Our Arrival at San Cristobal, Galapagos, Ecuador

February 20, 2024 Tuesday
We saw the island of San Cristobal, Galapagos, early in the morning and enjoyed motoring along the wild uninhabited coastline for hours. It is a very stark landscape of rocky shores and green hillsides and intermittent white beaches.  We passed an interesting rock formation about 2 nautical miles offshore which we later learned was called Kicker Rock.

We dropped the anchor off Puerto Baquerizo, San Cristobal, GALAPAGOS, thankful for the fumes of diesel that brought us safely into the bay!  It wasn’t long before literally a boatload of officials came on board to do the check in.  One official wanted to see our paperwork; another went through my freezer and refrigerator looking for beef; another wanted to check expiration dates on medicines after looking through my medical bag; and another checked to see what kind of dish soap I had. Including two soldiers and our agent, there were 12 people who cleared us in. Two divers had already cleared us by finding no growth on the hull, so now all we had to do was pass these other inspections…which we did. 😊

After the check-in we called a water taxi to being us into town.  We soon found out why using the water taxis was infinitely more desirable than using our own dinghy…  The place was littered with sea lions!  They were swimming by the boat, lounging on the dock, napping on the benches, stretching out on the seawall, and they would have no qualms about resting in your dinghy while you were out and about, or when you got back!  They were very cute, but they did smell horrible and some of them were quite loud.