We got back to New Morning from our tour boat trip and found that the sea lions had not been satisfied with just the swim platform but had taken up residence in our cockpit. We've deployed various defenses to keep them off the boat, just short of the barbed wire which is what the locals use, and had someone watching the boat, but they still moved right in. They are very athletic! While they are cute and playful for a few days, when they move in, they're just big, smelly, dirty and rude. It took Fay about two hours to clean the cockpit and wash away all the fur they left behind.
Each night, beginning about 10-11pm, the big males, defeated for mating, are looking for a place to sleep. They eventually overcome our defenses and move onto the swim platform. One even managed to lift the clear plastic panel at the back of the cockpit and move into the cockpit. We wake up many times during the night, particularly when they start making a lot of noise, and encourage them to get off the boat. The big old ones aren't easily intimidated and talk back at length, but we've found that they really hate being sprayed with the deck wash hose - salt water. Who would have thought that animals living in salt water would hate to be sprayed with salt water. But they move very fast when the hose comes out.
Unpacked, boat cleaned up and back onboard we took it easy on Tuesday, checking email, going through the over 1,000 pictures we took on land and checking some web sites. One of the odd things here is the internet access. There is a "free internet" initiative which provides free internet access via WiFi throughout the most populated islands. But for some reason it is heavily filtered. First, they block the usage of a VPN, so the access is less secure. Then they block the ports used for email, so we can't do email from our usual Mac mail client, but we can get at it from the webmail interface. Then they block access to many sites, but the pattern is not clear. For example we could access my.yahoo, NY Times, SF Gate, etc., but not NPR. And they block downloading any content via iTunes (like podcasts). The president of Ecuador paid a short visit to San Cristobal yesterday, and today they have blocked virtually all web access. I'll skip the technical details, but the only site I've been able to access is the Rackspace webmail. Everything else is blocked. Go figure.
In any event, after a restful Tuesday we went scuba diving at Kicker Rock on Wednesday. We hadn't been diving since Bonaire last year and the diving conditions turned out to be very different. The visibility was maybe 30' - 40', not horrible, but not great. There was also a lot of surge and current. The first dive we spent almost all of the time kicking as hard as we could to make some progress against the current between the two big rocks (probably 100' tall) that make up kicker rock (a "foot" and a "ball"). Fortunately while we were kicking hard and consuming air rapidly, we were still able to see white tip sharks and Galapagos sharks below us which was one of the reasons for the visit.
The second dive was around the NE corner of the rock, on a wall that dropped vertically about 500'. The current was not quite as bad and we were able to explore the wall a bit. We saw green turtles, a quick look at a hammerhead shark, some eels in the rocks of the wall, and some fish. But at one point, diving at about 45', we were grabbed by a down current and in less than a minute we were at 85'. Not quite the benign conditions we had experienced in Bonaire.
Back on New Morning we've come to appreciate that San Cristobal is a busy place. There are always 1-2 cargo ships being off loaded, and then 4-5 tour boat / cruise ships of various sizes. This generates a steady flow of traffic between the boats and shore which in turn creates a steady series of wakes and the sound of screaming outboards from 6am - midnight each day. Combined with the sea lions, it's not restful. It's also the tail end of the rainy season so it's frequently cloudy (which keeps the temperature down), and we have regular rain, sometimes quite heavy and lasting for several hours. The boat gets a good wash down which we like, but it can get a little stuffy below decks.
So tonight we're moving on to Isla Isabela which is supposed to be much more tranquil with fewer sea lions, penguins right in the anchorage, and maybe even the opportunity to swim with the marine iguanas. Isabela is a very large island so we'll also be able to take day trips to see the wildlife. It's also 100 miles closer to the Marquesas.
The passage to Isabela is an awkward distance. The days and nights here are essentially equal, with sunrise at 6am and sunset at 6pm, give or take ten minutes. It's too long for a day trip because we would arrive after dark which we avoid. So we'll depart about 5pm this afternoon and sail or motor very slowly (i.e., 6 kts) all night so that we arrive in the morning and have the sun behind us as we thread through the rocks and reefs into the anchorage. Sunday is also a full moon so if the clouds part a bit it should be a nice night.
