Galapagos Islands

We finally arrived in this amazing island chain on the afternoon of Sunday, June 5 after a 7 day horrific passage from Cocos Island. We planned to sail the 440 nautical mile route in 3 days but unlucky for us the seas were rough and we had a current and head swell against us for the first few days. The worst factor was that the winds were against us. We virtually had to sail towards Equador until we could point at the Galapagos Islands. We felt sorry for our passenger Pascal who hadn't really sailed before as this was the hardest crossing that we had encountered so far on our journey. Ian and I had to battle in the kitchen below to try and cook appetising meals that we didn't really feel like eating and wash up afterwards. It was hard just standing up in the galley let alone cooking anything. Having a shower and going to the loo were also challenges and you had to have a good grip on the hand rails. We shared the night watches which were pretty miserable at the start of the trip as it seemed to rain all night and once again our canopy leaked with cool drips of water. We were all exhausted trying to catch sleep when we could during the day and night. Faraway rocked and rolled in the swell and we mainly slept, read, trimmed the sails and counted the miles. We first caught sight of these mysterious islands on Saturday afternoon June 4. In the distance Genovesa Island came into view. This island is famous for the huge bird colonies. We sailed past with just one more night to go before reaching our anchorage in Academy Bay on Santa Cruz Island. On my watch at 2:09am on Sunday morning we finally crossed the equator officially into the South Pacific. We didn't really have time to celebrate but it was a relief to be leaving the seemingly hostile waters of the North Pacific. We motored into Academy Bay not sure what to expect but the anchorage looked amazing and we could see cactus lining the rocky shoreline. The navy came on board and we cleared in with them and a representative from Global Ocean Services (GOS). After that we were free to go ashore and I wasn't disappointed. Pascal, Ian and I took the dinghy over to the jetty and I was met by a huge sea lion that I had to ask to please move out of the way! I then bumped into a marine iguana and a land iguana and a huge pelican all in the time frame of about 5 minutes. I soon realised that we had arrived somewhere really very special. I also knew that my camera wasn't going to have much of a rest while we were in the Galapagos.