00 57.94S 090 57.69W April 2005
Dear friends,

As we brought the dinghy alongside Harmonica, she was peaceful and alone. Soon a shoal of bait-fish was underneath her, the blue footed boobies were folding their wings into tight torpedoes to bomb the water from above and the seal lions were playing below in the middle of the fish. In this anchorage your peace is often broken by deep, heavy breathing of a seal lion just when you think nobody is with you. There are always a few penguins on their favourite rock at the end of the lava flow 100 metres away. Behind that, the land iguanas are climbing over each other on the twisted low rocks. Just below them the sharks patrol up and down the crack in the black rock where the water is warmest at the side of the lagoon. Below the surface, the shadows of 4 ft rays glide like slow butterflies across the sandy bottom. Further out again, where the surf is crashing the outer rocks, is the beach where yesterday 2 sea lions moved to the side allowing us space to land our dinghy, and across the spit from them, were the 5 sea lion pups which played with us in 1 to 3 feet of water while we snorkeled and their parents watched from deeper water. Yes, Harmonica is at Villamil, Isla Isabella in the Galapagos Islands. A Dutch couple from a neighbouring boat arrived with their 2 year old son offering fresh tuna in exchange for a cup of tea and Harmonica was active again.

It has been a slow adjustment this time back to the cruising life. The break of 7 months in Bahia de Caraques is longer than we have been away from the boat in 5 years. 3 weeks ago Dave sailed slowly south from Bahia stopping at 2 islands before reaching Salinas and taking the bus to meet Jan in Guayaquil. We then spent another week shopping for food and ordering some last-minute spares before heading west.

Those islands were nice. Isla Plata (named after rumours that Sir Francis Drake buried silver there) is part of internationally funded Machalilla Park where colonies of boobies, frigate birds, albatross & sea lions breed. It took 4 hours to walk round and, where the nesting colonies of masked boobies crossed the path, it could be hard threading your way. Isla Salango is just 1 km off the coast but makes a perfect spot for nesting pelicans & frigate birds. The big, ugly fish plant at Salango has a guard outside who looked after my kayak while I set off for the archeological museum. The coast of Ecuador has an archeological record for 7,000 years, and there are beautiful examples of ceramics and metal work in museums in Quito & Bahia. The gold, silver and platinum artifacts come from further north around modern Esmeralda, but Bahia & Manta were known for trading and sailing rafts 1,000 miles north and south. Pottery, usually fragments, are constantly eroding from the rivers & soft cliffs. Those with good eyes and thick skins to withstand the sun find fossil sharks teeth on the beaches too. Back outside the dusty Salango museum, I disturbed a group of 6 or 8 men talking and 2 headed off telling me to stay outside because the custodian kept "big dogs". 10 minutes later they returned to say the museum was not open!

In Quito, middle class Quitienos will chat about the world, and American expatriates will prop up the bars in long discussions, but politics does not dominate lives in rural Ecuador. However the recent sacking by Congress of their president is a common discussion point. No Ecuadorian president has finished his term for several years. The two previous presidents are reputed to have left the country with suitcases of US currency, and at least one is now back here and handing out dollar bills at his campaign meetings. There seems unusual consensus that the latest to fall was the least corrupt in a while, but that he was not allowing enough money to keep other political figures content.

We feel most relaxed in the small rural towns, but when Harmonica sailed west away from the mainland, she left from the high-rise blocks of flats and security guards of Salinas. The forecasts were all for 5 to 10 knots of wind with calm seas, so we were surprised to have 30 knots from the SW on our first night out. One has to prepare mentally for passages, and
things got a little wet before we reduced sail and quietened everything down. Isla Isabella is 615 miles from Salinas which took us 5 days in lighter and lighter conditions. We saw many petrels & boobies, dolphins, and whales along the way. We did not fish since our frig was stocked with meat from Ecuador, but some of the worlds richest fishing grounds are supposed to be close, and 2 different friends caught yellow-fin tuna on the way. We motored the last day in order to meet some Dutch/Australian friends who were about to leave for French Polynesia, 3,000 miles further west. Besides its unique ecology, the Galapagos is also a meeting point for boats, and we had not seen these friends since Brazil 2 years ago.

On land there are flamingos in the lagoons, brightly coloured small birds, lava lizards and the famous Galapagos giant tortoises. These are being bred in various parks since some of the sub-species had reduced to only 2 to 5 known breeding males. They can live to 200 years or more. For years sailors carried them into their ships to store as fresh meat. Also, rice rats brought here on ships have become adept at finding the tortoise hatchlings, and it is thought that the giant tortoise may not be capable of breeding in the wild any more. Thankfully, they are making up for that deficiency in the parks and there are now some thriving populations of 5 to 10 year olds so there seems to be hope. They seem as inquisitive about us as we are about them, especially if bananas or soft fruit is around. Animals have no fear on a land too young to have evolved any predators.

We have been up the volcano Sierra Negro and Dave managed to fall off his bicycle again on the way down without doing an serious damage this time. The moister climate and trees of the middle slopes are a relief from the hot dry sun of the coast.

We expect to leave for our 3 or 4 week passage to Polynesia in about 10 days.

Best wishes to all

Dave Jan & Harmonica