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This is the second dispatch from the 94-foot Trinity/Halter
expedition yacht Whale Song as she completes a circumnavigation. The
writer and photographer, Tom Zydler, is her captain. Grant Wilson is her
owner.
After exploring Antarctic ice and the Chilean channels, the
94-foot Trinity/Halter expedition yacht Whale Song headed for the
Galápagos Islands. All the way from Peru, the voyage felt like an effortless
glide. Aided by following winds and the cold Humboldt Current, we throttled down
the Caterpillars, boosted our fuel efficiency by 30 percent, and still made
240 nautical miles a day. The engines hummed, barely audible, and the yacht’s
owner, Grant Wilson, remarked about our eerily smooth passage.
The course cut northwest over glassy swells, now and then
broken by swirls of boiling water—teams of tuna feeding on frenzied anchovetas.
Busy schools of beak-nosed dolphins swam by. A few lazy whales wallowed afar.
Three hundred miles from the Galápagos, the midnight watch reported strange
clicking sounds. I stepped out on the bridge wing and the ghostly outline of a
bird flashed by. The echo-locating, nocturnal swallowtail gulls from the
Galápagos found squid in the glare of our lights.
One reason we selected the Galápagos Islands for a stopover was
that the owner and his family, including all of his grandchildren, would be
joining my wife Nancy and me and our crew on board. They all wanted to
experience this slice of Eden on earth.
The Humboldt Current, our conveyor belt, tends to upswell
against obstacles like islands. Colder water loaded with plankton plumes to the
surface, providing a feast for birds and fish. Near Isla Española, the water
plunged to 71 degrees Fahrenheit, drawing thick flocks of petrel seabirds. Rafts
of waved albatross gathered on Punta Suárez and just beneath its cliffs. It was
April, the birds’ time to see their lifelong mates again after six months’
separation spent roaming the oceans. Almost all of this species, some 12,000
pairs, breed only on Española.
Before laying eggs, the albatross couples reinforce their bonds
in an awe-inspiring ritual. After a moose-like call, they yawn and gurgle, then
whack their beaks (which are the size of sword scabbards) a few times, gurgle
again, then bow forward and sideways, repeating this routine again and again. We
were able to watch them from a few feet away since Galápagos animals still don’t
fear humans.
To enter this enchanting world wasn’t easy. Ninety-seven
percent of the Galápagos archipelago falls under Ecuadorian national park
jurisdiction, which imposes stringent rules on visiting private yachts. Although
Whale Song already had a cruising permit, we had to anchor in Puerto
Ayora, on Isla Santa Cruz, to pay $200 a day per person on board while in park
waters, submit a voyage plan and find a licensed guide. Antonio Moreano,
arguably the islands’ best naturalist, sailed with me on another yacht and was
available for Whale Song. Together we set up an itinerary the park
approved.
Puerto Ayora, the business center of the island chain, was
booming. During a visit in 1986, we had chicken soup for lunch under a thatch
roof on the dirt road overlooking Academy Bay. Today, visitors might need
reservations to get into restaurants on the paved waterfront.
The more than 120,000 visitors to the region each year provide
a good living for many Ecuadorians. However, this is often to the detriment of
the nature around them. The men who fail to find a job in tourism may go into
poaching sea cucumbers, slaughtering sharks for their fins or cutting off sea
lion penises, which are all regarded as aphrodisiacs in Asian markets. Twice in
recent years, fishermen enraged by conservation limits got violent. On Isabela, they slaughtered a dozen tortoises and nearly killed a park warden.
More recently, they rampaged through the Charles Darwin Research Station on
Santa Cruz and took a tortoise as hostage. Now fishermen sell their legal catch each morning, mobbed by pelicans, herons and sea lions. Declining
stocks of sea cucumbers and lobsters make clear the need for conservation.
Still, surreptitious poaching continues.
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