Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Immediately, I heard the familiar warning buzzer go off, and instantly the starter motor
sounded, and the diesel exploded into life in my ear. I swung up to the cockpit, throttled her
full forward, and grabbed the helm, and slowly we pulled away from the shoreline of this
dark, looming island.
What had happened? Where had this island appeared from; it wasn't supposed to be here?
And what about those dolphins? Bless their little hearts; had they come to warn us of the
impending danger? I believe this with absolute certainty now, years later.
I have learnt to respect the incredible intelligence of these noble creatures, and as sure
as day follows night, a school of them had saved a little boat from certain grounding
early one morning off a reef of the Galapagos Archipelago while her crew peacefully slept
on.
The westerly current had been a lot stronger than I had realized. Navigation the last couple
of days had been impossible due to constant cloud cover. We had been running on deduced
reckoning, had somehow missed our planned landfall of Porto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island,
and were about a hundred miles too far northwest. We had almost sailed into the little is-
land of Pinta. It was a very close call.
With such light airs now and the strong, westerly setting currents around these islands, it
took us a week of intense sailing and motor sailing to get to the north side of Santa Cruz.
We found the islands other-worldly and mesmerizing. They were of volcanic origin and
looked most lunar in aspect. Sparsely vegetated through little rainfall, they are covered with
bushes and small trees as well as cacti. The low, lazy slopes of these islands really make
one feel as though on the moon or some barren planet. We tacked lazily back and forth
between the islands of Marchena, Genovesa, San Salvador, and Baltra. It was an interesting
week of not unpleasant sailing. Time seemed to stand still here; it was almost like sailing
in a Salvador Dali painting. One afternoon, we were wafting along heading towards Baltra
when out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge, square, white object erupt ten or maybe
twenty feet out of the water and slowly turn over and crash back down into the water in a
cloud of spray!
“Jesus! What the hell was that? Did you see that?” I shouted to Gavin.
“What? Where?”
“Look, over there, another one!” I pointed wildly ahead.
The “object” appeared to fling itself repeatedly out of the water and crash back again into
the blue ocean. We could not for the life of us figure out what it was, and then it was gone.
For an hour we saw nothing and almost began to think it had never happened.
