And I use the word cool loosely. Because its hotter than all FFF on this hike. I mean you could fry an egg on the bill of my cap. So we get there and its rather disappointing. Poor visibility, surfs up, rip tides are running. So down to the next beach we go. About another ½ mile. Having heard rumors of sharks and stingrays and awesome snorkeling. Nope. Brackish green water and horse flys. The M’Fkers who can bite right through a tee shirt. So we hit the water to cool down if nothing else, and this woman starts talking it up with Bob. And by woman I mean kind of like a manatee in a one piece. Facemask on, smashing her face. Snorkel dangling. Talks non-stop. Be gals I don’t have a picture to post here. Her husband floats nearby in a giant life vest. He hasn’t gotten a word in edgewise is 40 years I guarantee. She goes on bla bla bla. From New York, bla bla bla, your from?, bla bla bla…  I am getting my fins on and plotting my escape. Her attention still on Bob. I think I am safe. She says, what? You came here on a sailboat? Do you know Mike from Vivo? Not kidding. Thought some one was pulling a joke or something. She says, we are looking for Mike from Vivo. We know his wife. I am in WTF mode!! How the heck does she know Dawn? Turns out they were coming through Quito (sp?) in Ecuador at the same time that Dawn was on her way out. They were at the same B&B one night. So now she is my favorite Aunt and wants to know everything about everything. Except she never shuts up to let an answer float in. Its like she is on speed and a case of coke at the same time. Other than my mother I have never heard someone who can talk so much. Love ya Mom but you know its true! You two would be a pair. I think we could actually solve the worlds energy needs if we could harness the two of you. I toyed with the idea of punching myself in the nose either to knock myself out or to spew blood so I had to get out of the water. Sharks, you know. Did neither. I am a coward. After a few minutes, or hours, hard to tell, I thanked her for being kind to Dawn and snorkeled off. She followed. I am like a horsefly and chick magnet let me tell you. I circled back trying to get her re-hitched with Bob but it didn’t work. The end.

So another one. I am in the frettatoria, which is kind of a small general hardware store. They sell everything but food. Only they don’t really have anything much to sell. But what they do have is so random and miscellaneous that is is kind of surreal. But it’s all on display nicely. Very sparse. Lots of them in town. 500 sq ft home depots. Up and down the streets. But they do have some Rappela fishing lures. Exactly the same description as one of the boats was using and were getting all kinds of tuna. So I ask to see one. It’s a bit dusty but that cleans right off. Who knows how long its been there. While I am looking it over a fellow from behind me says it’s a “berry good one and will catch mucho fish”. Oh, OK, thanks. They had three. I bought two of them. And the gentleman behind me introduces himself. Miguel. And says he is selling his book. He was rather slight in stature but very well dressed. Hard to put an age on him but maybe 50-70. Pressed, white, gaucho style shirt. Dress pants. Polished shoes. Nice satchel. Not the norm around here. He is Galapagos AARP GQ. Thought I hooked into a Jehovah witness and was going the get to know Jesus better. But he is actually selling his book. He and 6 other fishermen were adrift in the pacific for 77 days. The engine died north of here and off they went. No radio. No EPIRB. I just started the book. Which is written as a Captains log. I assume they all made it but I don’t know. Maybe he ate all, or most of  them, and I just made friends with Hannibal Galapagos. But, will keep you posted. Ten bucks for the book and he autographed it for me. And asked me again what my name was. Should have told him Fred that time. And he made sure that I noted his email address from the copyright page. He expects to hear from me. He did ask my name a couple more times. Which one might find odd. Since my name is also Miguel. Might have been a clue there I missed. Some one left the gate at the home open? Got an escapee here? Nice fellow though.

So that’s a feel good story right? Here’s a twist. Then, after all that, he shows me a photo album of cigarette butts. Mounds of them. Yes, cigarette butts. What I infer is that he is on a kick to get smoking banned in the Galapagos and they make frigging sand castle like sculptures in town squares out of butts that they pick up. He has pictures. Mountains of butts that look like sea lions or mermaids. Then he has a Tee shirt he pulls out of his satchel and wants me to buy that says something about cigarettes and death and fines and WTF. No thanks on that one my new friend. But oy. Got a new story to tell. Wonder what will come of it if I send him and email?

Fuel war still ongoing. Supposedly they will come Friday to get me the rest of what I paid for. Ricardo shook on it. Yeah right. Count your fingers. I think I am heading out for a 3000-mile passage 80 gallons short. Might have to learn how to sail this thing.

One more new crew comes in today. Kyle. A friend of Ryans from St Thomas.

And one more ARC member bit it. A German fellow. Had a fall and broke some ribs. He is heading home. Probably could have made it on a cat but for a 3000 mile passage on a mono it would have been bad. Nice fellow, too.

Only a couple more days here. And I am itching to get back on passage. Been on anchor long enough. If it were not so restricted here we would have moved on days ago to some other anchorage. Like we are accustomed too.

All for now

Take care

M

Galapagos, Santa Cruz Island

The trip over from San Christobal was a hot and almost windless motor sail. But only 7 hours. Saw dolphins. Merc got some excellent video that I hope we can post sometime. Saw billfish jumping for their breakfast. Saw a shark meander by. But the best was 50 feet off our beam a Manta Ray did a show for us. Maybe 6-foot wingspan. The type that have the huge mouth with the two protuberances on either side. Cleared maybe 8 foot out of the water. Right next to us. First it came straight up and belly flopped on its white underside. I have heard they do that to get rid of parasites. Then it did it again but front flipped and landed on its black topside. Square and flat. With a nice whop sound. They it did it again but it did a complete backflip. Landed again on its white belly. That one must have just been for fun. No pictures and no video. A vid of the backflip would have been amazing.

The anchorage in Santa Cruz is pretty tight. And shallow. Bow and stern anchor needed. It is only the second time I have used a stern anchor and it was the first time with Merc and Bob as crew. Went fine though. Cheated. Paid a water taxi guy 5 bucks to take the stern anchor back and drop it. Hey, everybody does it!

Then onto a water taxi to ride into town. I love these water taxis. $.60 until 7 then it’s a whole buck. But as we made our way around town we discovered something truly disturbing. Its election time and as such the sale of alcohol is prohibited for THREE WHOLE DAYS. So everyone can sober up and vote. WTF you kidding me! I’m not voting! Put some rum in my rum and coke dammit! Oh the humanity.

New crew comes in tomorrow. Then another one on the 27^th.

New crew arrived. After a 48 hour travel day. From New Zealand. Iris. French girl. The “I”s in Iris are pronounced as “E”s. So it’s Eries. I think she will work out well. Next crew still a couple of days away.

New crewmember Iris with Bob and Merc on Seymour Island

It was Saturday night last night and a local dance club put on a show on the downtown strip. Traditional dance. It was very good and it was a local event. Not a tourist show. 90% of the audience were locals. Then at the end they drag you out on the dance floor. Didn’t know Bob was that white. Thought I couldn’t dance till I saw Bob out there. I’m friggin Fred Astaire! We cut us a rug. Or a large cement causeway anyway.

The ARC website is sometimes criticized for white washing the news. No bad news ever gets on there. But this trip takes a toll. I am going to ask our crew coming from St Thomas to load up on Alive and Motrin. Can’t get it here. I took a dive from a water taxi the other day and landed on my back and shoulder. The rotator cuff one of course. If I don’t have a couple of broken ribs then I don’t know what. Hurts like heck. And my already crooked pinky finger is a nice shade of black and blue. To bad busting it didn’t straighten it out. Can’t sleep. There is no position that does not land on something painful. Bob has a hip and thigh that keeps locking up on him. We are the walking wounded. Elsewhere in the fleet we have had a finger amputated by a wind generator, a broken hand (same incident), an ear torn off and sewn back on, and two people are currently in the hospital here. One for some infection. One for reasons I don’t know. Various equipment failures. Any where from minor to putting boats out of the rally. And we are about 2500 miles into a 26,000 mile run. But it sure is fun and never short of some story to tell.

Off today on a daylong trip to another island. Seymour, if I am spelling it correctly.

The trip was good. An hour bus ride over the island so we got to see more of the place. Old rickety bus with no suspension. Felt like getting kicked in my wounded kidney the whole time. That hurt. The snorkeling part was kind of a bust. Nice spot but a swell kept a lot of current running and the visibility was poor. Got a jellyfish sting on the top of my head. That is an odd sensation. Felt like I was wearing a heavy, itchy, wet, wool hat. Then we fed some voracious horse flies. They could bite you right through the rash guards we were wearing. Big ones like the Minnesota variety. Slow and dumb but they took their pound of flesh from all of us that’s for sure.

Then back in the boat and an hour to Seymour Island. They land you on the rocky coast from the dingy. When they told us where we would go ashore we all kind of looked at each other thinking they must be kidding. It is a very foreboding place. Did a couple hour walking tour around the island. Lots of iguanas, frigate birds and boobies. Love them boobies. Brutal place. Very arid. Everything has thorns on it. No water. Looks like everything is trying to get you. Even the rocks were sharp and jagged. Virtually no shade on the entire island. The vegetation is too sparse to provide any. It was mid day and hotter than heck. We are 50 miles from the equator and that sun gets HOT baby! Hard to imagine a tougher place to live much less having breeding colonies. No natural predators but nature is trying to kill you off for sure. Lots of Sea Lions there. Nice to see them in a natural environment. Rather than lying on a park bench in the middle of town. Or trying to climb Vivo in the middle of the night.

Nesting Frigget birds

The ever popular Blue Footed Bobbie

Mom and Pup. None of the animals or birds showed any concern over our presence there. They just do their thing.

Laundry day today. Pretty exciting. And going to find the fuel broker. You don’t just pull up to a fuel dock here. Oh no. Its find the broker, do some paperwork, pay $2 more a gallon then you have ever paid before. Then they deliver it by water taxi and you start the process of determining if they have given you crap fuel or good clean stuff. It will be an all day process if the fuel is questionable. Should be interesting.

But at least the moratorium on alcohol sales is done today. Big parade last night. The people with the blue flags won. Miles of cars and motor bikes and trucks parading through town. Honking and shouting. The green flag people are sad today. And I have no idea what the party distinction is. Just a couple of colored flags. We are happy its over. But it is a huge event here.

Well, the fuel purchase is done. Delivered sometime today “maybe” Awsome. Get to sit aroud on the nice hot boat all day waiting for fuel that may, or may not, show up. You met the guy in an open air café called The Rock. He has a little notebook whose cover is some little kid cartoons. Writes down your fuel request and takes the cash. So I count out $1,087.60. In full view of anyone walking by. And he has a bag full of cash. No receipts. Just a gracias. Its either a testament to how safe it really is around here or to how stupid the sailors are. I am hoping it’s the former.

All in all a fascinating place. Always a story.

M

Touring the Galapagos

Feb 19 & 20 2014

So here is a kind of funny one. When we completed the Ecuadorian Inquisition, AKA, “Cleared In”, we were given a stack of department of tourism info. And the gal went to length to show us one particular map with its hand numbered points of interest. The best Internet, restaurants, hardware store, haircut, farmers market. The usual. So we set off on Saturday to find the once a week fresh farmers market. Pretty clear on the map. Except none of the street names were right. Except for Charles Darwin Ave. Thru streets turned into T intersections. Curves in the road did not exist. Worst map I had ever seen. Met up with some friends from a cat called Nexus. They had the same map and were having the same problems. So we went back to ground zero. That being Charles Darwin Ave.. And started over. Still no good. Asked a couple of locals and showed them the map. Lots of hand waving, chin scratching, etc.. No luck. Finally did stumble on a nice market area. Not anywhere close to the map. But got the job done. Not sure how, or who, pointed it out but it was a map of Santa Cruz. Not San Christobal. But both have a Charles Darwin Ave on its waterfront. Yup, we are sailing around the world! No problem. I got the right map for that. Hope we don’t fall off the end! Pretty well established that it is round but hey, you never know.

Did the daylong taxi tour thing. Hiked up to a volcano that is now a small fresh water lake. In the rain. Could hardly see down into the crater. We were in the clouds. Went to a tree house that is lodged in the oldest tree on Galapagos. $2. Small little shop and museum that a family runs there. Then to the tortoise game preserve. Where they have, low and behold, lots of tortoises. Then down to a beach area. Then got dropped off for lunch. Which by chance was the same place we had dinner. Which was very good. And quite inexpensive. $12 for a plate of seafood that would feed 2 people. $3 beers. But the beers are 20 oz. bottles. I guess they figure if your going to bring a bottle of beer on the island you might as well make it a grandee one. If you ask for a small they look at you funny. But they get warm so fast that you get rather toasted trying to drink them down before they get warm. What a quandary eh? Such is the adversity we face daily.

Tomorrow we hope to finally make the Kicker Rock tour. Other boats have made it and said it was pretty cool. We have been canceled twice due to our 48-hour expedition offshore to get 25 minutes of professional bottom cleaning done.

Virgin Islands Beer Club makes it to Kicker Rock, The Galapagos

Anchor alarm went off last night. Meant we had drifted a bit. No big deal but when I went out into the cockpit to check the surroundings I was met by a sea lion who had defeated my defense perimeter and taken up residence on the lounge there. Head on a pillow and everything. The light was on. Didn’t seem to bother him. He ARRRRPPPPed at me with a big mouth full of teeth. Scared the living S#@$#$T out of me. We were three feet apart. He/she was 4 foot long. I ran back in, to change my drawers, then grabbed a broom and went back out. Feeling pretty tough as I was now well armed. With a broom. Scared him/her overboard but I just don’t know how that critter got through my rather formidable defenses. I will post a picture of it and you see for yourself. Must have just got on board because he/she didn’t even have a chance to !#$!#$# all over the place. I have seen pictures from other boats as to the mess they can make. Picture 15 or 20 lactose intolerant toddlers who just had a quart of ice cream each. And no inhibitions as to where or when they go. The Sea Lions diet of fish and salt water makes them a veritable fish oil and diarrhea machine. They extrude oils through their fur and extrude everything else from the rear end. Merc has a video of one waddling down main street Arrping and sh@#$@ting all the way down the promenade. He was headed for the town square fountain. Where they flop in and do more of the same. Have to beef up the defenses tonight. Or pay the cleanup price tomorrow.

What I thought was a rather formidable sea lion defense plan. Failed.

So off we went on the kicker rock tour. Started at a small beach. Sea turtle and sea lion preserve. In spite of last night I still like sea lions. Well, maybe not that particular one from last night, but in general. Lots of turtles and a couple of sea lions. One skinny pup who’s Mom had either perished or was late getting back. Wished the little fella luck and on we went. Got on a small dive boat and headed to Kicker Rock. It’s a volcanic formation that rises almost vertically out of the sea. Mile or so off shore. Quite dramatic. It has split vertically a couple of times and provided for some very nice snorkeling and diving. Snorkeling in our case. So the captain figures out which way the current is going and drops us off with a guide to head through the rocks. Some very nice marine life floating by then two hammer head sharks swim under us about 20 feet down. Very cool. If we saw nothng else it would have been worth the trip. Dawn squeezed my hand pretty tight. Then an eagle ray, Galapagos sharks, sea turtles, a couple of sea lions horsing around. All sorts of life. The guide starts calling out “groupa, groupa”. Thought he meant a grouper so we mozzy over to see the grouper. “Groupa” is Spanish for group. As in group of HAMMER HEAD SHARKS. A school passes under us about 6 – 10 feet down. I think I could have touched one with my flipper. More hammer heads that you could even count. Dozens maybe. They just kept on coming. These creatures just glide so effortlessly. 6-8 foot long easy. Right under us. Dawn about broke my hand. It was incredible. The Manatee thing in Puerto Rico is pale by comparison. Saw 4 species of sharks of that dive. Black tip, white tip, Galapagos grey, and hammerhead. In one 40 minute snorkel. The Humboldt Current wells up from down deep and feeds microorganisms to the food chain here. And it is rather cold. The Humboldt Current. Kicker Rock has both the warm surface currents and the Humboldt swirling around it. The temperature change as you move around is something. Kind of like one side of the pool being 10 degrees colder than the other. You could see the thermoclines as you approached them. Like a blurry out of focus picture. Then the temp change. Never experienced anything like it. Without being the cause of it. If you know what I mean. Oh, and I got farted on by a barracuda!     What you say?     No kidding!     We swam over a school of barracuda. Maybe 100+. All about the same size, 2 foot long or so. 10 maybe 15 feet down. All lined up perfectly. And all of the sudden a mass of bubbles comes out of one of them and starts upward. And right at us. I think he aimed it. And I say he because a female barracuda would not have such manors. We were engulfed in this little cloud of bubbles as they broke through us to the surface. What else could it have been? Barracuda gas! Cross that one off the bucket list. Tooted on by a Barracuda. Dawn will forever deny it. But she got gassed. Same as me.

None of the pictures I took there are very good. The water was pretty clear but not crystal. And I took so many pictures at the prior beach stop that my battery was dead about ½ way through the dive. Which is to bad because I would give an eyetooth for a picture of the school of hammerheads swimming under us. It would have been wall-to-wall sharks.

It’s late and quiet as I write this up. I am in the cockpit salon and I can hear the sea lions breathing and coughing around the boat. They are probing the defenses. I hit them with the 2 million-candle power spotlight and they dive away. They almost always leave a little floating gift behind when they dive. Hope they find a better place to stay for the night. I am tired from the couple of nights at exile and don’t really want to stand lea lion watch tonight. And there must be a couple of dozen of the around Vivo right now. Maybe on a school of fish we are attracting with our lights or something but it is VERY eerie. Breaths and splashes in the dark. They sound very human. Always from a different direction than where you are looking. And on a very dark night.

It was a national holiday here today. Parades and marching bands and all. We had to cross the parade route a couple of times to get to the taxis. Trudging along with our wet bags and snorkel gear. I am sure we fit right in. They never noticed us. So now they are blowing off fireworks along the waterfront. So I have a beautifully lit up shore line with fireworks going off over it and snorting and belching sea lions at my two stern scoops. Don’t know which one to spend more time watching.

Oh, a couple of footnotes. Remember the dive boat that had engine problems and was low on fuel. Our professional dive crew boat? 70 miles out? They ran out of gas on the way back and sat for three hours before someone rescued them. Read post on getting kicked out of the Galapagos if you don’t get the inference. And on our way back from the Kicker Rock tour we ran out of gas. At the entrance to the harbor.  They dropped an anchor about 500 yards from Vivo. Water gone. Beer, none. Get me the @#!$ off of this thing.  And these are the professionals! They must have done this trip a million times and they ran out of gas? I had a VHF radio with me in my dry bag and I radioed for any ARC boat to reply. A fellow on a mono called Ghost got a water taxi directed out to our location. Dawn and I jumped into it and made it back to Vivo.  Another story in the can. The best part is you don’t have to make any of this up! This shit just happens! Constantly! What a hoot.

Dawn left today. She will be missed. Will not see her again for quite a while. She is meeting up with us again in Tahiti. Love ya. Miss ya.

I will, hopefully, get to post more pictures. It takes about 5 minutes to post this text. I take ½ hour to post 6 pictures into it. And lord knows I am a very busy guy, oh yes. We are very spoiled back home. With the speed of the Internet. I do miss it.

Did a nice hike to a fairly secluded beach. Snorkeled with many many turtles. A couple of species. Some sea lions but they pretty much were just lying around in the sun. They do a lot of that. Lunch at a Ceviche place that was really a shack in an alleyway. Dirt floor and everything. Beers, waters, 3 big bowls of excellent Ceviche. $24. Gota love it. And popcorn is big here for some reason. They throw bowls of it down at most of the places we have been to. And one place gave us salsa. For the popcorn. They explained by gesture. There is almost no English spoken here. Anywhere. Ever try to get salsa on a piece of popcorn. It just does not work. And not a tortia chip on the island.

Tomorrow we head off to Santa Cruz. Which we hear is a lot more commercialized. There we will pick up a couple of new crew. Iris and Kyle. Hopefully. One from New Zealand, one from St Thomas. So a lot of travel plans have to go right to pull this together. Each of them has 3 if not 4 stops before they get here.  Then some posts from Santa Cruz before we head out to the Marquesas. That is a three-week passage. I will miss San Christobol. I really like this place. Nice people. Good food. Cheap. Nice anchorage. Water taxi service for a buck. I could stay here for a very long time. Like the rest of my life.

All for now.    Peace

M

Going to post some pix. I have 1/2 way decent wifi for the moment. These tie into posts below. Pardon the disarray. Going to have to piece it together.

Merc on a rope swing

Dawn with some tortoises 

A waterfront home on Las Perlas. Panama big money!!!!

This is the start of leg 2. 39 boats heading out for the 850 miles to the Galapagos.

Well, that took twenty minutes. A couple more and I am bagging it.

Raw materials for Mr. Ugly

Mr. Ugly. He took on a Marlin and came home to tell the tail.

All for now. That killed an hour.

What? We are getting kicked out of the Galapagos? You kidding me?

 Yup. Here’s the story.

No pictures with this post. Or if there were it would be a picture of me with a look on my face like I was having a stroke. Because I about did.

If you have been watching the yellow brick tracker you may be wondering what the heck went on with a bunch of us seemingly sailing off to nowhere and milling about for a couple of days. Here goes.

A couple of things they take seriously here. Preserving the environment and eco systems of the Islands, and their MASSIVE bureaucracy. We had reams of paper work to do ahead of our arrival. Rally Control was of immense help in guiding us through the process. I think it would be quite a task for an individual boat to clear into here. Especially if you do not have a Spanish speaker on board.

Anyway.  No less than 10 people boarded Vivo for our clearance process. They must employ ½ the island in the process. There was a guy who wanted to know about fuel, oil, oil changes due when, oil absorbent materials etc.. One guy was here just for the various detergents on board. Took photos of everything. One guy from each department of the department of departments. One guy to instruct us how to do the garbage. One couple who just took pictures of each other. The only guy who was not on board is the guy with the bloody rubber stamp for our passports. So, I got me a s$%t load of docs and paperwork. Instructions on where to pee and poop. What to do with the garbage, and off they go. Except we don’t have our passports stamped and that turns into an hour long process later on that evening.

So why did we get kicked out of the Galapagos. Well, part of the inspection is a diver going under the boat and taking pictures. Which they then send back to Ecuador. There are 39 ARC boats here and 20 of them, including us, have some type of organism on the hull that they do not like so we fall into the category of “must leave immediately”. Needless to say that would be a bit of a bother. Its 7 days back to Panama or 3 weeks on to Marquesas’. We are not in Kansas anymore. We are not provisioned nor is our new crew on board. Oh, and you cannot buy diesel here. You have to order it and pay for it here and pick it up in Santa Cruz. A completely different island. Which we cannot go to because we are under a house arrest of sorts. “No move the boat!”    OK OK I get it!

So Rally Control steps up and starts wheeling and dealing. What they come up with what is probably the best of a bad situation. The 20 of us have to leave and sail 70 miles offshore. Out of the boundaries of the Galapagos Nation Park. To the middle of nowhere. A GPS coordinate. Sail all night to get there. There we will be met by a dive boat, divers, and support staff. They will then proceed to remove the offending organism. Keep in mind this is 70 miles off shore. Not in a marina or even on anchor. In about 3000 foot of water.  Cost, $5000 split amongst us offenders. Then we come back in and get re-inspected. I hope they award some points for effort and grade on a curve because there is NFW they are getting these bottoms clean. Cleaner? Yes. Spotless? No chance. And it seems really rather random as to who passed and who failed. Example: Two identical ARC boats, both bottom painted with the same paint at the same time in the same yard in Antigua, who have both been to the same places….  One passed, one failed.

This all started with the islands charging us an extra $50 a head to implement this new eco protection program. Been around since 2008 but with no means to implement it. Rumors anyway. We are the test dummies it seems. We paid the $50 a head so they could afford the diver to take the pictures bla bla bla. And we got slaughtered. This will become a no go zone for cruisers because you have a 50/50 chance of failing and getting kicked out. It would not really be possible for an individual boat to pull together the program that rally control came up with. Its never been done before. They have multiple government agencies involved both here and on the mainland. It’s almost an impossible situation. There are a couple of boats that do not have enough fuel to even be able to do this gig. Go out and come back. There is no wind so it is likely a motor slog both ways. Going to be some fuel loaning going on for sure. I lent 120 liters Merlyn of Poole. A couple of boats are bagging it and heading off to the Marquesas’ rather than play the politics. With very unhappy crews on board. Kind of like getting to Iowa and they don’t have any fireworks so you say heck with it. Lets drive to Colorado. They were expecting two weeks of sight seeing here. Instead they get a 48 quarantine and off you go.

So off we go at 6 PM for an overnight motor sail to the specified GPS coordinates. 70 miles out. Kind of fun actually. The radio chatter between the boats kept us entertained. We were in three groups set to arrive at 6:30, 8:15 and 10 AM. 19 boats. We did. They didn’t. They being the dive team. When we finally saw them going by they were in to small a boat, and to few in number. Word spread pretty quickly. We were screwed. Took till mid afternoon to get the first seven boats done.  Do the math. Isn’t gona work. By then we had lost contact with the rally coordinator as he was with the dive boat with a hand held VHF and they were drifting with group one. Out of range. They were doing a couple knots in the current. We were stationed at the specified rendezvous location. By 10AM we, who were waiting at the specified GPS coordinate, were in contact with each other but not rally control. By about two we decided to head out to follow the current and find the dive crew. About this time I got a call on the sat phone from the rally representative on the dive boat. They had engine trouble. And trying to keep up with the current cost them so much fuel they were basically at bingo. Done. Have to go home. No mass petrol. So I relay this sat phone message via VHF radio to the rest of the group and that starts the debates. At that point there were 12 of us still in Q (7 boats done and heading back) but with no real hope of this coming together. About this time the small sputtering dive boat approached us. (I was on the front end of the flotilla looking for them as we had lost radio contact a while ago). We transferred the Rally rep onto Vivo for some discussions. He was beat. He had left with them at 2 AM for a 6 hour run into 2-3 foot seas in a twenty-four foot boat. Tired, dehydrated, mission a bomb. Only got about 1/3 of the boats heading back to port. The rest of us were going to end up out there floating and drifting for the night. It was inevitable but took some time on the radio to get everyone up to speed. Keep in mind there are probably 5 different languages spoken across the skippers of these boats. Took a while to get everyone up to speed as the various translations and relays went out. The rally rep left with the crippled, fuel starved dive boat for what I would guess would be about a 7 or 8 hour run back to San Cristobal to get the next days team together to get out here to finish this up. At least we hope that is what will happen. Various ARC boats out here have crew departing or arriving. Except we are out here in Galapagos limbo. Its kind of the circumnavigation version of getting snowed in to O’Hare. You have no clue when it might end. So make the best of it. We have named ourselves the Dirty Drifting Dozen. We are currently spread out across about 2 sq miles and are drifting northwest at 1.7 – 2 knots. We will need to jockey back up current a couple times during the night so we are where we are supposed to be at when it gets to be first light. This is when the next dive crew is supposed to meet us. And believe me there are a whole lot of crossed fingers that Rally Control can get the next phase of this together. Not sure what our options are if a dive team does not show up tomorrow. This could get very interesting. Dawn flies out on the 19^th, (it’s the 16^th now), new crew comes in on the 22^nd and the 25^th.

Somehow we have to get “let back in” to the Galapagos. Maybe change the boat name real quick and grow a mustache?       Huh?  No, No, never been here before. Why do you ask?      The boat name?   Uhhh    Bibo!   Yeah that’s it Bibo.  Means “never been here before” in several languages.   Yeah that’s it.  Think it would fly?

So we are going to start working on the bottoms tomorrow AM. Maybe be able to get some amount done before the dive teams. Prior to now this was not an option. Had to be done by, and inspected by, approved sources. But most of the boats don’t have any equipment other than a mask and snorkel. We have a dive hookah so we can get some of it done but it is bad news in the current we have and with the boat going up and down in the swell. If you get under it wrong it will lift on a swell and come down on you. And you loose than one. 53,000 pounds vs you. I tried it out a couple of times. Yu get a nice coating of ablative blue bottom paint and some black and blue as a reminder. We really wish we knew this was coming. We could have been working on it in stages as we traversed Panama. Now we are in about the worst possible spot to be trying to do it. 70 miles out. 900 foot of water. The O’l blind side. Galapagos style.

So we drift all night. No anchoring out here. At a pretty good clip as well. With the current and the wind 2/-2 ½ knots. First light we get out the dive gear and hit the water. Not fun. Amongst the dirty dozen we all agreed that everyone who has any capability to get under the boat and do some picking should do so. To save dive team time. If they show up. Between us all we probably did 20 hours or so on various boats. Bob and I did about 2 ½ hours on Vivo. And got the crap beat out of us doing it. The current drags you off and the boat bouncing up and down lands on you as your pick away at the offending creatures. The current ran so fast it pulled the earplugs out of my ears. There were little tornados of swirl coming off of the rudders. And the day before there was a shark spotted in the area. We didn’t see it. A couple of other boats did. I am hoping that means that sharks don’t like cats. So we got some blue paint rubbed on us and some black and blue souvenirs’ as well. Got cut up a bit on the props (even with gloves on) and that was the part that I was least pleased with. Chumming the water as we went. Here sharky sharky. When they finally got around to us the pair of certified divers spent, get this, TWENTY FIVE FRIGGING MINUTES!!!! THAT’S IT! We have been our here for two days for THAT! Oh well. All’s well that……  whoops spoke to soon. After the dive team left the underwater photographer had to come by to document the work being complete. And that takes another couple of hours. While we were waiting and tooling around jockeying into position I wrapped up one the dive support lines into the prop. Pretty sure the whole dirty dozen heard me ff$%#$% on that one. My bad for not verifying all the lines we had to run to keep the divers on the hulls. So back into the water and remove the wrapped up line. Wasn’t to bad. Fortunately we were barely above idle when it wrapped up. Makes a nice racket though. Whump whump whump thump stall, beeeeeeeeep. But the sail back to San Cristobel was beautiful. Flat seas. 20 knots. Raced back with 4 boats. Faster than two of them, even with one. Should be on anchor about sunset.

But the Dirty Drifting Dozen will live on in ARC lore. The ones who got reamed by the Galapagos and got to spend some quality time drifting at sea. Grilled some tuna, played dominos and had movie night(s).

All for now

M

So, next post with have something about seeing the Galapagos. Haven’t done to much of that as of yet. Hear they have some turtles and boobies here. And lord knows I love….       Turtles.          What were you thinking?