March 14-- Darwin Center

Baby turtles (more photos below the fold)

DARWIN CENTER
One of the main attractions in Puerto Ayora is the Darwin Visitor's Center with its turtle and iguana preserves, and a major research station with scientists from around the world who come to study the ecology of the Galapagos. It is a short walk east of downtown which Jan and I took yesterday. The center is just inland from the beach and at mid-day it was extremely HOT on this day when clouds stayed in the highlands.

Much of what we saw was quite repetitive of what we saw earlier in San Cristobol, and actually not as well presented so we didn't linger too long. They did have more young turtles being raised until they are old enough to place in the wild and fend for themselves and they were very cute to watch in their pens. There are two species of large iguanas which are found only in the Galapagos and those are being protected as well. We learned again that the naturally occurring species found here before man arrived were thriving, including hundreds of thousands of giant turtles. But early sailors valued the turtles as food because they could be kept alive in the ship for months before being killed for dinner. And the introduction of cats, dogs, rats, pigs and goats played a major role in the decline of the natural species. So it is wonderful to see the efforts to protect the islands and rid them of human-introduced species.

DIESEL TOPPED OFF
Our trip from Panama to the Galapagos required enough motoring that we burnt 80+ gallons of diesel. With more of the doldrums ahead of us before we reach the SE trade winds on our way to the Marquesas we want to be sure our fuel tank is full upon departure.
There is no marina on this side of the island and there is a lot of red tape involved to take on diesel here and fortunately Oyster has been working on the issue for the last week. We placed our order for 80 gallons a week ago.

Yesterday afternoon, with just a hint of a warning that it might happen, a small local taxi boat pulled up alongside with our fuel in 20 gallon plastic bottles, an electrical generator and an electric fuel pump. We had the diapers (used for soaking up spills), the Baja filter and paper towels at the ready. I held the plastic hose over the filter as Jan monitored the tank fill level and the vent for overflows, and the pumping began. Fortunately the flow rate was very controlled and everything went off without a hitch, or a drop spilled. A major relief to have the fuel aboard, and see that the fuel was very clean and had none of the filth in it that we had seen in San Cristobol.

CLEANING DAY BEFORE OUR CRUISE
Tomorrow we board the small cruising catamaran Anahi for a 4-night, 5 day guided tour of some of the other islands. There will be 16 guests aboard. Mike and Deb will return from their week-long cruise after we leave, so we'll leave notes about what we've been up to, the fuel situation and our efforts at provisioning. The boat is in great shape but we're spending the day cleaning outside and in, polishing the stainless and doing a load of laundry ashore.

At 4:00 there is a skipper's meeting at the Sol Y Mar hotel which has been serving as the Oyster rally HQ. Information will be presented about our upcoming 3,000 mi passage to Nuku Hiva, Marquesas. That will be our next gathering spot with a party planned ashore. All the 24 boats in the rally will be taking their own routes on their own schedule so we don't anticipate actually seeing other sailboats on our passage. But every morning at 8:00 there will be a roll call of each boat, which will state its latitude and longitude, weather conditions, and crew status. It will be fun to track the other boats.

Since Jan and I leave for our cruise ship tomorrow morning I don't anticipate posting anything additional to our blog until we return on the 19th. See you then!