We arrived at our first destination, Santa Cruz Island a day after passing the easternmost of the Galapagos, limping in on what could be described as “breaths” of wind. We had run out of fuel 2 miles from the harbor due to miscalculations of how much fuel we had left and had to sail in the light, light wind to a place where we could drop our anchor. These 2 miles took over six hours to sail because the winds were so light and because the wind was coming directly from where we wanted to go forcing us to sail at 50 degree angles from of destination all while dealing with a half knot current that could have been disastrous if the wind had totally died. On top of all this, we didn’t have a detailed chart of the harbor and it was the middle of the night! After six hours of moving at a snails place tacking back and forth we finally got to a point which seemed to be a good place to anchor, In fact, it had to be a good place to anchor because the wind had finally totally died on us and if we didn’t drop the hook we would most likely drift into the shoreline, which the sun had shown us to be totally rocky that morning. After dousing the sails and feeling pretty sure about our anchor being secure in the bottom we were able to get a few hours of shuteye before the blazing sun would peak over the horizon. 

Even though we didn’t get much sleep the night before, we arose quite early that morning eager to set foot on land. After inflating the dingy and gathering our documentation we motored towards the pier where all the other small boats of the harbor were heading too. The pier, shaped to look like a boat marked the entrance to a set of docks that seemed to all be commercial. It was amazing to see that everything from the cargo ships in the outer harbor had to be loaded onto the smaller boats(the largest being a 10‘x30‘ barge)  and offloaded, by hand, then loaded on to trucks, again, by hand and vice versa. The transport of goods seemed endless from predawn to dusk and then some. At first we didn’t know where to dock and the harbor was shallow.(we had to lift our engine up like all the other boats) there seemed to be no dingy dock and no dingys! However, a man called to us from ashore and told us we could tie to the dive boat dock. He must have felt sorry for us and our tiny dingy as all the other sailboats had to take taxi boats in during the day. We found the port authority and within a few hours were able to freely roam the island until we were to leave. The first two days we roamed around the small town on foot staking out useful stores and places we’d like to visit, even sitting down to a wonderful, filling meal complete with entertainment, A small child(in the photos) had a fondness for Keith and would poke him from around the corner and tease him about his beard. Later, we had found a tourist kiosk with a few maps and pass the one and only gas station on the island that we knew of, which was selling diesel for a measly $1.02 a gallon and gas for $1.40, prices, you all would agree, that are now only a distant memory in the States.

The next day  we headed out for the Darwin Research Center on the outskirts of the town. This particular station has a giant tortoise breeding  center and a few endangered iguanas. It was full of information about the islands and the destruction of the native species both in habitat and introduced predators and diseases. We learned that unfortunately the importation of domestic cats, dogs, and pigs have led to the endangerment and in some cases, extinction of a number of species unique to the Galapagos Islands. Also, at the turn of the century, turtle oil was found to be a suitable alternative to whale oil to be used as lamp oil and whaling ships in the are replenished their food stocks as well from the ingressive and defenseless tortoises reinforced by a picture of hundreds of tortoise shells scattered like rocks on a beach. Interestingly, among the 50 or so islands there are 10 to 15 different species of giant tortoise. On one island there was found the very last tortoise of its species named Lonesome George, which was brought to this breeding center and who we had the pleasure of meeting. However, all the breeding attempts thus far have failed to produce any baby Georges. 
Being able to behold and touch these very old and very special tortoises is an experience that I recommend to all. They say you used to come across the tortoises wherever you went on the islands. Keith and  I walked a great deal of the island but only saw the tortoises in the research center. There have been restrictions and eradications of human introduced species throughout the islands but only time will tell if it was done early enough to save some of the most exotic species of the world.

On another day we decided to go hiking on the old dormant volcano of the island. The trail started from the edge of a small village about five miles in from the harbor where Longshot was anchored. We arrived at the trail head early in the morning to beat the scorching midday sun. The trail started out as a rocky road that passed by a banana and some kind of short plant with red berries plantation and a cow pasture in which the grass was as tall as the cows(see pics) on the other side. After forty five minutes the trail turned into a footpath and we made our way up the slippery slope through some vegetation which was full of cacti and a few chirping birds. After another forty five minutes we were at a what seemed to be abandoned outpost unsure of which way to go. The ground was sloppy and our sneakers now soaked but we found a trail that led to a great vista of the harbor. We sat listening to the silence and contemplated. I sat there wondering to myself if it had been the quietest place I had ever been. Although the voyage from Panama had been slow and miserable this had made it worthwhile. We snapped a few pictures,  then I dropped and recovered the camera down the trail, and watched a few people on horseback ride up the trail beneath us. Our legs felt somewhat like jelly at this time but I wanted to go to the very top. After another forty five minutes following hoof prints and noticing the shortening of vegetation to higher we went, we made it to the grass covered summit, thousands of feet above sea level. It was another grand vista with a 360 degree view of Santa Cruz in all of its glory. Again, we sat down and contemplated between many swigs of water and munched on a bag of potato chips. After a bit the sky began to turn grey and our stomachs were growling but our legs didn’t want to go. We contemplated borrowing a horse from the other group but decided it wasn’t worth causing trouble with the locals. And so we made our way down the steep trail waiting for the others legs to buckle so one of us could laugh(but really just take a break and rest our own legs) at the other tumbling in the mud, but alas, it never happened. As we reached the wide trail it started to rain, then pour buckets, and as we came upon a sheltered restaurant to quell our rumbling tummies, it stopped.  

Here Keith has a brief story: The Galapagos Islands was an unforgettable experience- something I will never forget. As one would expect the wildlife and scenery were breathtaking, but the hospitality of the locals was (surprisingly) extremely friendly. I am sure most people who have traveled will agree, that when a place is a very popular tourist destination the local hospitality is usually lacking slightly. This is understandable as these people have to deal with a large population of tourists who are often inconsiderate of local culture and customs. However, this was not at all the case on Santa Cruz (the island we spent most of our time on). The people were so helpful with everything from finding groceries to explaining the best way to navigate the national park. Here is a brief story to explain: John and I had just descended the mountain after the 10 mile roundtrip hike up tallest point on the island and returned to the small town of probably 250 people, called Bella Vista. We were pretty tired and hungry and found a local street restaurant to eat lunch. There were probably 15 people eating outside and it was obvious that everyone except us were locals. After ordering lunch ($3 usd each) the local next to us asked us where we were from. After a brief introduction in Spanish he offered us a glass of beer to quench our thirst. As I sat there drinking the cold beer it dawned on me: “Here is a man, who probably makes less than $50 a week, offering us some of his beer that he worked hard for. He doesn‘t know us, and has no reason to befriend us, yet he is.” He went on to explain that the culture there was to work hard enough to make enough money to enjoy the weekend with you friends and family with a few beers. He, as is the case with so many of the “poor cultures”  I have come in contact with (notably Bolivia and Slovakia), was one of the happiest people I have ever met. This is just one example of how friendly and happy the locals were, there are several other examples I can think of despite the brevity of our visit. 

After that meal we took a taxi to the giant sinkholes on the island caused by the collapse of the surface into the once underground lava tunnels that can be found here and there among the island. They reminded me of sitting in the nosebleed section at a fooball game, looking down the trees looked like weeds. However, there wasn’t a sloped side but a sheer drop of a couple hundred feet. We walked around one of the holes, as it was supposed to have a good amount of diverse birdlife but to our disappointment we didn’t see anything more than we had on our previous excursions.(maybe it had something to do with our scruffiness) After the sinkholes we came to our last stop of the day, a cave. This cave was an underground lava tunnel that they had to fill in one place so that a road could pass over it. In a way, it is just a mini version of the sink hole we saw earlier. It probably had a diameter of about 25 feet but was interesting none the less. Being able to go inside and feel the different textures of the lava sides had it merits but we didn’t stick around long as we were weary from all the hiking earlier that day. 
	The next day we decided to go to the beach to relax our aching legs. However, the foot path to the beach was a mile of undulating terrain which didn’t help the legs any. The beach was a vast stretch of floury white sand that shrank and grew with the tide. The water was crystal clear and shallow for quite a ways.  It was a sunny and very hot morning and the water was the only way to cool off, as there weren’t palm trees, or anything for that manner, to hide from the sun under. This beach was where Keith built his sandcastle and watched the waves reclaim it. We also tossed the Frisbee around with a man, who was on vacation with his girlfriend,  from Canada. The beach was also inhabited by a bunch of water iguanas which go about their own business but are frequently tormented by tourists who chase them and throw stuff at them to get a reaction. Unfortunately I have to report that we took part in a bit of tormenting at one point or another. Later that night we came across our Canadian friends at one of the local watering holes. They invited us to take a seat with them and we talked in three languages, English, French, and Spanish, and laughed all night until we noticed that all the chairs were up at all the tables around us. Needless to say, it was a great night!      

The day we were to leave Santa Cruz we noticed a rather large yacht in the harbor. It was three masted and didn’t have any stays (wires) holding up the masts. Originally we were going to leave a few hours after dark so that we could arrive in the next harbor in dawn’s light, however, we wanted to see if this huge yacht was the famed Maltese Falcon, the most expensive yacht in the world,  and snap a few pictures while we still had light. Alas, we passed behind the yacht , confirmed its fame, snapped a few more pictures, and left its brilliance and underwater lighting in our wake.  

There was a bit of excitement on the sail over to Isabella Island (the largest but very sparsely populated western island). The following is Keith’s Journal entry from the date of Feb. 26. 

We left for Isabella around 6 pm on the 25th. After a brief tour around the Maltese Falcon--the world’s most expensive sailing yacht (you can Google it and read about it, is really impressive)-- we headed out to sea to make the 50 mile journey west. We decided to leave at night, so we could make a morning landfall and have the full day to explore the island. Since there was so little wind, we decided to motor-sail the short distance. Once the course was set, we decided to run shifts but didn’t specify times, so around 8 pm, John went below to get some shut eye and I made a cup of coffee (lukewarm, as though of you who know me well will remember) and started the watch. Now to be completely honest we don’t always have a watch person when we are in the middle of the ocean, but this was a sail with many possible dangers and other vessels to be on lookout for, so it was understood the watches would be needed.  I must have made my coffee pretty strong because at midnight, my supposed end of the shift, I wasn’t tired so I  let John sleep for another hour. Around 1am  I woke john and explained the situation. We were ahead of schedule, only about 20 miles from land-- which meant we would have to heave-to and wait once we got within a mile or so-- and that there was a rock coming up on his portside to be aware of. I went below and though my mind was tired my body wasn’t ready to sleep. When John cam e below around 45 minutes later, after safely passing the rock, I was still awake to see him open the portable DVD to watch a movie.  (John wasn‘t doing a wrong thing, since it is common that we watch a movie or read below deck for 10 or 15 minutes, then head above to survey and take bearings for a couple of minutes, and so long as everything is ok head back below for another 10-15 minutes before repeating the cycle.) John told me that we had passed the rock, we were about 12 miles (2 hours) away from land and I dosed off while he put his head phones on to listen to the movie. I guess it was around 2:30 am at this time. The next thing I remember is the sound of the breaking waves, which awoke me from my light sleep. Anyone who knows sailing or boating will tell you that breaking waves means you are close to something (probably land) that is so shallow the waves are collapsing on it. Needless to say, it can be a little unnerving, but the position I was sleeping in had my back turned to where John had been watching the movie. I rolled over, and saw John lying there with the head phones on his ears. It took a second for me to put together the fact that he was down below and I could hear breaking waves.  Once I made the connection I shot from the berth and up to the cockpit. It was dark, but there was enough moon that I could see where the sound was coming from. It was just off our bow to the starboard (right) side. I could see the tops of the breaking waves no more than 300 feet to the front right of the boat!! I hastily unhook the electrical auto-pilot and turned the boat as hard and as fast as I could to the port (left). The boat lurched left and I got a full view of the waves crashing into the coral behind us now.  I woke John. He had still been sleeping…. I asked him what had happened and he asked me the same question.  After a few heated words, I calmed down and explained that the boat was minutes away from being thrown into the coral, which we both knew would hole the boat and most likely sink her. I again asked what had happened, and in his own words  John said, “Keith, I went down below with 8 miles left and restarted the movie for another fifteen minutes, and the next thing I know you are yelling at me from the cockpit.”   After a little more confusion and grogginess we pieced together that sometime around 3:30 John must have fallen asleep because the last he remembered was being about 8 miles from land and going back below to watch another 15 minutes of the movie which had more than an hour left in it. John is  a pretty heavy sleeper so the headphones on his ears probably didn’t make a difference as the waves crashing likely would not have woken him. We motored out another 1.5 miles and heaved the boat to and waited for daybreak. I was pretty upset,-- I wanted to scream about not being so careless and lecture about waking me up if he can’t stay awake, but as I opened my mouth to speak, I realized I didn’t have to say anything because the look in his eye told me knew what could’ve happened and was upset with himself as well.  We both understood just how close of a bullet we had dodged….  

A little extra to that story too: I (Keith) still almost ran us into coral in the morning light (well not that close, but we did get escorted in by a friendly boat who showed us the way as we couldn‘t find the channel) and all of the effort to make it to Isabella was in vain as we were told we didn’t have the right permits and would have to leave by 6am the next morning-- it was already noon by the time we were told this. What a bum deal. We did however walk around the town literally for an hour and John snapped a few photos. We also got to see some blue footed boobies and penguins both being very interesting indeed.    

The sail to the Marquesas was pretty easy, but we had to be a little creative. (I will use very basic sailing terms while explaining because I know some of the people who follow aren’t big sailors; I apologize to those who do know.) The first 500 miles we motor-sailed, running the engine at low rpm’s while having at least 1 sail up, southwest at 225 degrees. Now the most direct course to the Marquesas is about 2900 miles on a heading of 260 degrees (WSW); however, there is about a 300-500 mile stretch on both sides of the  equator  with very little wind, called the doldrums. As such we motored SW to make positive miles towards the Marquesas but also head south faster in hopes of finding the consistent tradewinds. In this case we were rewarded for out foresight--after 5 days of motoring, using 80 percent of our fuel, we reached the SE Trades. These winds generally blow between 10-20 knots (12-25 mph) from the southeast, but earlier in the year, as is the case on this passage, they blow from basically due east. Now this is normally a good thing since, after motoring so far south, our course to the Marquesas was pretty much due west (270) upon reaching the wind, and logically a person would think that a wind from the due east would be the best for making the rest of the passage. However, and I don’t want to get super technical here, that is not exactly the case. Our rig is called a Bermuda rig, which is known for great speed reaching (when the wind is abeam--flowing across-- to the boat) and good when beating (heading into the wind). However, it is underpowered doing with the wind. This can be compensated for by having what is called a spinnaker-- a large parachute-type sail that is released forward of the boat, but we do not have one (anyone want to buy one for us for about $1500?!?! Only kidding). So we had winds of about 10-15 knots but the were directly downwind so we were only averaging about 4.5 knots (100-110 miles per day) After a few day of slow going I came up with the idea to rig a 3rd sail off a stay (these are cables that hold the mast). After consulting with John we decided it was better to run it off the same stay as the large head sail (called a genoa or gen) so there would be enough space between the mail sail and the to head sails so wind would fill all the sails. We tried this, using a spare main sail for the extra sail, and it gave us an extra ½ knot  but we kept running into the problem of the sails collapsing in. We have one ‘whisker pole’ which holds a sail out and keeps it from collapsing, but we needed two since we had two head sails. After a while we came up with the idea to take the main sail down and just use the two head sails. This sounds counter productive because we were decreasing the total sail area, but that wasn’t the case because, in sailing, it is often better to have the wind pull you than push you- with two head sails only we would be pulled. It worked well, increasing the speed another ½ knot (if this doesn’t sound like much remember ½ knot is an extra 12 miles per day, spread over 28 days, the length of this trip, that is an extra 336 miles), but we were still running into the problem of the non-poled sided collapsing. Then John came up with a brilliant idea. It was to use the boom of the lowered mail sail like a pole for the other sail. It took a little rigging (those of you who know I am Polish would no doubt refer to it as a “Pollock Rig Job”) but we got it to work. We increased our speed about ¾ of a knot and several days we made over 140 miles. In fact it worked so well, that the next time we are downwind we will probably set it up again.  Some people say wisdom is applying the knowledge you have, well maybe ingenuity is another name for wisdom… 

Overall, the 28 days at sea can be summed  up in 1 paragraph. The first 4 days we caught fish and motored because the was no wind while keeping a lax lookout for other ships. Days 5-24. Wake up, eat, record position, read, watch movie, talk about readings, send coordinates, wonder if world has destroyed itself, sleep, eat, read, adjust sails, shower every 8th day, discuss if we will ever see land again, watch the sunset and repeat.  Day 25-28. Agonizes over the delay in landfall because the winds gave out on us 200 miles from shore, read a few pages, get frustrated with the flapping sails, go outside and hope there was wind, be disappointed, cause the wasn’t,  return to reading, discuss the fact that the ETA kept getting pushed further back. First it was the March 22nd, then the 23rd, then the 24th…. March 24th- See land and realized we wouldn’t have to kill ourselves. Day 29 Celebrate…….