Last year at this time we were rolling around anchored off the coast of Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. We were at a little island called Santa Cruz. Getting on and off the boat was a challenge with the big rollers coming off the ocean. Some of us made it without injury but many suffered with falling in the water and even a few torn ligaments. It was a wonderful interesting place but not too restful at night with all the wave action. We even had that tsunami and all had to take off for deeper water in the ocean. Seems like a long time ago now. That was until last night when we had all the rollers in our anchorage. Oh, the mind went back to the Galapagos. It wasn't really anywhere near as rolly. I am sure some things we see or hear will remind us of the many places we have seen over the last two years.
Yesterday we ventured into the town of Gambio on the island of Sao Paulo. This is a clean, friendly fishing village filled with happy faces who welcome us. The small children even look at us and speak in Portuguese and we wish to speak with them. We have taken many pictures of the people here and they expect no money for the photos. They happily pose, the teenage boys with their sunglasses on. Really , this is a pleasant seaside island with Brazilians and vacationers mixing quite easily. We haven't even gone to the main resort side of the island yet. Yesterday we just ambled about and looked at the many posadas (Bed and breakfasts) that they have on this side of the island. I met a friendly Chilean man who was on holiday here who spoke about the wonder of this island. He was curious about why we were here as well. The only one who seemed the slightest bit annoyed with us was a small black dog who followed us around and yapped at Jean, Annie, and me.
Just about the time Matt and I were about to relax with the rest of our friends from the World ARC we got a call from Capt Bill telling us to come move the boat. Seems as if a large re-fueling barge had pulled up a mooring near us and Crazy Horse was drifting over too close. So with help from Mike and later from Matt and I we decided to move up to the resort part of the island. We should have known it was not a good omen when our dinghy decided to part company with us. So there we were turning around to go get our rebellious dinghy. A line had broken and our wayward dinghy was left afloat in the bay. We moved up to the other anchorage to re-anchor when we realized it was way to small with lots of scary rocks surrounding the whole cove. It was quite beautiful but we decided to go back to our original anchorage and dinghy up to the other part of the island today. Those rocks just looked like of a possibility of a fowled anchor at some point.
So today we will explore the rest of the island and perhaps pick up some souvenirs. I hope the other part is as friendly as the fishing village.We still have to try some swimming around those rocks. It is 0730 and we have the promise of another sunny day. Who could complain about that?
Rosemary, Bill and Matt