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Published: March 21st 2010
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Puerto Ayora Harbour
Lots of small private boats, but only commercial boats out in the harbour itself. People cruising in their own yachts generally can only stay at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal A late start this morning as the fast boat to San Cristobal didn't leave until 2 pm. A nice lie-in followed by yet more emails saw us through to lunchtime. Packed our bags and headed off down to the wharf. The girl at the booking office told us to wait there as the boat was quite ready, it was being "checked". It was a converted charter-fishing boat, with the interior refitted with aircraft style recliners for 20 passengers, tv and air-conditioning - sounded very comfortable. Twin inboard deisels meant a fast 2-hor trip to San Cristobal.
About 2:25 she said we'd better get down there. The Ingala official checked our bags (they are very careful about food and plant materials being moved between the islands, although it was a pretty cursory check - abit like Sydney airport!). He asked were we sure we were on the Cholita, as "there are many people there". We were sure - but walked over to find yes, many people! Because she'd held us back at the office, all the internal seats were taken, there were already people up on the top deck with the driver (it's a stinkboat) - all that was left was
Lancha Cholita
The "fast" boat to San Cristobal. Not on the day we took it... the rear cockpit. At first I was pretty peeved about this but then thought it might not be so bad. But once underway, the spray and exhaust fumes made iot less than pleasant. It seemed to be going pretty fast so we thought we could endure two hours....except after 2 hours we were still only just gpoing past Santa Fe, about halfway. Then a man came down from the bridge, introdcued himself to me as the owner and apologised for the mis-up, blaming the independent booking offices just sell tickets will-nilly without checking availability. He offered a full refund and a night in his hotel on San Cristobal. That sounded reasonable so we were happy.
But he came down a few more times, as the boar slowed to a crawl, checking the sight-glasses on the twin fuel tanks, opening ad closing valves, speaking rapid Spanish with the skipper and the hitherto-asleep deckhand. I asked if we had enough fuel and he assured me we did, the tanks extended under the cockpit which was lower when on the plane, they needed to slow to let it re-balance in the tanks. Sounded reasonable, but they did it two more tmes -
Cholita Crew Member
Hard at it...but he worked for his pay later in the voyage seemed unlikely they did this every trip, and by now more than three hours had passed.
Sure enough, about 1 km out of Puerto Baquirizo Moreno (main port on San Cristobal and provincial capital of the whole Galapagos), they engines stopped - out of fuel. By this stage it was getting dark (lovely sunset, but!). The owner called up 4 water taxis to ferry the passengers and there luggage into the port. We got there just on 7 pm - 5 hours after we were supposed to leave. Some "fast" boat.
We collected our packs from the water taxi, but the owner came over and led us up to the pier, then across the road where he took us to his "hotel" - actually budget suites, "Bellavista Suites". But they are right on the waterfront, small but clean and comfortable with everything we needed - and the first fridge we'd seen inside a hotel room since arriving in Ecuador. We had planned to walk to a couple of hotels recommended by the travel agent, but this seemed ok and hey, it was free!
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