The next day was spent catching up with chores and packing before our final meal together in the Angermayer Point restaurant, for we were sad to have to get up early to say goodbye to Jane and Willem.  We were so sorry to see them go after five weeks together with a shared experience of a lifetime.  It had been a lovely way to renew our friendship and we couldn’t have had more fun if we tried.  It was altogether an outstanding success.  They are so knowledgeable about wildlife that it was like having our own tour guides on board.  They had been perfect boat guests and most generous in sharing the chores and cooking as well as the expenses of running the boat.  We just hope that they will be able to join us again in the future.

 As ever we felt very ‘flat’ to be on our own again and so we consoled ourselves by having several lunches on the deck amongst the marine iguanas at the Red Mangrove, and where we could watch the pelicans and boobies.  The mangroves in which the restaurant was set surrounded a small cove around which the pelicans had made their home.  It appeared that the cove was a flight testing area for young pelicans for whenever they came in to land they invariably tipped forward onto their heads – wonderful!  On one occasion a two metre shark nearly beached itself chasing an unlucky fish into the cove – all overlooked by herons standing majestically and perfectly still.

 Our melancholy was relieved by the news that Annabel and Tom had booked flights to Tahiti arriving on the day Gemma and Eloise were departing having spent the previous two weeks with us.  What a lovely thing to be able to look forward to.  We visited the Charles Darwin research station and saw ‘Lonesome George’ the last giant tortoise of his gene pool along with many of their conservation activities.  Altogether we stayed for another week after Jane and Willem left us and picked up a resident pelican as well as a family of metre long black tip sharks that made their home under the boat. The blue footed boobies put on their flying display most days and especially when the water had been cleared by overnight rain.  What a fantastic place!  Saturday dawn had us at the farmer's market but we had gradually got fed up with provisioning and decided to leave with what we had - I am sure we won’t starve!  We lifted the dinghy, serviced the engine and generator and after many visits to Port Captains, Immigration and the offices of the agent and paying yet more port fees, we were ready to depart with a Zarpe (cruising permit) and a stamp in our passports.

 

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Our tour took us next to a ‘Swiss Family Robinson Tree House’ that the locals were obviously very proud of and then on to the coast near the airport where, when you looked closely, you could make out marine iguanas camouflaged on the black lava rocks.  These pre-historic reptiles were sunning themselves to warm up sufficiently to be able to go into the water to feed until it was necessary to return to the rocks to warm up again.  Finally we were taken on to Fernando’s house where his mother, wife and half a dozen other relatives provided us with lunch.  All-in-all it was a very interesting day to end our stay in Wreck Bay.

 It was only 40nms or so to Puerto Ayora so we departed at 0230 and dropped our anchor in Academy Bay at 0900.  The bay was crowded with ARC boats which were shortly to leave and so we put out a stern anchor in common with most others.  We tried calling Johnny, but it was a weekend and we got no response so we spent the day exploring the town and watching the antics of the pelicans and the extraordinary aerial display of the blue footed boobies.  Ashore, Jane and Willem booked a dive and we all dined at the Red Mangrove on the recommendation of a local resident.  We had a magnificent sushi and sashimi meal which turned out to be Jane and Willem’s introduction to this Japanese feast.

 On the Sunday, Jane and Willem returned from their drift dive saying that it was the best dive ever.  They had been among white tip and hammerhead sharks and Willem had taken some amazing underwater photos.  Meanwhile Sarah had made some new fender covers from the material that Jane and Willem had kindly brought out with them from London.  As she was sewing the last cover the sewing machine caught fire and when I took it apart I found that the electronics had disintegrated.  I planned to use it as a spare anchor or at least send it down to Davy Jones’s locker, but Sarah insisted we should take it to New Zealand with us and find an Elna repair agent.  I wonder if we will.

 We went in search of Johnny on Monday morning and the only really useful service he provided was to change Jane and Willem’s booking so that they could leave a day later.  We found the municipal market where meat, fruit and vegetables were sold and the open air fish market which was on the front.  The fish market was surrounded by waste disposal facilities in the form of a flock of pelicans that fought over the discarded remains as the fish were cleaned.  The fishmongers also had what looked like a tame Labrador under the fish counter, which on closer inspection turned out to be a resident sea lion greedily scooping up scraps.

 We booked to go on a tour to Bartolome Island and caught a water taxi at the crack of dawn to take us into the dock where we were picked up by a coach to take us across the island.  From there we were taken out to a boat and given a welcome breakfast before a three hour trip to Bartolome.  This was the first opportunity to get a close look at one of the tour boats and like many others we saw, it had seen better days.  That said at least it had life jackets aboard!  Our guide led us up the wooden walkway that had been built to shepherd the constant flow of visitors and protect the wildlife growing on the lava rock to the top of the hill overlooking the lava flows.  It was the picture featured in all the Galapagos literature and looks like a primeval moonscape.  There were three or four other tour boats in the vicinity and we couldn’t help thinking that we were being herded from place to place.  We caught sight of one penguin when we went snorkelling at the appointed time and place on a nearby beach and after lunch on board we were returned to the dock by 1630.

 


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