THE MARY ANNE

Getting out of Quito. Well due to our problems here I wasn't sorry to start out of town, up to the airport, book in, go to security from the public side, scan all our luggage and then, well, we walk back into the public area we have just left.

No doubt this facility allows us to pick up our bombs and Kalashnikov for the coming trip. Time and again we have had security checks only to be able to pass back into a non-secure area. No wonder the Americans are mad about security at home.

We make it through to departures.

Well well, the flight is delayed, then we are called to board, 'Flight 193 to to go to boarding gate zero??'

We can all see that the aircraft has not even landed yet but being the good sheep we are we all start to gather around the Taca airline desk. Questions, all the same, where is gate zero?

Taca lady at the desk is very pleasant and insist we all go to gate zero. Hold on, hold on where is gate zero?

'Oh, we call gate zero when we do not have a gate number'

'So where do we go'

'The flight has been delayed so everyone must go to gate zero'

Our collective heads now hurt. We just all go back to the lounge. Best really.


During this time it becomes clear the the 'crew' for the Mary Ann are all on the same flight. Time to get acquainted, all Scots and English except for two Americans, how did they get in here? Its a 'mother and daughter' trip. The like to come on the British trips, quieter apparently.

Off we go, one hour late, we have to drop into Guayaquil airport on the way to pick up more passengers but as we come into land we can see the the whole area is devastated by floods, hundreds of square miles in deep water. We are told that major damage has been done to the coffee and banana crops. Thousands of houses are deep in water, dirty brown water and I pity the people who have put down a deposit on the new housing estate we can see. All built on a flood plain!!

A serious threat to the export economy here. Out of interest when we flew by again a week later it was no better. Serious damage has been caused to the national and local economy and the flood water has nowhere to go. So sad to see.

We are due to be here for some thirty minutes, but but.

Due to board here are a mass of locals from the Galapagos, all have been working away and are now homeward bound for family holidays. Everyone knows everyone.

Everyone has to say HELLO to everyone.

All the girls have to be kissed by all the men.

All the girls have to kiss each other.

All the men have to do a 'high five' and then do a small dance much like roosters in the yard and then bump backsides together and fall down laughing.

And so it goes on. We are here over an hour before the flight attendants can get them in their seats. As soon as their backs are turned, they're up again, wriggling, leaning over the backs of seats.

But so so so happy. What can you say? Well I did think of a few things.......

We are off. The carnival continues. Near the end of the flight Duty Free comes out. A girl buys a watch. Everyone has to see it, she preens up and down, the girls oh and ah and study the label and price tag, the boys, more kisses and squeezes.

Trouble is we are now coming into land.

Will they sit down.

They will not.

Seat belt signs are on and we start to make our run in. They are still up. Staff are literally strapping them in and as they turn their backs, 'pop', they are out.

Finally the pilot puts this aircraft on its wing tip and I mean wing tip!!! I have never been on a flight where we have been 90' to the horizon. Miss Smartypants is pinned into her seat. All seat belts are straining, everything everywhere.

Its sky out of one window sea out of the other. Then 'flip' upright and hit the runway like a heavy pancake hitting the pan on Shrove Tuesday.

Plumppp!!!!

We are down, brakes on, eyes popping out of our heads. Stop. Swing off runway. Done.

Wow Wee. Its the Latin blood I reckon.

Its hot here and as I have already gone over my first impressions earlier I will not labour the point other than to say that nothing really prepares you for the animals here. Its just beyond my experience. Wonderful.

Our ship is in the bay at anchor. A three masted schooner, deep blue hull on a deeper blue sea. It looks like something out of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' or Treasure Island. We climb onto a little rubber dingy ( pangas apparently ) and out we go. Up the side like royalty.

I not sure that I have been so 'posh' in my whole life. Crew running around, only sixteen guests on board and ten crew. All dark wood and sofas inside. Straight to the aft deck ( get that nautical term there ) for lunch, awning overhead, warm breezes, and we are instantly underway to our first island.

Oh boy. This is the life!!!!

Safety drills. Strange this. When the alarm sounds we all have to go to our cabins and retrieve our life jackets. Go down stairs to our cabins in an emergency????? Quite a few queries on this point but they are adamant. Well, they will not see me down there if the boat sinks!!!!!!!!!

Buoyancy aids on and off to our first island. Landing on the beach through the surf jump off and up the onto the strand. This is not for 'sea slugs' or 'couch potatoes' you need not be fit but you must have reasonable agility. Later we saw people really struggle to get ashore.

Then straight into it, sea lions everywhere and again no movement, we walk through them up to the footpath. Footpaths. Under no circumstances do you stray from a footpath, the rules are draconian and necessary. Guides lose their licence if they allow anyone to wander.

A walk around the island then in for a swim/snorkel. The sea is warm and the water clear. Sea Lions swim with you, very curious, they are so agile and treat swimmers with a type of contempt. But we do beat them on land.

Back to the boat, showers, diner bed, exhausted.

Like so many cruise boats we travel overnight but the next day a painful awakening for me. 7am start ouch. I hate getting up. I do not do mornings!

I'll leave the island details to Christine but most are very scrub like showing their young age. Rough volcanic rock, different colours on different islands ranging from black, red, brown and all colours. Inland they are hot and humid and have a stuffy smelly atmosphere.

The beach landings are great, ride in on the surf over the side, sploosh, and up the beach.

Desiree, our guide has real job on her hands, some want to wander some want to know every detail ( spent ten minutes photographing a caterpillar on a woman's trousers at one time. ) Others, me, just skim through and take their thoughts back home with themselves. Her job is a bit of a juggle, all things to all men.

Overnight again to Santa Cruz. The main island, really well populated and that population is growing rapidly. The problem is that to support the tourism more workers are needed and because the money is good plenty come.

This island is so green compared to the others, lush dense vegetation. We are bused up to the 'Highlands' where there are large ranches which also have wild tortoise wandering about.

Boy are these guys really big, often a hundred years plus, they just wander around at their own pace through the grasslands.

At first you only see what looks like a pile of compost in the distance then that pile moves and you know you've got a tortoise. But they are only so interesting you know. Tortoise watching can get boring. They are not big on conversation.

So, when a lonely cowboy comes along what do you do?

Well, Christine starts a conversation, her in her best French, he in Spanish.

Its love at first sight!!

Next thing she jumps up on the horse, he climbs up behind holding on to her 'bits' and they are off.

They ride over hill down dale and are gone. Oh well, never mind.

I decide tea is the only answer. Tea and buns are provided in a nearby ranch house so off I go.

Twenty minutes later they are back.

Now its just my luck, Christine gets swept off her feet by the 'Lonsum Cowboy' and twenty minutes later he brings her back!!!!!!!

Not my lucky day.

They have been tortoise spotting she explains. Hmmmmm really.

Lizzy, one of the girls on the boat is also offered a ride round but she has been rather indisposed for the last few days and declines saying , I don't' think I could cope with any more rising trots!'

Back into town, lunch on the boat then off to the Darwin centre to see where they have a breeding programme for tortoise. They have big ones, George, then medium, small, and tiny. Hundreds of them.

Pretty boring I can tell you.

Back into town to hit the shops. Much better.

While in town down by the dock there is a dispute taking place with the dockers. As everything comes in by boat these are important people. And the boats are the problems.

The boat owners out to make a killing will only import high value goods, drink, cigarettes, coke, etc. But the island has virtually run out of eggs, flour and other important foodstuffs. So the Mayor has got the dockers together and has told the boat owners that they cannot land anything unless they make basic foodstuffs a priority.

They mean it, to the point that they are willing to take over the boats and go back to the mainland for the necessities.

Lots of shouting but the Mayor wins through. Go far that man.

Out through the chaos of the port, full of multi coloured boat taxis, seals, and sail boats back to the peace of the Mary Ann.

Overnight again but this time the main engine on the boat has blown a piston and so slower progress is made on the 'wing' engine. A spare. The bonus is that I don't have to get up so early the next day. A rainy day swimming and snorkeling again, but half decline to go. 'Its raining so I won't swim.' I have never understood that one.

We snorkel along an underwater cliff face of black volcanic rock which acts as a backdrop to a thousand and one fish of a thousand and one colours.

Then, not twenty feet away a shark, six or seven feet long, just off the bottom. Apparently harmless, a reef shark, oh really.

In the back of your mind it starts, that music, duum-duum, duum-duum. dumdum dumdum. Its in our brains, if I had hair it would have stood on end.

Its asleep, hmmm not so sure. I quietly paddle off.

That afternoon the piston is replaced and we are off. That's efficient. In the middle of nowhere to strip down a whacking great diesel, pop in a piston, and up and running again in twelve hours.

Chinese Hat Island, 'cause that is exactly what it looks like. I stay on board and rest.

For me, barbarian that I am, one island is much the same as another. They are all wonderful but for someone like me I can only see so many boobies and iguanas. Well, perhaps a few more boobies....

While all are away I set up with the crew for tomorrow. Christine's birthday, the big one, the five times ten one. Champagne is arranged, cakes and decorations.

The 9th March. 50years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Early and I mean early we are moored up in a lovely 'U' shaped bay, sadly other boats in the past have done the same and have graffited a lot of the cliff faces. Some will just ruin absolutely anything. A place of great beauty scared.

Still, we run along the cliff faces in our little boat, flightless cormorants, pelicans, iguanas, they are all here, and somehow I feel a bit queasy, not me normally but, I don't' know.

Get back to the boat and I rest, but later that evening during the Champagne and cakes and even crossing the equator on Christine's' big birthday I just fold. I slip away to forty eight hours of misery in our cabin. Food poisoning., a bug I know not.

I did not recover until the day we left, even then it was a struggle. The flight back to Quito was hard work.

On arrival we are taken to a super hotel right in the centre of the town in the UNESCO heritage area and I make a steady recovery. These things cannot be helped.