Sharks and Tsunamis

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Hey everyone!

It's been an exciting week! Tsunami and everyhting!
On Sunday we went on our snorkeling trip to Isla de Lobos and Kicker Rock. We set off at 8:30am, boarded our boat and off we went to Isla de Lobos which is about 40 minutes away from the port. Once we arrived we immediately went snorkeling which was really nice. We had really good visibility and saw loads of pretty fishes and a couple of rays. Some of us almost got knocked over by sea lions, who were trying to play with them 😊 I found myself surrounded by a swarm of teeny tiny silver fishes at some point which was amazing!
After about an hour of snorkeling there we went off to Kicker Rock (or Leon Dormido in Spanish) to see some sharks! Very exciting. Kicker Rock itself is already an imposing sight (see picture) and unlike at Isla de Lobos there was no way you could possibly see the bottom of the sea, which was quite scary considering you had sharks somewhere below you. So after a bit of scared fussing around, we all went in and literally after my first couple of metres I looked down and had a white tip shark about 2 or so metres below me (initial reaction: Oh crap.). He was just chilling along and completely ignored us. Thank god. Bravely we all kept going and soon we saw a ray as well. And he way bigger than the shark! Probably about as long as I am. Which granted isn't that much, but still! And he was gorgeous and spotty. So i was very pleased with him 😊 We also saw loads of turtles (in total probably about 10) and so many pretty colourful fishes 😊 Sadly we saw no more sharks, but all the divers said that apparently there were loads underneath us. We just weren't deep enough to make them out. Afterwards we went to a beautiful beautiful beach, which you can only reach by boat and chilled there for an hour or so. Awesome day!!! 😊
On Monday we went back to work (boo!) and some more volunteers arrived (number change all the time here). We worked in the gardens of the station to make it look prettier and Marco, Brad, Ulrike, Jasmin and I cleared and planted an entirely new garden next to the new house with Lillies, Roses and Shrubs 😊 Super productive day!
Because on Monday and Tuesday it actually was a holiday, because of Carnival, we got Tuesday off and pretty much everyone went back into town to see if there would be a party going on. Turns out there wasn't really, but we still had a wonderful day at the beach and just chilling without any mosiquitoes around 😊
Wednesday was another normal day really and we started building stairs down to the little waterfall close to the station (because when it rains it's literally a mudslide down there). And we all worked really hard and had dug out loads of stairs (we later on had to fix them with wood so they don't collapse) but then during our water break it started pissing it down. It was absoultely insane. And most of our work from the morning got completely ruined. You can imagine how totally frustrated everyone was. And it kept raining and raining and raining until about half 2 in the afternoon. We then returned so we could save the steps that had survived, but turns out the chainsaw we have to cut the wood is super old and it just broke. So basically we ended up wasting an entire day of work. I felt like screaming. But that's just everyday working life here at Jatun Sacha. Woop!
On Thursday we tried to work on the steps some more (only after having to beg Cesar to actually try to finish that project. Idiot.) and we actually made some good progress 😊 In the afternoon David, Kfir, Jasmin, Leonie, Ulrike and I left to go to the port because the guys were leaving and we were meant to go off on our 4 day tour at 6am the day after. So we were all really excited to leave either for good or for a nice break. We went to La Playa, a really nice restaurant in the evening and had a really good seafood dinner. We then went off to bed early so we would be at least half awake for the start of our tour on friday.
And then everything sort of went to shit. Laura, the owner of the hotel we always stay at, knocked on our door and told us that apparently there was a tsunami coming our way. By this point I had already received a text from my sister asking me if I had heard about Japan, but I didn't really get it then. Laura explained the situation to us and minutes later Jasmin knocked on our door almost in tears because her mum had called her crying because she was so scared. Needless to say that we were all really confused. We went off to the meeting point of our tour anyway (just to find out what was going to happen really) and the owner of our tourist office told us all about Japan and the earthquake and that a tsunami was meant to hit Galapagos at 5:30 in the afternoon. Our tour was obviously not going to happen. But noone actually knew how bad it was going to be so we had to wait until Hawaii got hit at 9 (our time) and then further decisions would be made. So us 4 went off to have breakfast all feeling rather tense. And then the waiting started. Hawaii got hit at 9, but noone could actually tell us how bad it was and how the wave would develop over time. Some people told us that they grow in size over distance, others said the exact opposite. Anyways. At 10 we got told that the evacuation of the port would start now. And everyone had to be out of there by 12. So we all went off to the meeting point and got allocated a taxi which took us to a place called el progreso. It's basically a very small town with nothing in it really. The only good thing about it is that it was higher up than the port and that everyone would be safe there. We found the other volunteers of Jatun Sacha, already having taken over a restaurant and exchanged news with them. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And during those 12 hours of fruitless waiting we heard so many horror stories it was actually insane. Lesley got told by the police officers (who obviously thought they were being super funny) that the wave would be 40m high. The firemen said nothing at all would happen. We had no source of information at all, especially since even on the internet noone wrote about what was going to happen in Galapagos. We just kept hearing such horrible things about Japan, it was all very scary. And it's all much scarier when you have nothing else to do but worry. When San Cristobal "finally" got hit at 5.30 we still didn't hear anything of the effects there. We heard that the water had retreated 30m, but what did that mean? Super wave? Noone knew and we had to stay at el progreso until at least 7.30 anyway because there were several waves. At 7.30 there was still no movement back to the port. Still no info at all about what had been going on. At 8 we finally heard that at 9 the taxis would start going back to the port. By this point we had been waiting for about 10 hours and tempers were running high, especially since we had basiaclly been abandoned by our coordinator (but thats a different story). At last (!!!) we got a bus back into the port at about 9.40 and when we arrived there it all seemed normal again already. The pavement was slightly wet, but no major damages. we went off to find a hotel and collapsed into bed.
We would later find out that the water had indeed retreated about 30m, but only came back into the port with slightly more force so a bit of flooding was done, but nothing major.
The next morning at 9 the 4 of us went off to our Tourist Agency to find out what would happen with our tour. And turns out they had left that morning at 6 without us! Hurray! The woman there was really nice though and offered to start another tour for us as long as we'll find enough people to go with us. So at least our money won't go to waste. And it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise us missing the tour. Because it was basically raining all day that day and the people that went wouldn't acutally get to see that much. Apparently the damage on the other islands was greater than here.
So yeah. Exciting times, eh?
I hope you're all very well 😊
xxx

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Photos

Beautiful beach
forgot the name. fail!