Final Preparations for Pacific Crossing

Date: 22nd March 2023

Location: Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos

Just a quick post before we leave tomorrow morning.

We are still in Puerto Ayora anchorage on Santa Cruz. We've spent the time here split between preparing for the upcoming passage and seeing the things you really ought to see here. We've spent a day with the three "Kid's Boats", climbing a volcano with them and hitching a lift in a truck. We've had a day's taxi drive around the island. And finally we took a ferry to Isabella Island for the day to climb yet another volcano, Sierra Negra. We were hoping for a full day walk there but when we arrived we were told it was too late in the day to start. It most recently erupted in 2018 and the lava stream it left behind is very impressive. The ferry trip back was very bumpy! But we did get to spot some of the other boats we know anchored in the bay there.

Things to prepare for have included having the hull cleaned again. We met Lena and Laura of the Darwin Research Centre who took time out to spend some time with us on Mehalah one afternoon and Lena returned to put her freediving skills to good use. Thanks Lena.

Otherwise it's been a series of goodbyes as the boats we have been travelling with have left here either for Isabella island or for their own long passage to French Polynesia.

Tomorrow at 8.30 we make our last trip ashore to get our passports stamped. At 10am the inspectors come to make sure we are not smuggling out any turtles, sealions or iguanas. We then have one hour in which to depart. The winds finally look set fair. This will be the longest passage we have made on our own. It will be interesting to compare this with our previous long passages with crew.

So that's about it. We will try to send some sort of text update on a fairly frequent basis though our radio internet connection seems a bit flaky. Position reports should be just fine though.

Remember.

You can follow our track at: www.noforeignland.com/boat/mehalah/journey

You email us at: mvgc3@sailmail.com (text only, no graphics)

Pictures follow, in no particular order.

Noddies above, tuna below chasing a ball of baitfish next to Mehalah.

The first volcanoes with the "Kid's Boats". 7 children between 5 and 11. 8kms.

Hitching a ride back down the track.

Iguana (land or sea?) patrolling the beach.

Lena preparing to clean the hull.

One of the higher altitude vegetation types.

Guava, an introduced tree, high up on the volcano slopes.

Lower down.

Lava tunnels, 400m long on Santa Cruz.

Hero in a half shell.

Some of these Santa Cruz tortoises are BIG.

Poor old Lonesome George, the last of the Giant Galapagos Tortoises, now stuffed.

Recent (2018) basaltic lava flow inside the pre existing caldera.

The purple shows the recent lava flow from the picture above.

Starting the bumpy journey back to Santa Cruz from Isabella. Friends yachts in background.