When we were planning Scott's visit here, we didn't know very much about the Galapagos. We knew, however, that there were 2 airports with direct connections to Guayaquil on the mainland--San Cristobal and Baltra. Scott opted to make his reservation for Baltra, which is connected to Santa Cruz. When we finally got here with only 4 days to see things, he tried to change his reservation to fly out of San Cristobal, but there were no seats on Saturday.
So our only choices were to take a 2 hour 'water taxi' ride from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz, or take the boat there. The water taxi option looked attractive, until we found out that the daily trip didn't leave early enough in the morning to get Scott to the airport in Baltra in time for his flight. So that meant we'd have to go the day before and spend the night. At a combined water taxi fare of $175 plus hotel, we decided
to take Soggy Paws instead.
So we had our agent, Bolivar, get us a zarpe to go from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz (cost: $10 to the Port Captain in San Cristobal, and $12.50 to the Port Captain in Santa Cruz). We originally requested to leave very early in the morning (like 6am), but the computers were down at the Port Captain's office, and we couldn't get our paperwork completed until the morning we left, at about 8:30am. (Note that the agents efforts on our behalf are all included in the $300 fee we paid for the autografo).
We had a great sail over from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz... the wind lightened up and Dave was threatening to turn on the engine, but I made him wait a little bit, and the wind came back, and we sailed almost all the way... making about 6 knots on average. We found that when sailing at 6 knots on a port tack, we can't run the watermaker. (We think) The flow over the hull makes too much back-suction and that's not good for the high-pressure pump. So we'll have to sail slower to make water underway! (or do it at anchor).
We coordinated with our friends on Visions of Johanna, who were coming from Isabella, to meet in Santa Cruz for a couple of days. They needed to provision, and we needed to get Scott off.
You are supposed to set a stern anchor in Santa Cruz. This is for 2 reasons... very tight quarters, and a large swell that rolls around the point. We don't like stern anchors. They can be dangerous in certain conditions, and they are a pain to set and retrieve.
Our friends on Visions anchored at the back of the anchorage, in a place where they felt they could live without a stern anchor. So we anchored next to them, also without a stern anchor. The wind was blowing pretty good, keeping us (mostly) lined up with the swell. (2 days later we finally broke down and set a stern anchor).
Tomorrow we do some touring of the island, before putting Scott on a plane home on Saturday.
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