Day 49: Galapagos – 23/02/10

It pours heavily in the night, heavy enough to wake us up but at least it will help clean the boat, which I have to say is looking less than respectable.

Mike wakes me as usual with a smile and a cup of tea.  “Hello beautiful”  he says.  “The boat’s clean but the cockpit is full of dead flies and there’s a pile of sea lion shit”.  Lovely.

When I get up to inspect things, the outside of the boat is indeed, lovely and clean.  All the salt has been rinsed away and we have finally got rid of the muddy dust that the boat picked up in Ecuador.  The cockpit, though, is still a mess, even though Mike and Jim have hosed away most of the dead flies and all of the poop.  There is further evidence that its depositor was a sea lion.  All around the base of the helmsman’s seat are short, straight dark hairs.  One cheeky devil has been on the boat and has clambered all the up the stairs, waddled across the cockpit and up a further two steps to find himself something to scratch himself against.  Jim then remembers flopping noises over his head during the night.  That must have been our visitor.

I set about scrubbing the worst of the cockpit by hand then hosing it down with salt water.  Hopefully if it rains again later this will in turn wash the salt away.  The sea today is a revolting brown colour, rather than the clear turquoise it was yesterday.  Obviously last night’s torrential rain has bought down a lot of mud from the hills.  As there is quite a tide in the bay, hopefully the colour will return to normal by tomorrow.

In the late morning we call a water taxi and head for town to find some internet connection.   Most of the internet cafes won’t let you use your own computer but don’t have the programmes we need on theirs.  Eventually Mike finds one with a port to connect to and I find another one.  We both spend about an hour getting our respective work done then meet up at a restaurant opposite the dock.

Sitting having a drink, the heavens open and it pours down once more, just like England but hotter.

Photo:  A rainy lunchtime in Puerto Banquerizo Moreno

We meet up with the guys from Eowyn who we haven’t seen since Panama.  Mike and John are complaining about putting on weight because Graham keeps making cakes and the talk of food, combined with the fact that we don’t want to get soaked getting back to the boat, influences our decision to stay and order lunch.  For $15 I get half a lobster, fish, shrimp, chips and fried plantain.  Mike and Jim share a pizza.

By the time we have finished eating, the rain has stopped and I go for a wander along the front and watch all the crabs on the breakwater.  Some are red and yellow, some green and some black.

Photo:  Brightly coloured crabs scuttle across the breakwater

By now it’s late afternoon and we wander back to find the water taxi.  While it is actually raining, the temperature actually feels comfortable.  Once is stops, however, it is a different matter completely.  It is still cloudy and the humidity is unbelievably oppressive.  And this is the dry season!

We arrive at the dock and find the stairs and dock itself are, strewn with sea lions.

 Photo:  Sea lions basking – this baby lets Mike get close

  Photo:  One of the many water taxi drivers

Photo:  Our sleepy welcome committee

When we arrive back at Jeannius, we see that we have another visitor.  As we get back on the boat, he comes to and watches us for a while, then spends some considerable time bending himself double to scratch and bite lazily at himself, before flopping back down and zonking out again.  He is so unconcerned about our proximity – it’s amazing.

 Photos:  Our visitor – relaxed and unfazed by our proximity

We leave him to it and go below for a sleep in the air conditioning.  When we get up he has gone.  We ate at the restaurant so late that none of us fancy a meal, so Mike and Jim eat fruit and I have an avocado while we watch some TV.  Both Mike and Jim go to bed and I am just finishing the blog when I hear a wheezy coughing.  I call down to Mike, but it isn’t him, and I can hear Jim snoring so I know it isn’t him either.  Peering out of the doors, I can see the dark shape of another sleepy visitor, who has got up the stairs into the cockpit and has now made himself comfortable on the hosepipe that Mike forgot to put away.  Even when I creep out and take photographs with a flash, he just raises his head once, flaps a flipper at me and flops back again, completely uninterested.  No doubt they’ll be another pile of poop in the morning, hopefully not all over the hosepipe!

Photo:  Another nocturnal visitor