The Galapagos
We reach the Galapagos – instant thoughts of Charles Darwin: unique iguana . . . sea lions . . . giant tortoises . . . remoteness . . . evolution . . . These images are so strong that other aspects of the Galapagos are rarely spoken of.
Arriving into Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, we find a frenetic scene, as this port is the tourism centre of the archipelago. Large and small motor cruisers, big inflatable superyacht tenders and small taxi boats mix with sailing boats arriving and leaving in a confused melee. The wash created is worse than that of Sydney Harbour. There are also pelicans gliding and squatting, seals squirming and sleeping, seemingly oblivious to the hubbub, on every level surface, and especially on the trampolines of catamarans.
Puerto Ayora is a charmingly unspoiled village. While the culture is overpoweringly Spanish, and most locals are Ecuadorian, a cosmopolitan mix of other languages can also be heard. Kids run and play on the foreshore at all hours, and football and volleyball are played there every evening. The cobbled streets are flowing with bikes and people and dozens of white four-seater trucks are used as taxis. The skyline is dominated not by high-rises but by monstrous cactus trees which sprout in every garden, park and footpath. And beneath all, the black lava rock is an ever-present reminder of the origins of the islands.
Some people dream for a lifetime of going to the Galapagos – for us, well, it just happens to be on our sailing way across the Pacific. Nothing prepares you for the reality, and we love the week we spend there, doing all the things that people do when they visit the islands – strolling among unafraid lizards and birds, among seals and turtles, marvelling all the while. Then we sail with friends on to Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabella, a short day-sail before the ‘big hop’ of 3000 miles to the Marquesas, the longest journey of our circumnavigation.
We are five boats – two Belgian boats (Bauvier and Wakalele) and three Australian boats (Fantasy1, Mary Constance and Blackwattle).
On arrival into Puerto Villamil, a small boat with Puerto Villamil written on the side approaches to welcome us and show us where to anchor. The small bay is crowded in the navigable areas, and we are glad for the local knowledge. (‘Ask the local – the local always knows best’ is a cruising sailor’s frequent mantra.)
In the evening, we are halfway through watching the fine DVD The March of the Penguins when, at exactly 8.46 pm (I glance at my watch), I feel the gentlest, oddest bump. Maybe it’s the anchor buoy thudding against the hull? Maybe I imagined it . . .
When the bump is repeated, it’s firmer, and we both spring up and race onto the darkened deck.
‘We’re on the bottom,’ Ted says, ominously quiet.
After that nobody’s speaking or breathing much. We start the engine and go forward, slowly increasing revs. Nothing happens. The boat doesn’t move. It must be jammed on the sand by the end of the long keel, and the thumps are the bow lifting and dropping. The thumps start coming frequently. Ted radios Fantasy1, who is near us.
‘Are you floating?’
‘No,’ is the calm answer. ‘We’re on the bottom.’
What follows is six hours of nightmarish proportions, as the tide ebbs and then flows, and the big swell in the anchorage lifts the boats up and then drops them regularly on the hard sea floor. Soon Mary Constance is also thudding alarmingly on the bottom.
As the thumps on the bottom increase, Blackwattle shudders from her davits to her forestays, from her rigging to her cutlery drawers, long painful vibrations. Each wave lifts the bow, which crunches the stern of the boat, then drops like a stone into the trough.
Fantasy1’s anchor gives way and she crunches backwards gradually onto the reef, wrecking both her rudder and her keel. Belgian sailors Bart and Steve of Bauvier and Wakalele speed to Fantasy1 to help. In the darkness of a night lit only by an icy sliver of moon, they attach another anchor to the bow, and pull the stricken yacht off the reef with the dinghy, and with great effort get Fantasy1 into deep water. The boat is not taking in seawater, but they have lost their steering.
Mary Constance, in slightly deeper water, fares better, merely losing her snubber. (There is actual structural damage, but they don’t know that until they arrive in Australia, months later.) The little girls on Mary Constance squeeze into small corners of the cockpit closer to Mum and Dad, who do not sleep.
Bart and Steve turn their attention to Blackwattle and, as the tide comes in, pull her with their strong dinghies to deeper water and safety. We have no idea of the damage, but we are saved before the boat reaches the reef, and we are not taking on any water. There’s nothing to be done tonight – it’s almost 3 am before the boats are settled, and we sink into bed exhausted from adrenaline flow.
In the morning it is time to take stock by diving beneath the boats. Blackwattle merely has some gouging on her keel, and the GPS which connects to our electronic charting system has shuddered to a stop. We will be forced to make the longest crossing in our circumnavigation without it. Fantasy1 has lost part of the boat’s skeg and rudder, both broken off by the rocks, and Karl has an injured hand.
Sandy, the never-flappable, says woodenly, ‘There’s no way of fixing the boat in this remote place. Maybe we will have to abandon her.’
We are all devastated by Fantasy1’s situation. Our boats are our homes, and for some of us our only homes. In spite of the heroic attempts by the two Belgian skippers, Bart and Steve, who worked most of the night trying to help the Australian boats, Karl and Sandy’s dream of crossing the Pacific this year seems to be at an end. With no access to equipment to lift the boat here in the Galapagos, it is not possible to examine the damage to the boat closely. And with 3000 miles between us and the next islands, the remote Marquesas, where there are likewise no lifting facilities, it is not feasible for them to go on.
With the help of local people, they decide to jury rig a frame around their rudder to restore some steering. This is to be done underwater in the anchorage and then, bravely, they intend to sail 1000 miles to windward back to Ecuador for a repair.
As we four remaining boats leave the anchorage to start the long journey to the Marquesas, our hearts are heavy at leaving Fantasy1 behind. We all admire their bravery. Who knows what damage lies undetected? Who knows whether the rudder stock will last? There are further questions that we dare not ask.
We have no idea when we will see Karl and Sandy and their lovely, now crippled, Fantasy1 again.