Day at sea 'cause the tsunami (aka day 3 Galapagos)

Friday, March 11, 2011

Well this sucks.  We spent 10 hours yesterday navigating from Santiago Island to Fernandina Island.  Wake up announcement at 7am told us breakfast would be ready in 30 minutes.  I was so tired, not wanting to wake up, after my interrupted sleep.  I took half an Ambien, but an hour later, pain all through my right leg woke me.  My leg had been bothering me a bit before bed, feels like its needs a massage or something, and I freaked out with the pain, crying in the middle of the night.  Unsure what to do, I went to find Denni and ask her opinion.  I felt bad waking her, but it was only 12:30am and I couldn’t possibly fall back to sleep.  She ended up giving me a muscle relaxer and I managed to get to bed.

This morning the pain is still there and I think it might be from some type of pinched nerve in my back.  I’m also having a problem with my right shoulder as well.  Lots of people asked how I was doing at breakfast, so at least people are looking out for me.

Towards the end of breakfast, Daniel and the other naturalists came in to make an announcement.  There was an earthquake in Japan at 7am (not sure if that was our time or theirs) and Ecuador had closed the Galapagos National park.  We were going to have to move the boat to the east side of Isabela Island in order to protect ourselves from a tsunami.  That means no two hour hike on Fernandina Island and no snorkeling near Tagus Cove, the city of sea turtles and home to the Galapagos penguin.

The tsunami isn’t supposed to reach us until 5pm, but it seems we’ll be spending the entire day doing nothing due to it.  This is such a bummer.  I’m so disappointed.  And I know there is nothing we can do about it, but there’s no way we’ll be able to come back to these islands because the travel time is far too long.  I’m curious to see what the day will bring, but that’s my update as of 10am.

We’re now approaching 2pm and we’re still sailing.  Just finished lunch with the girls.  Spent the morning identifying the animals in my pictures with Victor Hugo and talking to various people on the ship.  They played a movie about the Galapagos in the lounge, so I listened to the first two chapters of that.  Going to take a nap now.  Really sucks that we can’t do anything all day.  Tsunami should have hit Hawaii by now.  So curious what’s on the news back home.  Guess I’ll have to Google it when I get to Lima.

Lorilee, Susan and me at lunch

In the meantime, the rest of the people on the ship who I haven’t yet mentioned to total 33:

• Nancy and Mike, and their son Thai and his wife Ann from Alaska/Arizona
• Three Japanese guys from Tokyo (this news is not good for them) who work for Visa magazine Japan and are writing an article about the Galapagos
• Italian couple
• Swedish couple
• German couple
• Spanish speaking couple (don’t even know if they are from Spain or Latin America)

(night time) I found out this afternoon that the places we were supposed to visit today are somewhat unique to this cruise.  A lot of the less expensive boats don’t come all the way out here, no surprise since its 10 hours each way, to visit Espinosa Pont (Fernandina Island) and Tagus Cove (Isabela).  For most people it is the highlight of the cruise.  Stupid earthquake.

After I woke up from a two hour nap, I went to the upper deck to hang out.  The afternoon breeze created the perfect temperature.  Everyone on the deck was wildlife watching and we spotted a ton of sea turtles in the water in addition to some dolphins and three minky whales in the distance.  Was a bit more exciting than I expected and at least we got to see something.  I was on the upper deck around the time the tsunami was supposed to hit the Galapagos, but we were so far out we didn’t feel anything.  I hung out there for over an hour until there was an announcement for ice cream.  Every Friday on the boat they have an “ice cream fiesta” although I have to say, they are really lacking in toppings (only nuts, coconut and raisins, chocolate syrup and a few types of liquor).  Who puts raisins on ice cream?  It was still a nice sweet treat and afterwards I sat inside to hear about the earthquake.

Me, Thai and Ann eating ice cream

Daniel was eventually able to get the news on TV and we saw some fuzzy photos of Japan and heard about various countries putting their Pacific coasts on tsunami alert.  Seeing it on the news made it feel much more real.  Dinner was served at the usual hour of 7:30pm; I ate with Stacey and Evan.  On the menu was trout, broccoli, pasta, salad, cheese, etc.  We were still sailing, even though we’d been told that originally it would only be a few hours, to reach our destination for tomorrow, the island of Bartolome.  The boat was rocking a bit too much for my liking.

Dinner with Evan and Stacey

At our post dinner briefing, Daniel told us about the potential activities for tomorrow.  However, the ship had no contact with the navy and all we’d heard was that Ayora Port, where most of the population of the Galapagos lives, had been hit hard.  It is difficult to get excited for tomorrow’s landings since we don’t know if they’ll actually happen.  It’s been such a sad and disappointing day.  I’m spent, even though I haven’t done anything, and am going to bed hoping for the best in the morning.