Galapagos - Part 1

Gaviota is officially out of Puntarenas and is happily swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Galapagos. After a mini vacation to Dominical with Pat and his family, lots of last minute provisioning and still no international zarpe we managed to escape from Costa Rica with mostly positive memories but anxious to begin the second leg of our journey. We were lucky to be able to spend the first few days together, after a month apart, relaxing, swimming, surfing and hanging out in Dominical. It was such a treat for us to hangout with Pat and Rachael in the house they rented before heading back to boat life. We could have stayed in Dominical for ever surfing, exploring waterfalls and listening to Howler monkey’s and Toucans but we knew if we were ever going to make it to the Galapagos it was time to leave the lap of luxury and head out.
Back in Punteranas we made multiple trips to the mega super and managed to fill every empty square inch of our boat with canned goods, rice, pasta, beans, cereal and of course beer and wine! Unable to tie up a few last minute paperwork issues we decided it was time to get out of Central America before they took another penny! We left Puntarenas early in the morning and headed for Bahia Ballena, an anchorage that we stopped at last season, to spend one last night before heading off for our passage to the Galapagos. Bahia Ballena was amazing besides the horribly uncomfortable rash I managed to get on my arm. We were really ready for our passage to the Galapagos!
The Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, were about 700miles away from Ballena and the sail is notorious for light winds and mixed up currents. Our first day out was amazing! We had 10-15 knots on the beam and sailed for 12 hours without having to touch the windvane. The next day our luck and spirits kind of took a downward spiral. While we were using our brand new autopilot we turned on our SSB radio to check in with other boats and it some how shorted something out and we were left to hand steer for what we thought to be the rest of the trip. After hand steering through two squalls and six days of light to no winds we were able to get an email that walked us through how to reset our autopilot. This was all thanks to Connie and Lisa an agent that assists cruisers in the Pacific. Thank you both so so much. I don’t think we have ever been more relieved or excited as we were at that moment when the autopilot came back to life. We were literally singing and dancing around the boat for hours afterwards, so relieved that we had been freed from the repetitive torture of staring at the compass with our hands glued to the wheel. It was pretty miserable to hand steer day and night but we surprisingly were in really good spirits throughout the whole passage. We are so stoked to be out here exploring again that it would take a lot to really get us down.
We crossed the equator at 4 in the morning on our eighth day out. We were kind of bummed that it was not during the day because we were planning on swimming across but we still had our ceremony the next day and said our thanks to KING NEPTUNE! We arrived at Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos on the morning of our ninth day. Within twenty minutes of anchoring we had seen baby hammerhead sharks, sea lions, sea turtles, manta rays and blue footed boobies. This place is truly the paradise it is said to be and it is so refreshing to see this much wild life everywhere. We have so much to share with you about the Galapagos but will have to wait and update more later. We miss everyone but are having an amazing time!