We meet with Matias early in the morning. First breakfast and then we head off to get the snorkeling equipment. Pierina, her younger daughter Pierina “the Original” as she points out :-) and their visiting exchange student Kendall join us for the tour. More people want to join us as well but Matia refuses on grounds that the group would then become too big to manage, and managing the human impact of the Galapagos is one of the key challenges in these islands.
This gives us the first “taste” of Matias’ dedication to preserving this important ecosystem.
Our first stop is the Tabasco to change into swimming gear. From here we head towards the Tintoreras. We see a penguin.
“…the penguin in the Galapagos is the second smallest penguin species in the world. Penguins mate for life, and during a recent storm a large number of penguins were wiped out. Because penguins mate for life this meant many widowed penguins that did not mate again, causing some issues here that the Charles Darwin station is addressing.”
Matias also explained the source of the lava formations in the islands, and explained that the “foam” of the hot lava is what makes Pomes rock. Pomes rock is hard and light. The regular lava from the volcano explosions ends forming what we all know as lava .. that hard, porous, black rock made familiar during Arnold's "Escape from Mars" movie ..??? was that the movie? ... anyway... lava everywhere ...
We arrive to the Tintoreras … “this is the spot where the sharks come to rest. Sharks require constant motion in order to breathe, but here, the flows of water though these natural channels allow the sharks to sit motionless and still are able to breathe.” Truly incredible.
During the rest of the walking tour Matias explains that what looks as bird excrement (a.k.a. bird poop or shit) on the rocks is actually lichens, which predominantly forms on one side of the rocks. The reason for this is that the rain and mist predominantly comes from one direction, and depending on where the lichens forms one can tell where the rain comes from. Interesting … and here I thought these brids are soiling all the rock faces on Galapagos ... hmmmm
Our snorkeling tour was fantastic. Some would say ..."f$#&ing A" while others would have a "liesin the mouth" problem (if they didn't drown first for letting all that water into their mouths).
Schools of colorful fish all over the place … big fish; small fish... I dont know where to start ... oh yea, I was going to study medicine but then as a young lad I did come to the Galapagos (before they became endangerd and protected - the Galapagos, that is, not me) - and was fascinated by what I saw and so decided I would want to study Marine Biology. Good thing I did, otherwise I would have been one of them wealthy tourists looking at all these odd-looking sailors desembarking from the sailboats and wondering if this was part ot he "galapagos" experience!
The most fascinating experience was to encounter sea turtles 4 – 5 feet in diameter. Matias indicated that if we "drifted with the water curent that we would be able to see it feed under-water. And indeed we did. Fascinating!! I hope to get the pictures from our underwater expedition and share with you soon.
This was a great end of the day, because from here we are off to the boat and getting ready for the last stage … Pto Villamil – Pto Baquerizo. We say our good byes to Matias. One can only say that the Lord does work in minsterious ways, and so has made seeing Matias again after 25 years possible under the most unusual circumstances, and I hope He will be able to do so again in due course.
The start is scheduled at 6 pm for a sail that will take about 12 hours. The plan is to arrive in the early morning in Pto Baquerizo. Pto Baquerizo is the capital city of the Galapagos, and the largest settlement in the Galapagos.
The start of the race turns out to be the most chaotic one of all … not easy to start in the dark of the night.
We did an early start, and were penalized by having to turn around the committee boat and start again. Good thing there was no boat to our right because we did a perfect 360 penalty turn two feed from the committee boat – something that must have raised the hairs of all on board the committee boat as well as all the racers heading to the starting line - woke them up for sure!
“Right-of-way” shouts were heard from three – four boats, fearful that we would cut them off and force them out of the wind. But before they could finish their shouts our sails were full and we were heading across the start line at full speed in from of the complaining boats … that was e-x-c-i-t-i-n-g!
Before the strike of midnight the wind is blowing hard, and we are cruising upwind at 8 – 9 knots. Not bad … the decision is made to raise the Asymetric …
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