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Free & BrEasy - Alejandro the Great



Its Day 2 of the 3000nm crossing from Galapagos to the Marquesas. We are in the middle of the Pacific surrounded by fellow World ARC boats so we feel safe. We have already landed an enormous (20kg?) yellow finned tuna and Alejandro has already cooked a delicious tuna belly (Bentresca in Spanish)and is now preparing Ceviche. Who is Alejandro I hear you ask? Michael Nicholson (Michael 1) has transferred to another boat, Dash Away, with his daughter Melissa. We wish you fair winds and safe sailing. In his place we have been lucky enough to meet Alejandro Hernandez (home is Lanzarote) who was on Andromeda V. Andromeda was placed second on the last leg so he is a crack sailor as well as a great fisherman and fantastic cook. Welcome Alejandro! Alejandro is also going to add to the log a piece in Spanish so get your dictionaries out, if you need it!

The last log saw Roger and Michael (the latter now promoted from Michael 2) at the end of our stay in Villamil. As the other Rally boats left for Santa Cruz we realised what a lovely peaceful anchorage we were staying in. We were quite relieved when a long boat trip to the West side of the island was canceled as we could just relax. But we were to be rewarded with the wild life experience of a life time. As the heat of the sun was going down we snorkelled from Free and BrEasy over to rocks on the far side of the bay not frequented by people and after 20 minutes swimming we saw Galapagos penguins on the shore. Slowly we inched towards them thinking that they would be disturbed and were amazed to end up a few feet from 8 penguins who were keen to play with us! Every so often a penguin would launch from the rock in an ungainly belly flop and, transforming into a peerless underwater acrobat, would check out these clumsy snorkeling clowns coming right up to our masks with their sharp beaks. Then they would float on the water like a duck, looking around in astonishment at what they had seen, and then do it all again! Just to complete the Galapagos picture, two nearby blue footed boobies disdainfully observed the scene while pelicans turned their back on us (doing a moony?) drying out their feathers. Wow - top that!

We set sail for Santa Cruz that evening and with a slightly heavy heart arrived at the busy town of Puerto Ayora where we had to deal with reality including provisioning, trying to trace a SIM card than has disappeared during posting from the UK, refueling and immigration. Good times were had catching up with others Rallyites at the infamous Happy Hour and Prize Giving. We also visited the Darwin Centre and were impressed at the size of the chocolate brown land Iguanas. Lonesome George died on the 24th June 2012 leaving only 10 species of Giant Turtles, but a big conservation tortoise print.

Now we are off on the voyage to the South Pacific with the freezer and fridge stuffed full of tuna. Will we be the same people when we arrive in the Marquesas in approximately 3 weeks (Neptune willing)? Maybe not but we will definitely be fatter!

Muy buenos dias, aqui empieza la etapa mas larga de la vuelta al mundo,desde Galapagos a Marquezas y con ella empieza una nueva etapa para mi,como ya saben esta navegando en el andromedaV y por razones varias he pasado ha formar parte de la tripulacion del Free & BR "easy", un catamaran de 40 pies, tripulado por su armador Roger, un canadiense y Michael escoses de pura cepa, acabo de conocerlos y ya me tratan como otro mas de la familia. Esto tiene muy buena pinta.
Un saludo para la familia,otro para mi amor y por supuesto para los amigos.

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