Underwater in the Galapagos

Street art in Puerto Ayora

Or nature adventure continues in the Galapagos. After getting settled in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, we've enjoyed exploring the busy touristy town and seeing some more wild things. Dan and Josh went on a guided scuba diving trip to Gordon Rocks. They had a calm day and saw some amazing underwater wildlife on the drift dive.

Shark sighting on the dive

Dan scuba diving

That same day, Raf and I took a guided snorkel tour to the Island of Santa Fe. Santa Fe has no inhabitants and people are not allowed to go ashore. We snorkeled along the shore in the clearest water I think I've ever seen. We saw so many large schools of fish. We also swam with sea lions, being careful to not to get to close to the alpha males who would bark at us when we came to close.

Dramatic skies, and crystal clear blue water for snorkeling with the sea lions

I didn't take my underwater camera so I just soaked up the experience. After snorkeling for a few hours, we had fresh made ceviche on the boat and stopped at the nearby cliff to observe some blue-footed boobies on the way back to the dock.

Several Blue-footed boobies are resting on the cliffside

The following day we hiked out to Tortuga Beach. There were so many iguanas. We were rewarded with a cool swim and then made the return 2.4KM hike.

I liked this guy. He was all sprawled out just. He didn't care that I took his photo and he just laid there soaking up the heat.

Puerto Ayora is a big town. It has several meat shops, a small city vegetable market and fairly large grocery store. While I'm now restocking the refrigerator, the highlight however has been the Gelato. It is not unusual for us to stop at least once a day -- but maybe twice.

Well, this time, the crew gets soft-serve. But the Gelato was better!

It was a sad moment, when our fabulous crew Josh & Raf headed home. They were both a joy to spend a month with and we will miss them both. Dan and I are now working through our pre-departure checklist and have started checking the weather for the trip to the Marquesas. We've got a day to day plan to ensure we are ready to go. The rest of the WorldARC boats will again be meeting here in this bay and will all depart from here on the 4th. This anchorage is a bit rolly and I think we'll be ready to move on when the time comes.

Josh & Raf on the water taxi off to the airport!

Important note: We probably not post a blog during our ~3 week trip to the Marquesas. It uses a lot of bandwidth and we'd like to keep this if possible for downloading weather and staying in contact with the other rally boats. We'll see how it goes!