Galapagos. Just the name of these mystic islands are connected to so many images and stories. Darwin, marine iguanas, sea lions, giant turtles… And all that (except for Darwin) we’ll see in the next days and weeks.
After our dramatic arrival in the anchorage (a blog post with pics of that will follow !) We soon were greeted by an agent and the authorities. Soon after we missed about 600USD but had clearance for staying 20 days at the island. As the whole archipelago is a national park, everything is quite restricted and one can not sail around with his own ship. On can’t even take the dingy to the beach ! But – well, there are boat taxis for 1USD per (grown up) person.
The first day we went to the beach, together with the crews of SY Tamora, SY Mares and another sailing vessel with two kids aboard. The beach was fantastic and we finally were snorkeling again – after more than two months without touching the ocean. Unfortunately on that day we had quite huge waves and thus the underwater sight was poor. No turtles for us. – Only a few sea lions in the water. And those were more interested in the fish…
But it was great anyway. Everywhere you look, you see beauty. The black, grey and red volcanic stones at the beach for example. Together with the bright green bushes it makes a fantastic background for any kind of picture. And the marine iguanas – well I could take hundreds of photos. Amazing creatures, scary looking but harmless and they are everywhere !
Just as the sea lions. They are everywhere. Everywhere in the town, on the benches, in the boats and dinghies, at the beach. Luckily our boat has no bathing platform and also a high freeboard, so the sea lions cannot enter. But all our friends already had them in the cockpit or on the foredeck. Hehehe. Today I took the sailing dinghy to town – hopefully no sealion sleeps inside, when I get back in a few minutes.
