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?