Galapagos Islands — Academy Bay
When The Captain finally capitulated to The First Mate’s desire to “swing by” Galapagos on our way to the Marquesas, he did so with the proviso that he, as Captain, would get us there, and she, as First Mate, would take care of everything else needed for this visit. Delighted and enthusiastic, she hit the ground running or, to be more precise, she sedately sat down at her computer, logged onto the internet and began her search for information on entry to and touring of the Galapagos Islands.
The first people to discover these islands were the Spanish back in the 1500’s. They called them “Las Encantadas”, the Enchanted Isles. With bewitching eeriness, the islands seemed to move around, changing positions, as they appeared and disappeared in the mist. Enchanted they may be, but The First Mate was finding that obtaining accurate and current information for a cruising boat planning to visit the islands was anything but an enchanting experience. Many self-help articles are written by cruisers for cruisers, but much of what is out there on the internet is out of date or inaccurate. After countless hours of research, The First Mate has compiled folders of information on the islands themselves and on their varied flora and fauna, but the prime information about what is needed for a boat to legally show up in the islands still eludes her.
Apparently, one needs a special permit. A cruiser may not just sail to and anchor in one of the bays of the Galapagos National Park. Unless one is in dire emergency (medical or mechanical), officials of both the Park and Ecuador are unwelcoming of one’s arrival without this permit in hand. It is blatantly obvious to all but the geographically challenged that the Galapagos Islands are located out in the middle of nowhere and on no direct route to anywhere. This leads to the equally obvious conclusion that there should be no excuse for a cruiser to be anywhere near them unless there is intent to visit, and these officials know this. Okay. So, what kind of permit does one need to sail into these isles? What is the procedure to obtain one? She learns that one really should use a local agent to obtain a permit. That’s fine, but it appears that not all agents are equal, as in equally honest and equally priced. In addition, not all agents listed are still in business, and not all agents listed are responding to her emails. Frustrated — has it been mentioned that she is frustrated!
There appear to be two types of permits granted to cruisers. The easiest to obtain, the least costly and the most restrictive from a touring point of view is a permit for which she has yet to find a name. For simplicity, she calls it the “basic permit”. With this basic permit, one is allowed to anchor in the harbor of one of four inhabited islands in the archipelago. Once anchored, boat occupants may leave the boat to venture on land and to tour the islands, but the boat may not leave that one anchorage until the day it pulls up anchor to leave the islands all together. The boat may not tour, just its passengers. The second permit is called a “cruising permit”. It is harder to obtain and must be applied for at least 3 months in advance. Word is that it may or may not be granted to any particular boat. It is more costly (around $500 – 600 depending upon the agent) and carries its own set of restrictions. As with the basic permit, one choses one’s main port of entry, but the cruising permit allows the boat to sail to and anchor in those other 3 harbors. Once the boat leaves its first anchorage, however, to travel to the next, an additional $200 per day per each person on the boat is levied. The real advantage to this permit is that it allows the boat to anchor off and explore the uninhabited islands. Naturally, one is not allowed to wander around unescorted. To travel to the uninhabited islands, one must hire a registered National Park Guide to accompany you on your boat. Guide’s fees run around $250 per day. The guide counts as one more person on the boat, so an additional $200 per day is levied by the government.
All the above information was laboriously gathered, yet there are countless articles by cruisers saying that there is no need for a cruising permit. The rules may be on the books, but no one is enforcing them or seems to care. No one will check, for the park has no real means of checking each and every boat. Other cruisers claim that the cruising permit is needed only to visit the uninhabited islands, but one is free to anchor in any of the inhabited ones. Even agents misrepresent or are hazy about what one can actually do and not do. Thus, it appears that these permit rules either are not being or have not been routinely or uniformly enforced across the various islands, and this is the cause of the conflicting information on the internet. Whatever the current enforcement is, she is not going to fool around with the enforcement or with the officials. Avante will arrive with a permit!
Eventually, she settles on one agent, Johnny Romero. Her reasons for this choice were perhaps not the best, but they were all she had. He was the first to respond, responding in a day rather than days or a week or never. His response was the most detailed. His command of the English language was the best (not great, just the least poor), and she had not found anything negative yet written in cruisers’ accounts about him. With fingers crossed, she wires him $170.00 to open a permit file for Avante. Would she hear from him again or was she throwing money to the wind? Not long after sending the money, The Captain finds a scathing report against Johnny Romero written by another cruiser who claimed he had been misrepresented by this agent. Now, she is really worried. Will this all work out or will we end up with a huge fine when we arrive because of improper paperwork or something like that? This was all her idea, right?
The First Mate decides that the full-blown cruising permit is the way to go for us on Avante. It gives us the most flexibility and the best options for exploring and learning. The idea of their own private guide sounds so intellectual and, well, personal. What a wonderful way to learn all there is to learn about this place! Then she thinks about it. After an expected 10-day passage to the Galapagos and with a 3-week passage yet to go, does she really want to spend her time in the Galapagos touring on Avante? No. Does she really want to make room for another person on Avante in the unoccupied stateroom already full of stuff? No. Does she want to cook her way around the Galapagos while they sail to and anchor off these islands? No. Finally, does she really want to clean up and re-arrange everything after this wonderful guide leaves Avante? No, most emphatically NO.
She focuses on available options using the basic permit. If we could leave Avante for 7 days, we could easily join a tour going around the islands. Many start from Academy Bay where we will be anchored. The problem is that neither The Captain nor The First Mate feels comfortable about leaving the boat alone for that long, especially with the constant need to recharge the batteries to keep the refrigeration going. Even by shutting down all other power users on the boat except the refrigeration system, the generator still needs to be run at least once a day for 3 or so hours. Johnny Romero assures us that he can get us someone responsible to do this for us. We still do not feel comfortable with the idea, but The Captain says that we could take off for up to 3 days. Building around those 3 days, The First Mate comes up with a 7-day itinerary that includes a 3-day trip to Isabela, the largest island, and several day trips to other islands and sites. It’s not all she initially wanted, but it does cover just about everything to see in some way or other.
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Monday, April 5th – Now anchored in Academy Bay, The Captain and Crew Mate Jim study the swells in the harbor to determine whether deployment of a stern anchor would be a good idea. While they discuss, The First Mate is fascinated by the many pelicans flying and diving around the bay. One dives down not 5 feet from the boat. With wings swept flat back against his body, he dives down like an arrow. Just as he hits the water, those wings open out to stop the free fall. She actually has her camera out and ready.
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The water is so clear, she can see its throat pouch in the water.
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What a sight when he lifts his head! Look at the size and stretch of that pouch!
What a way to start her visit to the Galapagos! She is going to like this place.
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It is decided that the swell in the harbor is reverberating off the shore and that there is really no good direction to position the boat with the stern anchor. We are just going to have to rock and roll with the swell.
We busy ourselves with all the details of cleaning up and setting up after a passage while waiting for Johnny Romero to show up. The day before we had emailed him by satellite to confirm our arrival. He had told us to stay on the boat, that he would be looking for us and that he would come out to us to get our passports and boat documents to take to the Port Capitan. He would take care of everything for us. We are not totally confident in all of this, but having nothing better to do, we wait. Johnny does show up! He soon arrives by water taxi, the preferred means of transportation around the harbor.
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Tipsy little pangas with brightly striped awnings and big engines are run by somewhat adept pilots. $.60 during the day, $1.00 at night. Can’t beat that!
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Johnny turns out to be a very personable man and much younger than we expected. We hand over our passports and are told he will take care of clearing us into the Galapagos, and we may now leave the boat. This seems a bit loose. We have handed over our passports to a guy who says he’ll return with them later this afternoon, and we have no official paperwork in hand clearing Avante or us into Ecuador. Johnny says it’s okay. Go ashore, explore, have a fun time, see you this afternoon. Bye — and off he goes .
With those words of advice, we grab 3 bags of laundry, radio up a water taxi of our own and head ashore. The taxi driver sees our bags of laundry, tells us he will take them to a laundry for us, quotes us a price/kilo and says he’ll have it all back to us tomorrow morning at 7:00. What the heck? We are living on trust for the moment. We hand over our laundry.
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Puerto Ayora, the town in Academy Bay, is a busy little harbor district. Tourist oriented activity at first appears to dominate, but a closer look reveals plenty of local activity with a church and a large park dominating the area. It is interesting, but not enthralling. We are all hot and hungry. Sandwiches of some sort and a cold beer are in order.
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We pass the local fishermen’s co-op where we note swordfish and mahi mahi for sale. The First Mate tucks this information away for future use.
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We find a colorful restaurant that looks promising. Nothing around here is air-conditioned, but the darker interior offers our hot bodies some relieve. This is the Equator, and we are finding that the heat is unrelenting.
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Lunch procured and thirst slackened, we head off in search of Johnny’s office so we can talk to Javier, the man in charge of his tour division. Johnny wears many hats, but, as in Telluride, that is probably what it takes to make a decent living on these islands. We find the office and arrange a tour to the highlands for tomorrow and a tour to the island of Floreana for the next day. Johnny tells us that the documents will not be ready until tomorrow morning. Uh-oh – is there a problem here? No, no problem, just a delay. He’ll be by tomorrow at 8:00.
On the way back to the harbor, we walk inland into what might be called a local’s residential area. We are amazed at the amount of garbage all over the place. There is so much of it that pathways are often blocked with trash. Not only is there garbage in need of a burn pile or pit, there are old mattresses and sofas (probably homes to the ubiquitous rats that they cannot seem to find a way to get rid of — no wonder!). There are old tires, rusting car parts, abandoned kids’ toys. You name it, and it can be found out there on those streets. The irony is that down on the quay, which is about as far as most tourists wander, there are huge trash collectors. Recycling is a big issue on the islands. Glass, paper, plastic and garbage. Everyone does their part — at least along the quay. The Park personnel talk about all the damage that the tourist industry is doing to the islands, but we wonder if they ever look a closer to home.
Tuesday, April 6th – Up and ready for the laundry to arrive at 7:00, it does not, and at 8:00, neither does Johnny arrive with our passports as he said he would. At 10:00, without passports, documents or laundry, we lock up the boat, hail a water taxi and head off to explore the Charles Darwin Research Station. It is a long, hot hike along a dusty road to get the the entrance to the Research Station.
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We see the baby tortoise raising pens. We walk among the big giants all resting in the shade probably thinking we’re idiots to be wandering around under the blazing sun. We even see poor, old Lonesome George, the last of his kind.
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Did she mention land iguanas? We saw them, too. Maybe it was just too hot, but we came away disappointed in the Charles Darwin Research Station. In its defense, the place was not built to accommodate us curious tourists. It was, fortunately, created for the scientists who need and use the place for their research to learn about and protect the fauna and flora of the Galapagos.
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Tired and hot, with an afternoon sun beating down on us, we plod an equally long, hot and dusty walk back to town. Where are taxis when you need them? There are none to be found.
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Nearing town, we stop at the first shady restaurant we find. They say the cold beers are not the best thing to assuage a thirst or cool one town, but we are not concerned. Cold beers all around, please!
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At 1:30 or thereabouts for no one is on time around here we are finding out, we meet Javier in the town park. He is our tour director to the highlands, and he proves to be a very likable young man. We are off to see the highland tortoises, but all we do is hike through mud. The good thing is that it is cooler up in the highlands. We are told that this is breeding season, and the breeding tortoises have all hiked off to another area. We do see two very sad-looking old guys and a couple of Galapagos Ducks with blue bills. They really do have blue bills!
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Next on the tour are the lava tunnels. We climb down under ground, more mud, dripping walls, at least there are light bulbs here and there. It’s claustrophobic. When Javier mentions that there’s a tricky part ahead where we will have to climb over some debris from a recent collapse in part of the tunnel, Crew Mate Jim announces that he is out of here, and The First Mate does not blame him.
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Of course, The Captain is unperturbed. This tunnel has an end, and he’s going to get there. The First Mate mutters and scrambles along behind watching where each step is placed on the slick, slippery mud.
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Mud covered, we reach the end of the tunnel and climb out like a pack of moles. Wasn’t that fun? She is beginning to think we have really been had. This can’t really be any kind of tour, can it? But then she sees several tour buses unloading their loads to do exactly what we have just done. The only difference is that they are given yellow boots to slop through the mud, and their guides personally wash them at the end while they change into their clean boots. She look down at her mud-caked flip flops and shakes her head in disgust.
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The next stop is Los Gemelos, dramatic twin sink holes. That’s just what they are. Huge craters with vegetation. She is not impressed, but the breeze up so high is cool. We do see several finches and mockingbirds so she gets to check them off her list of things to see. On the drive back to the port, cold beers and cool showers compete for attention in our minds.
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Shortly after our return to Avante, Johnny shows up with our passports and tells us that the required fumigation of the boat is being rescheduled. No problem. It’s their island, and if they don’t mind us walking about un-fumigated, that is fine by us. Later that evening we eat at an Italian restaurant. Bad choice. Poor meal, and Jim suffers from it all that night. The next morning, he admits that a 2-hour boat ride to Floreana is probably more than his system can handle. We leave him to his misery and the quiet of Avante while we head off for our tour to Floreana.