Always Onward Adventures

The last couple of weeks have been very busy cleaning up our house and getting the boat ready to go. We are T-9 days from departure on our 4.5 month sailing trip up to Alaska which is both exciting and anxiety producing… I’m writing this post to capture in writing some of the work we have done to get the boat ready to go and what the family has been up getting ready for this trip.

Success at last! This was my third attempt at the Palouse to Cascades state park trail. The trail runs for ~300 miles from Cedar Falls (near north bend) all the way to the border with Idaho (near Tekoa). This trail is a beast - but after three attempts, I finally made it. Before I jump into this trip, a bit of history. There is a bridge that goes over I-90 as you are going east from Seattle.

It was of course bitter sweet to be leaving the Galapagos. We had an amazing trip and the Sea Lions saw fit to give us a great send-off. Today was our last full day and tomorrow would be a morning departure from the boat and early afternoon flight back to Equador. The day called for a morning hike to Punta Pitt and an afternoon trip to the beautiful white beach on Cerro Brujo.

Today was to be our most metropolitan day of the trip - spending the day in one of the few towns in the Galapagos - Puerto Ayora. We were to spend the day at the Charles Darwin research center learning how they are protecting/preserving the giant tortoises (primarily). Then we were to head to a coffee plantation and finally a protected tortoise feeding area to take pictures of tortoises. Lots of tortoises today!

We woke early this morning and headed out pre-breakfast for a photo expedition. It was a lovely morning except for the mosquitoes (which were an unfortunate trend all day). We saw lots of tracks from turtles coming ashore overnight to lay eggs. Amazingly, some of the tracks came ashore and did a loop without laying eggs, presumably to come back in later to find a better place. The tracks carpeted the beach, all from the night before - there must have been thousands of eggs under the sand…

Day three in the Galapagos saw more snorkeling, an excursion to see the marine iguanas, and a Zodiac trip along the cliffs in the rain(amung other things). It also saw my first “Galapagos Moment” which Angela/I have defined as moments where you see something truely amazing that feels unique to the Galapagos. Each day, we were provided with a sheet that showed the schedule for the day along with details about what we needed to bring.

This was our first full day on the boat. A couple of remarkable things about the Galapagos: 1. It’s hot. The heat dictated our schedule and we tended to have early morning excursions and late avernoon excursions to avoid the heat of the day. It also impacted the animals - each with their own different adaptation for how to keep cool - or keep their eggs cool in some cases. 2.

Our day started at the hotel ~6a with breakfast and packing. We were to meet up with Nat Geo for a bus ride to the airport, flight to Galapagos, bus ride to the docks, and Zodiac rides to our ship. This was my first real taste of the level of organization that this company has - it was truely impressive. The morning went off without a hitch and when we landed in Galapagos it was early afternoon.