Isla Isabela

By Aaron

Another beautiful stop!  The Galapagos did not disappoint.  We’ve had a lovely couple weeks here, although a good chunk of it was spent on boat projects so we didn’t get to see as much of the island as we would have liked.  Next time!

Around every corner there’s a pretty beach

The anchorage was beautiful and the water was sublime.  At 93.7 degrees it’s not so good at cooling you down though!  The penguins probably don’t care for it.

Sea turtle nests are a common site in the dunes, and here some of their eggs lie just under the sand.  They were delicious!

Lava tubes are all over the island

This is the only iguana crossing sign we saw.  Which is surprising since they are crossing EVERYWHERE.

The roads and trails of Isabela

We took a hike out to a former penal colony where they made the prisoners build a wall out of lava stones.  They call it the wall of tears.  I may have shed a few myself just because it was about an 8k hike to get there.

Iguanas frequently block your path when you’re hiking around here.  This was our first double block.  I’ve got a great video of Nicole trying to get past without being attacked.  I wanted to upload it, but unfortunately there isn’t exactly a fiber network for internet running out to the islands, so even publishing these pictures is asking a lot of the local service provider.

Pictures of an iguana on the beach.  They eat stuff off the rocks and blow salt snot out their noses.  See?  Cruising is learning!

What?  You want more iguana pics?  Well this will be it for a long time.  This guy was our favorite because he had the best mohawk. 

The water here is simply beautiful

The dinghy dock and sea lions napping.  They do that a lot.

Walking into town we frequently passed this little chivo.  We always stopped to pet it and rub his armpits.  He’s so cute and soft, we decided we wanted a goat.  A regular goat wouldn’t be a good boat pet for us because they get too big, but we figured a pygmy goat would be perfect.  Or maybe one of those fainting kind - that would be a fun thing to show people.  I did some research on potty training goats.  Turns out they don’t make good indoor pets.  But the information I found only applied to houses.  Surprisingly, I couldn’t locate any information on goats living aboard a sailing vessel.  I even tried going to www.goatsonboats.com but it’s not even a real website.

We’ve been meeting lots of new people that are heading across the south pacific.  The Swedes know how to party!

It’s not all fun and games though.  We carry three 10lb tanks of propane.  The one in use ran out here on Isabela.  No problem, we’ll just switch over to one of our full ones that we had filled up in Panama City.  Nope.  They were both empty.  Not sure why, the valves weren’t closed all the way, and I guess the safety valve isn’t good enough to keep the tanks full.  I’ll definitely make sure they’re closed next time!  The other boats in the anchorage were having success gravity filling their tanks from the local tanks.  Unfortunately this didn’t work for us since we didn’t have the right adapter to go to our fill valve.  I tried to fill through the service valve but there is a check valve that only allows vapor to flow so we were out of luck.  Damn US safety laws!  So now we have this ugly green tank strapped down to the mooring bits on the foredeck feeding our propane system until we can fill our tanks in French Polynesia.  Hopefully.

 

While I worked on some blue projects Nicole took a trip up to a farm to shop for some produce.  Food prices here are crazy expensive.  You can save a lot of money by buying direct from the farmer.  So into the back of a truck she goes, over the lava fields and through the forests…

 

The farmer’s name is Silvio and he runs a pretty sweet operation.  The girls walked around with him and picked out all their produce straight from the ground, bushes, and trees.

You just can’t get produce fresher than this.  We got a large bag full of goodies for only $13.  The pineapple is especially delicious!

Everybody in the anchorage is getting ready to make the long jump across the Pacific.  It will certainly be less stressful if you know you’re not going to get lost.

And of course Isla Isabela has been conquered!  That’s 110 for anybody counting.