Las Perlas to Galapagos

A little delayed but here we are, alive and well! The last vlog post showed us going through the Panama canal on the 21st of January, and it was as if we went through a portal to another planet. The Pacific Ocean is so incredibly different than the Caribbean, and I think it was a great change for all of us. There seems to be much more marine life; rays, sharks, schools of fish, sport fish, sea lions, turtles, etc. The Caribbean is not tidal, here it is the opposite. In Las Perlas, there were 5 meter tides, here in the Galapagos it is only about 5 feet. Still 5 feet more than there was in the Caribbean. The Pacific Ocean just feels very alive.

Out of the canal, we anchored in the northern most island in Las Perlas, in a place named Pacheca. I personally had never seen anything like it. The island has over 10,000 birds living on it, and during the day about half of them are out and about. Pelicans, Frigates, Boobies, and some other ones I never identified. In the water just off the island, the marine life was just as abundant as the birds. We were finally able to get in the water to dive, and we were all blown away. Most the life I mentioned above we saw on the dive in the first 10 minutes. It has the potential to become a world class dive location, but I hope it stays below the radar. Las Perlas as a whole felt pretty undiscovered, and they are only 30 miles south of Panama City. There is one island, Contadora, which has a lot of tourists, but the most recent census I could find was from 2000 and it says 253 people live there. This is certainly not the case now, but the population couldn't be more than a couple thousand. We had to stop there to fill our dive tanks, and it was an absolute pain (literally). There is one dive shop on the island, and they are amazing, they gave us a lot of information on diving in the area and were very kind in general; the only downside was they are located a bit in the interior and we had to lug all the tanks up a hill to get them filled, then carry them back. This was the easy part. At 8ish PM, we got all the tanks loaded into the dinghy to take them back to the boat, and right after we shoved off, we got totally swamped by a big breaking wave. It hit us pretty hard and in the frenzy to get the dinghy back on the beach (it was entirely filled with water) Lee got his leg pinned under the dinghy and hurt it pretty badly. We unloaded all the tanks, drained all the water, and got the dinghy back out through the surf without the tanks; they were left behind at a hotel who very kindly allowed us to leave them in the reception area overnight until we could come by for them in the morning. The rest of our time in Las Perlas was still pretty great, but we were all exhausted the day after that. We left for the Galapagos on the 26th of January.

This was a pretty mellow passage overall, but it was one of those passages when a lot of things needed fixing. Mike spent the entire day working on the bilge pump, and the second day he found a big leak coming from the watermaker. There were plenty of other things that needed fixing, but writing this almost two weeks after the fact we cannot remember. We did a lot of fishing, and did a decent amount of catching. We got some nice sized Skipjacks, and some Crevalles. The freezer was full after two days! We did catch a Booby, and once Mike got the hook out of its mouth, it must have gone to its Booby buddies to tell them we were nice, because for the rest of the passage we had Boobies all over the boat. They started out on the mast, and once we got them off of there, they moved to the bow. The most I counted was 14. That means 14 Boobies worth of crap all over the boat. They only stopped landing on the boat once Mike started whipping them with some line. We made landfall in the Galapagos on the first of February, and we have been here in Puerto Ayora since!

There will have to be another vlog post just dedicated to the Galapagos because there is too much to say! The wildlife here is incredible. We woke up the first morning to about five baby Black Tip Sharks swimming around the boat. There are Sea Lions absolutely everywhere in the town, the locals are totally used to them. We watched one waddle out into the road to take a nap and to cause a slight traffic jam. I have done one day of diving so far, and it did not disappoint. Schooling Hammerheads, Mobular rays, and we had a sea lion come down and play with us for about 5 minutes. It was truly incredible. Unfortunately, Lee had to leave the boat to rehab his knee, so he will be going back to Canada and we will have another crew member, Jeff, come on the 20th of this month.

We will do another vlog post dedicated just to the Galapagos! Stay tuned!