Tuesday was fuel day. We transferred 135 gallons (although I'm skeptical if we got that much) from 18 gallon drums via a very slow hand cranked pump. All the while both the water taxi with the fuel and New Morning were flopping around like crazy in a growing swell. After a few hours we'd transferred all the fuel and the tanks are close to full. The quality of the fuel is definitely questionable so we cleaned out the local hardware store who happened to have six of the fuel filters we use. Tuesday night the swell grew substantially and we rolled wildly through the night.
Wednesday we got off the boat, walked to the "Interpretation Center" for a further education on the human (not pretty) and naural (a little nicer) history of the Galapagos. We then hiked out to the point and another beach. We saw Darwin's finches and a variety of lizards. The swell continued to grow, to our discomfort, but to the joy of the surfers on the point. On the way back we saw our first marine iguana!
The most common animal life thus far are the sea lions. They are everywhere. They lounge around the benches in town, cover the beach wall to wall and wage a constant battle to take up residence on New Morning. They're a little smaller than the ones in California, and much less aggressive, but they are not house trained...
Wednesday afternoon we decided we needed to get off the boat, and also wanted to figure out how to see the islands that we couldn't see from New Morning. We killed two birds with one stone and signed on for a four day, three night tour of some other islands. Wednesday night was again very uncomfortable, mixed with 40 minutes of torrential rain.
Today we prepared New Morning for four days on her own. The batteries are charged and we hope our sea lion defenses are adequate. Late this afternoon we've packed up our stuff and we'll leave shortly for a hotel on shore, then a ferry to Santa Cruz in the morning. We should see more sea lions, blue footed boobies, giant turtles, marine iguana's and most of the animals for which the Galapagos are famous. We'll be back on Monday afternoon. More next week.
