The World ARC crews are now back together in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, Galapagos, for the final week of their Galapagos programme. Aside from the necessary preparations which must take place before their next long passage to the Marquesas Islands, such as reprovisioning and refuelling, the crews have been on land and boat excursions and many diving trips. What the crews have seen has been fabulous and truly memorable.
The crews got together for a great crew supper at the Il Giardino restaurant on Tuesday for a three course crew supper. The staff at the restaurant pulled out all the stops and 135 members of the fleet enjoyed great food and service, whilst sharing together their stories of visiting Galapagos. The crews got together again on Thursday at the Sol y Mar waterfront hotel for the presentation of prizes for Leg 2 of the Rally. It was a beautiful setting for cocktails on their terrace.
Event Manager, Paul Tetlow announce the prize winners for the leg from Panama to Galapagos. Unfortunately, during a light winds leg, several boats reported motoring for over a third of the course distance and so were transferred to the Motor Cruising Division. This did not affect the results in the Cruising Division for the podium placings. Well done to the prize winners in Class A (Hebe (3rd), Andromeda (2nd) & Kathea(1st)), and Class B (Trillium (3rd), Alpheratz (2nd) & Circe (1st)) and in the Multihull Division (Folie a Deux (3rd), Dashaway (2nd), NDS Darwin (1st)).
Prizes were also awarded for some fun competitions for crews, such as guessing their arrival time in Galapagos and also the total age of all the crew taking part on the leg. Christoph and Dagmar from Flomaida guessed the closest for the ages and Manfred and his crew on Tulasi were only 2 minutes away with their estimation of their actual arrival time. For pictures of the eveining, please look at the event Gallery pages.
The fleet are now spending their last few days Galapagos completing final preparations. There’ll be a skippers briefing on Friday evening before the departure on Sunday at midday.