Spear Fishing The Pass

Spear Fishing In The Pass

I slipped quietly into the water and placed the butt of my spear gun against my chest heaving back on the rubbers to load it.  The first thing I saw was a school of small silver fish with ruler length trevally hanging around the surface. Underneath me were 3 or 4 curious grey reef sharks lurking. I lined up a trevally aimed and shot.  The spear sprang from my spear-gun and buried itself into the trevally.  I swam quickly to the dingy and threw my spear-gun into it before the sharks could figure out what was happening.  Then I heaved myself aboard and donged it quickly on the head to kill it.  As we drifted further through the pass I shot a smaller goat fish while dad shot a parrot fish, goat fish and big eye.

Manta Rays

Manta Rays

I slipped into the water and dad passed me my spear gun. The first thing I saw was a sizeable black tip shark sitting right under me. I got a bit of a fright at first,  but when I identified it as a harmless black tip I calmed down a little.  I swam along the edge of the rocks in search of a big enough fish to shoot.

“Manta rays,” mum yelled from the dingy, before slipping into the water. Flicking the safety on my spear gun I raced over to see a parade of enormous manta rays swooping past, then diving gracefully to curve just under us.  Their mouths were at least 1 meter wide to catch the millions of tiny jellies that swarmed all around us.  They continued this for almost an hour, swooping, diving, gracefully curving, but each time managing to miss us by centimetres, until they finally glided away.

Arriving in French Polynesia

The wind dropped off as we glided into the Marqueses Islands.  A massive steep mountain towered up into the clouds, almost vertically from the sea.  Lush forest gripped to it's many peaks and ridge lines, creating a pristine scene.  At it's base, a cluster of small houses and shops were situated.  In a bay close by a small community of yachts were anchored.
After nineteen days at sea from the Galapagos Islands it was a beautiful sight.  Logan and I jumped and ran as soon as our feet touched the ground.  We raced past star fruit trees and mangoes, grabbing fruit that were on the ground and biting into them.
We reached the town fifteen minutes later to find two small grocery shops packed full of everything from machetes
, to apples and amazing grapefruit as big as your head that you needed a machet
e to cut up!

Track us

In another 3 days, we're going on a 21 day passage. We are going from Galapagos to French Polynesia.

This is a website that you can keep track of us on.

https://aus-share.inreach.garmin.com/svgabian

Please don't worry, if for whatever reason this tracker stops working. It is a handheld piece of equipment, and we've only been using it for a short while. We have epirbs registered with MNZ that are our primary emergency comms.

conservation interview

We are anchored in the south of Isla Isabela in Galapagos. Dad and I biked into the national park office to interview one of their staff. His name was George Flowers. We asked George these questions to learn more about conservation efforts in Galapagos.

We found out that 97% of the Galapagos was National park, the other 3% was farmland and town. And for forty nautical miles around each island was marine reserve. 

George told us that the two most endangered species were the Galapagos penguin and the flightless Cormorant. 

Their are 800 pairs of Cormorant and 150 Penguins. The penguins are still in decline thanks to cats but the cormorant are fearing a little better. They are setting up nesting boxes to encourage breeding and shooting feral cats. We were surprised at the lack of traps around the anchorage.

Biodiversity

Splash, thunk!  I raced outside to see what all the noise was about.  As I watched a pelican emerged from under the boat, a bait fish between its beak.  "Penguins," I yelled  in excitement as a small blue shape sped past, then dived at the bait ball below.  Baby black tip sharks kept the bait fish up at the surface while the pelicans and penguins launched in at will.  A mysterious fish would speed in, grab something and get out before we could get a look at it.  I had never seen such a show of biodiversity before in my life!
Thanks to conservation efforts these sights can still be seen today.  But only last week we picked up 50 pieces of plastic from an onshore beach here in Galapagos.  We have then loaded this information onto the website www.kidsagainstplastic.com who are collecting data from around the world.  The group are then going to lobby governments to make changes.  Anyone can collect data and log onto  this site from anywhere.

Galapagos Tortoises

Did you know that "Galapagos" means "Tortoise" in Spanish? 

So the Galapagos Islands are named after their famous tortoises!
When humans first got to this unique archipelago, it was estimated that hundreds of thousands of tortoises lived here. Now, as the population recovers from near extinction, there are little more than 25000 living today. Each island has its own unique species of tortoise, each species adapted to the habitat of its own island. For example, on Espanola, the Tortoises have an arched shell around their neck so they can crane their neck up and pick leaves from higher branches. They grow to 1.5m across and can weight an impressive 300kg.

Did you notice the moon rising above the pelican?

A donkey we found next to the road with a too tight harness. 

In San Cristobal, sealions lie around everywhere.

Logan and I with a marina iguana.

Ecuador to Galapagos Passage

Day 1

Motoring out of Bahia De Caraquez.  Glad to be on the move again.
As we glided into the clear blue seawater again, a pod of frisky bottlenose dolphins joined us.

Day 2

I woke up, pulled on my pants and walked groggily upstairs to where Mum was sitting on watch.  Logan was already up and was checking the AIS for ships.
Bright blue, occasionally gold mirror like creatures took my breath away as I glanced down at the clear blue water speeding past.  I told Dad and we stopped the engines.  Grabbing a bucket I raced down to the bottom deck and started scooping up phytoplankton and jelly fish.  One looked like a thin thread with brown knobs attached at regular intervals and another like an eyeball with hairs sticking out either side.  Another looked like an ants abdomen with two dangly legs out each side, and one especially spectacular creature was a ribbon like thing with tapered ends, a cross section in the middle and  fluttering edges that seemed to glow green.
Five hours later.  As the sea was as flat as a millpond we watched the sun fall beyond the horizon.  We were discussing where all the bubbles came from in the flat, seemingly endless ocean when we came to a decision.  We would stop the boat and have a look.
As the way fell off us, I scooped with my bucket, sending the bubble spinning within the bowl.  On closer inspection it was not one, but lots of tiny bubbles linked together and as we turned it over we were startled to find a tiny purple shell attached to the bottom.  As I touched it a squirt of purple ink squeezed out the bottom causing me to drop it hurriedly.
Our theory was that each night the creatures make the bubbles to rise up from the deep to feed, then before sunrise they eat the bubbles and fall back down to the deep again.  I popped it back into the sea and scooped again as I saw an uneven black shape floating past.  I gasped as I held my torch over it, it looked like a little blue dragon.

  Later we found out that this was really a kind of nudibrach that eats Portuguese man of war and takes on their venom!

Day 3

Day 3 was a normal hum ho passage day.  We saw another pod of dolphins in the morning and at about midday we stopped to inspect a new kind of jellyfish.

Day 4

"Land Ahoy," dad yelled, pointing to a position off the port bow.  Looking that way I became aware of the low lying island of San Cristobal only a few miles away.  As the channel markers slid by, a group of maybe 20 rays put on a spectacular show, flapping up to the surface then gliding down to the deep again.  Closer in, two turtles popped up and a sea lion played on the bow.  We were already seeing some examples of the Galapagos I thought.

How to Make a Wooden Ladle

You need:

Tools and materials
Spoon Gauge
Fret Saw
Sharp Whittling Knife
A piece of softish 3cm thick wood (length and size depend on the size of the laddle)

Step 1
Sketch the ladle from the top directly onto the piece of wood.  Then very roughly cut out your ladle
with the saw.  It should look like this.

Step 2
Whittle off any saw marks or excess timber that the saw might have missed and roll off the edges.  Carefully gauge out the scooped end until it's the thickness you want.
Well done, you have now made a ladle.

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