Day 16 & 17 Academy Bay
Five Islands
John & Sue
Tue 5 Jun 2012 23:22
| We have been at anchor at this great place for a day now. We are using an agent called Diego (a very nice, good-looking young guy) who works for Galapagos Ocean Services (GOS). He organised for the Immigration official and the Port Captain to come to the boat to check in. The Immigration guy sat the whole time and wrote in his note pad and that was it. No stamps into the Passports or anything. The Port Captain was tougher and insisted that even though we are only staying a few days, that we go through the full procedure and paper work. Not sure how much the process is going to cost or how long it will take before we will be ready to go again. We did a little exploring of the town yesterday. We have not purchased National Park tickets (US$100 each) as we will not be staying long, but when we finally bring 'Five Islands' home in a year or 2, we will spend a couple of weeks here and explore, it really is an amazing place. Seals, pelicans and iguanas everywhere, but we found a large congregation at the fish market. The seals acted just like dogs waiting at the table for some scraps. Academy Bay is very much the tourist town and where there are tourists there are lots of shops, restaurants/bars and internet cafes. Most of the shops close their doors for a few hours of siesta time each day (12 till 3pm). There is a large contingent of Naval personnel and their families living here as well and most of the locals seem to congregate in the main town square around dusk. Last night the activity centred around a couple of 3 aside volley ball games. We are spending today restocking & refuelling with a trip to the local market this morning. The boys are currently organising the diesel. We are purchasing 150gal (US) at a cost of $4.80/gal. Diego had to organise a permit with the Navy for the fuel, then large jerry cans to be filled at the Navy dock, then Taxi ague (pronounced awa - water taxi) to the boat, the pumped into the tanks. We are going to have dinner in town tonight, as it will be many weeks before we have the opportunity again. Tomorrow we will explore a bit further afield on the island. The following photos cover our trip from the Las Perlas Islands to Academy Bay. |