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Galapagos/Ecuador 1 of 2

GALAPAGOS TRIP - Oct. 20 – Nov. 11, 1991

(All of the photos from this trip can be viewed here in– The Zolnerzone Gallery)

NOTES TAKEN BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER TRIP:

8/28/91: From Barry Boyce (800-969-9014):
1) Air: Sunday, NYC-MIA "cheapest", MIA-QUI Saeta, $664 +$100 "Diff airport"
2) Hotel: Sunday, single at Alameda Real
3) Air: Monday, QUI-GAL, San, to Puerto Ayora
4) Hotel: Monday, Grand Hotel on San Cristobal
5) Boat leaves Tuesday; leave ship 11/4
6) Hotel Galapagos 4 nights
7) Air: GAL-QUI 11/8
8) Hotel: 11/8 + ?
9) Air: QUI-MIA and MIA-NYC; CAN change this date later
Next: HE calls with PRICES.

9/15/91: Delores's cousin and husband OUT; Eric's dad OUT; Komodo book-writer and dad and step-mother in---she's five months pregnant. Still SEVEN: M+D, me and Eric, new three. THEY supply ME with my sleeping bag!

10/17/91: Barry Boyce: Bird-watching places, take VAN to market. Otovalo market two-day tour on Friday and Saturday: $190 for each of 2; $325 single.
Tinilandia $140 for each of 4; $400 for single. Cholera: drink BOTTLED water; don't buy ANYTHING from vendors; NO ice in drinks; NO orange juice; islands are fine: diarrhea most likely first or second day BACK in Quito, tired from trip!

10/18/91: Wake after I THINK I hear a "SQUEAK-thump"! No, antlers did NOT fall. Dream, or something here or upstairs actually fell?

10/20/91: Take SIXTY rolls of film: 40 UNMOUNTED (cheap),exp 10/92 (use 12/91!) 20 MOUNTED (one IN camera), exp 4/92!  Cash $516 + $550 trav chex for $1066. Back with $366, spent $700. PAID $2500 for boat+$599 RT Quito+$374 Galapagos = $3473+700=$4173/23 =$181/day

10/20/91: Went through USUAL "leaving" list of 1) Desk light on, 2) Set VCR, 3) call for car, 4) phone machine on (record message), 5) eat breakfast, 6) unplug computer, 7) humidifier empty, 8) garbage out, 9) lock doors.
Then the SAVE THIS LIST of packing: beret/gloves/scarf, earplugs, bathing suit, layers/sweaters, notebook/pens, shower cap, books/papers, scissors/dop kit/ pills, socks/shorts/shirts, shirts/pants, Band-Aids, sunglasses, handkerchief, camera/film, MANY plastic bags, sunhat, belts, shoes, slippers, umbrella?, spare glasses?, binox?, jockstrap?, gym shorts?

Note: The day before leaving, I came up with a tailored "do before leaving" list of 1) phone Barry, 2) JV: watch leak, water plants, pay bills, 3) record phone message, 4) Sunday: set RCA for Saturday, 5) JV: leave mailbox unlocked, 6) wash dishes, 7) pack, 8) sell opera ticket, 9) phone Spartacus, 10) phone machine on.

Note: Weighed my bags before I left: duffel bag 26#, bluebag 18#, handbag 13# for a total of 57#. Returning, my duffel bag was 19.2kg and my handbag 7.6 for a total of 26.8kg or 59#, not much paper added, though I DID leave sleeping bag behind, AND they took my little Olympia and York carry-bag.

Note: Last-minute take list: adding 1) hydrogen peroxide, 2) pills, 3) address list, 4) cards OUT of wallet and calling cards IN, 5) 2 thick sox, 6) silk sox, and I'd bought Dramamine (no good), Bonine (OK), and took ear-patches.

10/?/91: Take-list for Alcedo-climb: WET landing: towel, red underwear, "night" stuff, soap, toilet paper, finger Band-Aid, pills, clothing bags, Band-Aids, booties, film+film, jacket and sweatshirt, water bottle, sleeping pills, sunscreen, flashlight, toilet paper, beret. Note toilet paper TWICE!!

SUNDAY, 10/20/91: (notes in back of Wild Seed) Wake at 4AM! Lie till 7, up to write checks and fix place up. VERY nervous; eat breakfast at 10. Phone for 11:15 car at 10:30 and Shelley calls and I phone Dennis, and JAM stuff into three bags, weighing in at 57 pounds! Guy buzzes at 11:10, I get down at 11:20, pick up a woman at 11:25, to airport at 11:55; quick check-in and stow duffel bag through to Quito and on line at gate 5 at 12:05 and board 12:10 on LEFT side---nothing but ocean? Write this by 12:25, full plane with NO sign of leaving on time. Couldn't find notebook to buy in LGA. Probably OK in Miami. Move at 12:32! Off at 12:50, GREAT swing over Bronx with ALL Manhattan glittering in the south sun. Down Hudson River, over, in turn, Chinzan-so Restaurant, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Narrows, Staten Island, Sandy Hook, Atlantic City, Norfolk, and clouds at 1:40, 1/3 way with GREAT views! I'm VERY nervous, counting 1/5, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, and AT 2:10 out over ocean, having seen MORE land than I'd expected. Up to date at 2:12, only to 2:30 to be 2/3 there! Club sandwich lunch OK after $4 vodka-tonic eases my Buspar down. To pee at 2:30, plane jittering---2/3 there! GREAT clouds, some pix, even BIMINI and over MOST of Miami and land at 3:20, to gate at 3:25, off at 3:30. Buy 60,000 sucres for $60 (+ $2 fee), a yellow pad for $1.05, one liter of Southern Comfort for $12.25, and get to gate E9 at 4:30, Eric spots me, Kali cute; I have to DIG for passport, and BOARDING starts at 5:15! We're on at 5:30, when I finish this. Fast! At 5:45 it's 3 hours 35 minutes to Quito, 215 minutes! Move at 5:50. Off at 6:15, and set watch back to 5:15 when pilot says we should land at 8:45 local time. GREAT moss-green south of Miami, and HIGH clouds over Cuba (pictures 32 and 33). Then dark at 6:15 as we pass over Grand Cayman Island. Another vodka and tonic, and I HOPE flight goes well. At 6:25 get out puzzle. Dinner of beef is GOOD, and Soapdish is awful. Quito lit in hammock-valley at 8:45 and we land AT DOT of scheduled 8:57, jolty flight down between hills. Sulaikah meets us after long wait for immigration, about 9:30, and drives J. Marie and Kali and Eric and me to Alameda Real. Delores and Michael in 1003, but they're out at the Ballet Folklorico. I leave them a note, write this, and get to bed at 11, midnight in NYC, and we're meeting at 9:15 tomorrow! [I've written SEVENTY notebook pages!]

MONDAY, 10/21/91: Bed at 11, but don't fall off till past 12. Then look at watch at 4, 4:30, 5, 6, and up at 6:45 to shower nicely and collect hotel's soap and shower cap. MUST repack now at 6:55. It goes quickly and I REPACK dop kit and clothing and STILL don't have enough bags! Steal a laundry bag (and two MORE after they make up the room) and start "souvenirs," but it has to be recruited for PAPERS and "yet to come" stuff. So two more should do it. Check bag with doorman and get a stub and put laundry in WITHOUT getting copy. Meet Dick (writer) and Mary (Dutch) and THERE'S Michael and Delores. Good buffet breakfast for $6---ham and fritters and chocolate donut and two hot chocolates andpapaya and pineapple andwatermelon and eggs and steak! Up at 8:45 to gaze at view from balcony onto town,View from hotel in Quito get bags down, and pee and pack to 9:10, ready for plane! Load and leave at 9:20, but most of Quito looks like most of the rest of Quito. Airport is a mob scene but we all get seats in Row 6, me NOT on left and NOT at window. Meet a (gay?) guy from Dayton and chat, and load onto the smallest-clearance seats in world. NO possibility of "heads between knees" in crash. Talk and joke, and board last passengers and take off toward volcano at 11:05. Some bumps and turns, Michael takes two "light-adjusted" shots of Mt. Cotopaxi and hills after, and we fly through clouds to muggy lowland Guayaquil that they SAY is 37°C, but NOT 99°F. Land across swollen river (pools in fields) at 11:37 and shuttled OFF plane into seating area with NO access to shopping, making all the women miserable. Kali forgot toothbrush (Delores gives him the one Saeta gave her in their packet, and I bid on the comb), shoes (he went across from the airport: ladies’ open, men's closed), and sunglasses (at airport he buys eared glasses that fit OVER his). I sit and write. One girl on plane got red in face and cried from fear during the flight. Maybe if I'd been alone and not talking to the casual Eric, I would have been more panicked, too---climbing toward a distant volcano, clouds around craggy hills---though MOST hills are FARMED, and some riversides had white herons flying. Cool in waiting room, but smoke thick. Katherine, the guide, gives me the idea of a three-day Amazon trip: we have Mon-Tue-Wed nights in hotel, return Thursday, Tinilandia overnight Friday and Saturday, and I could go Sun-Mon-Tue, or Mon-Tue-Wed, depending on what's available and going. I'm to talk to Sulaikah. Now 11:53 and no sign of re-boarding. Off at 12:15, 90 minutes! Cloudy, then hills and forests, then a COAST for the start of our Galapagos trip, (see map)! Sandwiches and Quin (poor) and finally vodka and Sprite, and then it CLEARS! Land on San Cristobal, dry and rocky, at 1:45, but it's 12:45. Long wait for baggage and then Grand Hotel Picture of the Grand HotelRoom 3 at 1:40. Lunch of carp and beer and WASHED GRAPES. Onto bus at 2:40 with video camera for first time! To Lago Junco in mist, Kali slips and sits in mud, all are sliding, and mist clears to prove my guess that it's a round volcanic crater. Around side trail to see WILD HORSES running through mists, frigatebirds sailing overhead, and finches placidly feeding while I film only feet away. One even hovers in wind, fluttering, while I stare and debate using camera, saying to Delores it's more FRUSTRATING than not. Then we go to Seal Beach beyond airport and THERE I'm in my element, filming seals nursing, scratching, and masturbating, blowing their noses at me. GREAT shots to 6PM as sun sets and full moon rises. Back to shower, Delores saying, "Maybe I'll see something EXCITING" as she comes to get their stuff (stored in my room since their patio door won't lock) as I strip to shower. Dine at 7 on local clawless lobster DEEP-FRIED, rice and olives, and French fries, and good rennet custard that neither Michael nor Delores eat. I have two only. To look at map (we cross equator to and from Tower) and to rooms at 8:30 with fresh water in pitchers and I brush teeth and write this to 9PM. To BED??

TUESDAY, 10/22/91: 5AM, YES, and sleep FAIRLY quickly, and wake after eight LOVELY hours, having had two VERY explicit dreams: 1) a woman SORT of like Vicki and I are dining in a Chinzan-so-type restaurant on the river and there are slow drumlike sounds, two "thick" ones and five-six "thin" (lighter and softer, or less distinct) sounds. We look around mildly and wonder, "What was that?" Then there are two or three SWIFT LATERAL SHIFTS of the entire restaurant, and I think "Earthquake" and fear that our area will be catapulted into the river three stories below. It stops, but I fear these are only foreshocks and say to Vicki, "Let's go toward the back, QUICK," hoping not to start a panic in the other diners, who would obstruct us. We start moving back, no more sounds or shakes, and dream ends. Later 2) I'm in a kind of maze of rooms, like in a Dungeons and Dragons layout, and many "enemies" slink past but seem to ignore me, and I find many "allies" who seem to be gay, and I feel comfortable. Once a group of five or six guys comes out of a prison-like building. They seem to "like" each other, and I give signals that I'm gay, too, and they leave me alone. Then I'm in a room with four-five humpy guys, and one short fellow seems very proud of his calves, standing sideways on his toes and flexing for himself and me. I reach down to clasp them (am I thinking of gold-haloed legs on the darkly tanned boy at the airport yesterday?) and he melts into my hands. His body is very short and compact, but his chest is covered with extremely short (1/4-inch), black, curly hairs, and I plunge my face and mouth into them and nuzzle his tits, getting us hard with my lips and tongue and teeth, and his crotch becomes palpable to my left fingers. I'd seen he had a very small cock, but when I felt it, it was opening, expanding, hard and juicy, so I clasped it and pulled it downwards and he groaned with pleasure and I curled my fingers around its length and it started spurting thin white fluid again and again and again, till I marveled at his production when he passed 10-15 spurts, paused, then launched another 3-4 thin jets: a VERY tactual dream---the calf muscles, the chest hair, the hard, bony cock. Wake hard in dark and lie for a bit, then turn lamp switch and find the power off. Luckily I'd put the flashlight in the front of my dop kit, which I knew was on the toilet tank, so I took out my earplugs to hear the faint dawn sounds, a crowing of seals like hoarse cocks getting ready for the sun, and an occasional gecko click, and now the very distant bark of a dog and the sound of a rooster crowing, though the cloudy sky is only gray-blue without a hint of red yet at 5:18. Get to bathroom to find THAT light definitely off (forgot to ask WHAT the hours were) and find the flashlight, pee, have a slight urge to shit, hoping it won't be moist, but don't have the urgency to do it yet, in the dark, and take light back to fair bed and sit and write this to 5:20, debating dressing and going to the beach to watch the sights and hear the sounds (almost continuous gecko-croaks, or maybe a bird?) of the coming dawn, since yesterday in Quito the sun was UP when I woke. Even my vague concern about leaving my battery-charger on overnight is solved: the power is OFF from maybe 9PM! Sit on beach in VERY light mist at 5:40. Frigatebirds cruise overhead, but the seal-brown shape on a beach rock is only a rock, not a seal. Roosters constant now, black rocks merely damp, so I sit on one to write to the pulse of protected-harbor light waves. Bottoms of thick clouds are picturesque but it's almost too cool for short sleeves, and probably the water feels COLD! Each large yacht has a cruising light on on the topmast, otherwise there are no lights in the town at all, though it's now totally dim-strong light outside at 5:45. Black rocks are lightly coated with algae and VERY slippery as I test water, not THAT cold, and scramble back to shore as tide is coming in RATHER quickly! Do I hear a distant generator and see lights in town at 5:54? Small fishing boat moves out to sea. INSTANTLY birds call from power lines and a GULL swoops over beach. INSTANT wakening! A waiter (did I wake him?) got off lobby sofa as I exited hotel. Black crabs clamber on black rock, and the largest, almost a foot from claw-tip to claw-tip, is dark red. They JUMP from rock to rock and I nervously ensure there are none near MY rock at 6:03AM. Mist stops. Black crabs ominous as they creep along, claw after claw, clinging to the rock edges, tearing at the lichen on the rock-sides, jostling each other for size-position dominance. A yellow finch slips on the rock-tops; I'm not the only slick-bottom footed. A large mottled gray-white bird skims in the wash above the waves. Michael out with camera and binoculars: they show me that the far head is a buoy, and pelicans squabble in the distance. Long dark shape was a WAVE. Waiter sprays hotel-front plants. Cool breeze even after light rain stops. I'm hungry at 6:55. Broken coral like man-made BEADS---is THAT how Egyptian beadwork started? Red Sea Coral! Find a pierced pink helmet shell, a lovely, purple-tipped, tiny conch, and what may be a piece of clamshell looking like a bone carving! Back at 7:02, people talking and toilets flushing, but no real signs of life yet. In to find Michael looking for me for breakfast at 7:15. Only bread and butter and strawberry jam and hot milk and pineapple juice. At 8:30 we walk toward Frigatebird Hill, but get lost on beach and end up on a point with three blue-footed boobies. IPicture of Blue footed Boobiet's windy and slightly rainy, and back to hotel at 9:55 to find that our guide, Juan Carlos, will be in at 10. At 10:20 he arrives to say Resting Cloud needs a generator piece, coming on the flight with the three L.s, with two mechanics to install it, and he hopes we'll leave tonight after sailing today on the ship VERTIGO! If not, we stay at hotel tonight and start on Vertigo at 6AM for Hood. OR board Resting Cloud. I insist on going into town, get lost and walk along beach, meet Kali and Eric returning from Naval Base dead end, find Pepe the Galapagos Turtle on street, buy book for 4000S and museum entry for 1000S, donating 500S above entry price (and 1000S above the price of the book elsewhere!). Walk back at 10:05 to try AGAIN to find Frigatebird Hill, trying EACH path, frustrated that beach guys probably HID it. Lots of lizards, flowers, and I try fuzzy fruit hoping for Chirimoya, and local says NO, gives diarrhea. I spit and spit and spit. Photo castor, flowers, and beach. Back to REPACK for day on Vertigo, and the three L.s come in with Juan Carlos at 1:25, and we sit and chat before lunch at 1:45. Sun's come out and it's HOT. Juan Carlos says he HAS flippers on ship, ONLY Michael is diving with the marine iguanas while we snorkel above. Can RENT a wet suit in Puerto Ayora. Lunch of fish soup, shrimp with lime, and beans and squash and two beers. Juan Carlos translates for us, saying we had lima bean soup yesterday. At 2:30 we're told we'll know about ships at 3. Walk along rocks at beach to look for marine iguanas, but there are none. Back at 3 to find we have to wait for 3:30: Vertigo isn't SUPPLIED yet, and Resting Cloud isn't ready until later, too late for today, so tonight in hotel, this PM back to Seal Beach. Out to beach in desperation, then at 3:40 decide to find what the news is. Everyone's in bus! Except Michael and Delores. I dash in to get sunscreen, since my forearms and hand-backs are QUITE angrily red. Down to beach and there are many MORE seals on shore, but angles are worse because there are more people (8) on beach, AND other groups, including a Spanish young group with a REAL trollop with buttocks-bottoms showing below shorts. Lots of tape on sea lions Picture of Sea Lionsand yellow warblers, then at 4:50 Juan Carlos calls "a meeting" and gives us the rules of the islands. Bright yellow, little bird is yellow warbler, which is NOT endemic. Waved albatross is endemic, green-rose lantern STILL unknown (though later they're called Mary's Tears). Beach morning glory has HUGE runners on the sand. Pick up "complete sea urchin spine"---end (blunt) and insert (smooth), and a tiny complete shell. Juan Carlos says that EXCEPT in public areas like this we must ALWAYS stay together! I smoulder, pick up today's two pieces (AGAINST THE RULES), and bus comes at 5:25 and we're back to hotel BEFORE sunset, Juan Carlos saying, "They're taking BATTERY out to test the generator; if it works, we can go aboard tonight." I go to room and write this and find comb at last and wash OFF sunscreen and put on Vaseline to prevent drying. At 6:10PM still no news! At 6:30 the Nortada ("Carrying the woman I love," simpers Juan Carlos, "the naturalist on the Nortada") steams in, having charged the battery to be tested with the generator on the Resting Cloud. It's still going! I blaze up CF, CM, GEN, REGEN, HW, RG, RPN (RW, SW, JW), and throw in EP for an even 10. Nothing happens. In for a glass of Southern Comfort! Play cards till 10PM (I win both), and Juan Carlos says we board bus at 5:45AM for Vertigo with all our luggage, to transfer to Resting Cloud during the next day.

WEDNESDAY, 10/23/91: 5AM: Wake with dreams: 1) Climbing through attic of apartment with wiring in a terrible shambles (sort of a simile to Alzheimer's?) I have a sexy adventure, but I forget what it was. 2) Meet someone like Stephen W., who's still unpaired, and I try to get together a group for sex, but it gets very complex, ending driving down a street where a) Stephen's vest of ice is too large and inflexible to permit him to drive, so someone NEXT to him moves the gas pedals while I reach in from the other side to steer, and I manage to stop the bike (!) in the right place, parking it on the sidewalk while all four of us "get out" and part, except for me and Stephen, who then attaches a basket to a wire from the upstairs balcony for charming Miss X, who comes down as he pulleys the basket UP to her, and everyone laughs at the inane charm of the circumstances. I'm sure we'll have pleasant sex afterward. Keep looking at watch with flashlight, and at 5:20 there's a knock on everyone's door. I've been farting with an awful fishy smell, and my bowel movement is rather loose, so I'm observing it. Thumbs hurt rather a lot when I do things like hold the notebook to write while I shit. Must remember to take Bonine! At least they arranged for us to have lights! Full moon tonight, last night's clouds obscured sunset and moon. All out at 5:45 onto bus that leaves at 5:48. Onto VERY EDGE of pier and watch sea lions cavorting off side. Five people into Zodiac and to Vertigo (oh, I find Bonine in bag at 5:55), large public area, four tiny cabins. Consternation. I get Dick. Breakfast of FRESH pineapple, FRESH, NATURAL blackberry juice, and ham/pepper omelette. Delores and Michael don't eat eggs. Tea for me. Climb to top cabin and Juan Carlos says we're on Resting Cloud TODAY at Hood Island. Leave 6:55AM and hit swells south of San Cristobal at 7:15. All talking. By 9AM we're all talked out. J Marie has been sick 2-3 times. Eric sacked out, Michael dozing, Kali and I on bench. I took videos behind, bracing for dips and rolls. I do lightwork and think of piracy. Full-moon day. 9:02 still no Hood. Two dolphins leaping off right side, and three "maybe" albatrosses easily outrunning ship, which is sailing due south. Darker clouds to either side, San Cristobal last seen around 8:15. Almost bright enough for sunglasses---very humid and warming up for AM snorkeling off Gardner Island, tiny speck off 113-meter-high Hood, sighted at 9:20, at Gardner at 10:15, land at 10:35 on Hood. Five go ashore, then the L.s and me. He says, "Wet landing," so I wear my old SHOES, but it's a smooth, sandy bottom, and it's a waste of sandy shoes! Hobble around getting feet dry in Vertigo towel, and leave stuff to be later nuzzled by sea lions. Into shoes and struggle across sand to sea lions, and FIRST marine iguanas, stark against rocks, and a pair of love-bubbling Sally Lightfoot crabs. Lots and lots of footage of seals tumbling in the surf and iguanas sunning. Back at 11:45 (having been told 11:30 by Juan Carlos, talking to his girlfriend, guide on Nortada, that seems to bear 8-10 surly Frenchmen) to beach, saying FIRST back should be SNORKELERS, so five of us hop aboard and back to Vertigo to commandeer first cabin on left and tear bags apart to get out snorkel stuff, thinking we'll PACK it onto beach. NO, we're going to ROCKS off BOAT, so I put stuff on and get good pair of size-nine flippers. Juan Carlos insists I wear them IN the Panga (their word for the Zodiac), so I do, but no one ELSE does and I feel foolish. Near rocks we're told to jump in. I put feet in and it doesn't feel so bad; everyone else leaps in. I gather courage, adjust mask and snorkel, and jump in. PANIC! I gasp and taste salt water. It's so cold I feel gripped by a force I just want to AVOID. Swim away and swim back, debating RETURNING to Zodiac---but shivering while the rest swim? I try to calm down and finally start to look around. Small, black fish with white markings come to view and I start watching them. There's a large, black, bull-headed fish with an INCREDIBLY purple-blue eye. Small schools of white and yellow fish dart about. I get engrossed and feel better. Kicking, I move along perimeter of rocks against which the waves dash with foam underwater. Larger schools of gray fish with round bodies and three dots over tail (I thought Dick said "Sergeants," but they're yellow-tailed surgeonfish, called "Chancho," Prionuris laticlavius). Then there's an incredible black fish with GLOWING SAPPHIRES set along the front part of the body. Another school of foot-long surgeonfish appears to be herded by two extraordinarily PRECISELY-MARKED King Angelfish "Pez bandero" Holocanthus passer with distinct areas of orange and yellow and white and black which make it look like a late-Matisse collage. [But now writing and ship's motion makes me get another Bonine. Decide to sit MORE STRAIGHT FORWARD.] A sealion, formerly glimpsed on the rocks, now splashes deep underwater nearby. Later it buzzes Eric. Large parrotfish sweep below. Lots of patterns and colors of fish in clear water---visibility at least 40 feet, few small pieces of crap later turn into a cloud of half-inch fish: an eye followed by a transparent tail, hundreds moving in balletic unison. I keep glancing up and see them moving away, so I kick in their direction, longjohns keeping legs comfortable, black socks perfect in flippers, only arms cold and a dash of cold on my head as I look DOWN rather than ahead. Mask has to be adjusted; I think my mustache and gasping let in the water that I feel constantly in my nose, worrying me until I find I can breathe ONLY through my mouth. There's fluid, but when I suck it back it's only my saliva. Only once did the snorkel-end, protected, seem to ship salt-water that I tried, I guess successfully, to blow out. Little seaweed, lots of rocks, some sandy bottoms, large rock-plateaus with most fish, and Eric sees the biggest (it grows from one to two feet through the evening) lobster he's ever seen. Glasses seem perfect for views; I don't know that the left side of my neck is being burned. We leaped in at 12:30 and at 1PM I hear a whistle: look up and everyone's IN the Panga. Kick over and try to pull myself up, but I'm exhausted. "How do I get in?" "We'll pull you." They try, then shout, "Kick," and I propel myself upward like an emerging penguin and flop aboard, flippers awkward. We're all delighted, and it's 1 and we're starved. Feel relieved that THAT unknown worry has been experienced and conquered! Clamber onto slippery back deck and to room to take off wet clothes---didn't even NEED towel for warmth in boat. Grab another dry towel, warmed from sun---which NOW comes out after having been clouded over all AM---and dry myself off. Hear Delores mention "shower" and of course I must have one. Delores and Michael quarrel about finding shampoo; two bathrooms are full, so I climb to top to get hangers for my clothes to dry atop. Down to find Delores exiting, and she TELLS me she left shampoo in the shower JUST as I'd resigned myself to using SOAP, since my shampoo wasn't in my dop kit---HATE not having UNPACKED. Shampoo, condition, and shower, bottom full of soapy water, and back to dress, last to lunch of soup, tasty fried fish, and peas and carrots and salad. Soda for dryness, and a beer. J Marie not eating, still sick. After lunch at 2:05 Juan Carlos says we'll have briefing on Hood walk from Something Bay at 2:45, so I lie to rest, feeling tired but better. Out at 2:45 to NO briefing, so eat nuts and chips and dried limas, both green and toasted, in bowls. Shoes off for wet landing, rolling up white pants, slathering sunscreen on arms and face: Michael red, Eric positively ORANGE. First group goes before I can put all my stuff into one bag---the Resting Cloud is FIXED and we'll have DINNER on her tonight! Second group preceded by big white boat from Nortada---it seems we'll have them along ALL the time for safety, in case something happens to either, a Quasar Nautica practice that at FIRST is depressing but later sounds GOOD to me. Land at rock-rimmed beach at 3 with seals, nesting and courting blue-footed and white-footed (masked) boobies, lots of the scavenging birds that Juan Carlos says are awful: attack young of anything, kill young to eat them, break eggs, etc. Lots of shots and French-speaking group goes off with Juan Carlos's girlfriend, with whom he sat on the sand and chatted most of the morning. I'd forgotten to recharge my battery at lunch! Start walking about 3:15 and it's INCREDIBLE: rocks COVERED with birds (while pelicans and frigatebirds fly over), shitting and cawing and knocking bills, and path displays loads of lizards, from three inches to a foot, and then we see MASSES of marine iguanas, red and green and crested and black, singly as well. LONG walk to 6:45 (6PM supposed limit of time) and get to blowhole, sunset vistas, 3-4 albatrosses, just as my camera battery expires. Take about three rolls of film, having trouble making change. Back in dimness, Juan Carlos warding off possessive sea lion from biting those on narrow trail he's ATHWART, and Delores snaps at him for having to clamber over lava-rocks to avoid a seal pup. I'm VERY tired, happy to have this as conditioner for Alcedo CLIMB. Michael and Delores are slow, wanting to be last off, and we get to Nortada boat. I'm next to last of a bad lot of French, and they're back and we're back and GASP at day as I get stuff together outside and closed up for transfer. Light nearing IS Resting Cloud, and she arrives at 7:30 and we're onto a polished-wood ship, with dining table, Picture of dining table aboard Resting Cloudthat looks older and more cramped than the Vertigo. Women choose, and they assign J Marie to the front, Michael and Delores to the front, and L.s and Kali and Eric take the back, so I'm stuck with the "Engine Room." Dinner with toast and introduction of six hands: Juan Carlos, Nelson the captain, Alberto the cook, B. the outside guy, and two other hands, one a Panga pilot. Good shrimp and potatoes and green beans and salad, and great chocolate ice cream/mousse for dessert. At 9:45 they suggest rummy but I say I'm to bed. Brush teeth and get to roasting bed at 10, fearing fumes: they said air conditioner STILL wasn't OK, better tomorrow. I fall asleep instantly, but wake at 1:45, feeling AWFUL. Open door for coolth---there's WATER on the floor of the john. Is boat sinking? Pee and there's no water flowing IN, to the toilet, to FLUSH it. So I OPEN it (the valve) and it works. But come back at 3 and there's MORE water trickling---the bowl's OVERFLOWED! So I CLOSE valve and pump it all out! [Ask at 1:15 and find there's a VALVE missing; they'll replace it and I can leave it OPEN/CLOSED?---I'll have to ask THEM]. Think in agony to move UPSTAIRS, but someone's sleeping on the LONG table, and two bodies (I guess the Captain and the Guide) are on the "lounge beds" in the Pilot House, which seems to be THEIRS, not ours, even though it has the racks for our SHOES, which we take off EACH time we come in; NO shoes on the ship! So I just leave the DOOR open and it seems to make it better but I still can't SLEEP. Cut TWO Flents 2/3 size, one for each ear, to cut down noise, then take two sleeping pills, each needing a search through luggage not quite settled yet, since we were toasting before I put it all away. Quite miserable at 2:45 when ship STARTS, the SMELL grows, and the noise and rocking becomes DISTINCT. UGH! Finally drop off as, I hope, the sleeping pills take effect. End of a LONG day.

THURSDAY, 10/24/91: Wake at 5AM, feeling VERY tired, and get out to lounge, since when I WAKE I look across and see the waiter who'd been sleeping on the dining table just getting up, probably because of me. Try to catch up with writing, but others are up and talking and our 7AM breakfast is moved up to 6:45. I'm still moving things around, thinking there's been no announcement, and Juan Carlos says he's leaving at 8 for a wet landing! Did I not hear or did he not say? First Hood landing at Gardner Bay, second at Punta Suarez. [First Floreana at Punta Ayora, second (mailbox) at Punta Cormorant.] RUSH to get stuff together with shoes and towel and come by FAR the last into the Panga.Picture of boats in Galopogas Other boats there, too, and Juan Carlos talks with his damn girlfriend while Eric and Michael and I cluster around a shallow inlet with crabs, brown anemones that curl up into kidney-like lobes when touched, and little pools with sea urchins. Along the beach to a "display" of urchin mouthpieces and pencil-quills and green spines, and pinhead pieces of green glittering olivine. To the lake to see the flamingoes, unique on islands. The French group hogs the shore, having chased the dozen-or-so mating groups to the far shore. I fuss and fume and steam until they finally move away. My long lens is fine, and Eric wanders out for a close-up, adding scale. Little stilt feeds. Around to far shore, French group wandering to OTHER shore, and Juan Carlos waves at THEM and I think he's waving at ME to come back to logs above beach, probably the no-tourist line. Try to get away from them but they follow everywhere, and back at the path a THIRD group files down to the beach. Delores and J Marie say, "He wants us to gather," and our group returns to the foot of the path and Juan Carlos goes off with his girlfriend to round up HER passengers. I spit out, "I'm doing all I can NOT to be pissed," and no one else seems to support me, J Marie observing, "She can't keep her group under control." I snap back, "It's HER group, he's supposed to be OUR guide!" Delores looks at me sympathetically and Michael, as usual, stays out of it. Juan Carlos then tries to find some stingrays for our group, and the others tag along. I'm furious! Go up the path by myself to be alone, and there are birds on the trail that the others had chased away. Start filming, but Eric and Kali come quickly up behind me, and as I photograph something they move PAST me and scare things away. Juan Carlos catches up with me and says he UNDERSTANDS my gripe: HE'D rather be alone, too, but on some future islands we may have TEN groups vying for space! I say, with my pointedness, "But you have ONE group, not THREE groups," and he probably figures I'm in a jealous sexual pet over the biggest sea lion on the beach. I keep saying, "I'd like to be FIRST to a site, not following ANOTHER." He says, "If I WAITED for them to leave, there's a THIRD group breathing down our necks." He also says he'll try to get us in earlier, and he in the afternoon FOLLOWS my suggestion by GIVING the orientation on Punta Cormorant ON the beach, NOT on the ship, where, as I put it, "We just stare at each other and not at things on the beach." He puts his hand on my shoulder at the end, saying he understands, but could I please be a bit more patient. I feel better, and when we get back to the beach, he tells the THIRD group to stay AWAY from the lake for a bit, and we go down AGAIN to take photos, and the people in the other group, led I'm sure by the snotty girlfriend, say, "Make way for Monsieur," in French, about me, and I duck my head and pass as if everything were normal. Back to the ship and dash to get ready to snorkel from the Panga around the rocks in the harbor, and I'm FIRST dressed and getting my perfect-fit flippers, loading them into a milk carton for lowering into the boat. I'm first in, others behind, I leaving camera with Mary to take photos of us loading Panga. Off to the forbidden sea-lion beach, Picture of "forbidden Sea-Lion beachand over with an ENORMOUS gasp, hanging onto the Panga ropes trying to get my breath from the cold, then dive in at 11:24. Brilliant blue stars, fat red stars, the same surgeonfish herded by angelfish, solitary puffers, and a seal actually SWIRLS AROUND me, turning to look as I turn to look at HIM. More schools of brown-striped snappers, and I float WITH them, moving with the current, as they break ranks to feed, darting downward in unison as some shadow darkens the surface. Sunlight comes out in shafts that brighten the surface as undulating waves against which tiny, white flecks look more like FEATHERS than detritus. Keep looking up for foam from waves against rocks, once being almost driven toward one, turning on side to kick around it, hoping not to skin knees on it. Go over rocks, touching with hands, looking at smaller fish taking refuge in lava holes. Once got caught in actual current between island and rocks, rushing me out to sea, and I tired myself kicking in the middle before it occurs to me to get CLOSER to the island, where current would be LESS, and in fact it dies OUT. Wide berth to seal beach where Juan Carlos said males will ATTACK interlopers, and to rock at OTHER side, where I find hundreds from many schools diving up and down eating goodies swept between the rock and the island. Great watching fish-shapes from BACK as they rise and fall to catch in their mouths what catches their eyes. Go to FRONT of them and turn to see all the forward-pointing eyes and gaping and gulping mouths, batfish spreading out their short, neck-centered fins. GREAT views that I repeat and repeat, coming up to see two, then three, then four people in Panga, then return when I think I'm last, but they say Eric's still out, so I go back down. Later write the following from the fish book: Bull-Headed: Bump-Headed "Bumphead Parrotfish Scarus pearico. Bicolor parrotfish Scarus rubroviolaceus (male is BLUE, female is RED). Bluechin parrotfish Scarus ghibban (male pink under, blue-green top). Sunset wrasse---starts life as FEMALE and changes LATER to different-colored male. THINK I see gold-rimmed surgeonfish. What looked like batfish, Ogcocephalus darwini, "lionlike" on bottom. Puffer may here be called porcupinefish, Diodon holocanthus. Could have seen "Violet front, yellow band, red head, and blue tail SUPERMALE configuration of rainbow wrasse." The MASS school must be brown-striped snapper, to six inches, distinctly schooling. "Golden eye" identifies grunt, golden-eye, Haemulon scudderi, FOR eye. Largish silver fish may be JACKS. MAY have been a black triggerfish, but it was more like a blue-edged black angelfish. Bullseye, or concentric, puffer is most COMMON, but DID I see it? The fish book was in the boat's library, but Eric still had it out, and I had to ask 3-4 times for it. Back into boat, exhausted and exhilarated, at 12:04. Pin things to deck ropes and strip and shower, water coming JUST when I need it. Next landing on Punta Cormorant for Mailbox, and THAT takes us just ten minutes and we're back to SHIP! THEN sail to Puerto Ayora 3-6:30, and we try tape on TV and there's not enough POWER. I review ALL the tapes 1-3 (put on page 1.5 until I can move it to END, someplace), taking two times out for DOLPHINS! I take a rest in top bunk in room 1, BETTER than 5 at Engine room, until orientation at 6PM for next day, then into Puerto Ayora, lots of ships around, and dinner, after which I'm exhausted, and EVERYONE seems to be going to bed, so I do my teeth well as J Marie prepares for bed, and I climb in around 9PM; it's refreshing to sleep under the open hatch. Have SOME trouble getting to sleep due to the strange new bed, but do so fairly quickly.

FRIDAY, 10/25/91: Wake about 5AM with a strongly sexual dream and lie there thinking I'm not QUITE where I want to be (see previous): Manzanilla poisoned Floreana lady. BUTTON mangrove has POINTED leaves, WHITE mangrove is ROUNDED. Black mangrove is the third kind. 11:15AM, sitting on bench in Main Square, Puerto Ayora. No big maps. Two small cuts on right knee from fall, left ankle feeling MUCH better when I sit. Prince of Luxembourg causes great fuss: HE'S seeing the incubators this morning, so Linda can't be available for US till 1PM. Then Juan Carlos rents a BUS to highlands of Santa Cruz, leaving Santa Fe for tomorrow, maybe losing Chinese Hat. Lots of souvenir shops closed; Bank of Pacific huge new building with iguanas basking on concrete; little boy, I guess thinking to chase them toward me, steps on a big one's tail as it flees to avoid him. All buy books and postcards across from Hotel Galapagos, where we'll be staying later, and the PAVED street roars with busses, cars, and motorbikes. Cruising might be easy here, cute middle-aged guy eyes me, looks ahead, then eyes me again. He wasn't hustling tourists, either. Lots of military uniforms around, near the sign for Destalamente Naval. BUSSES exist to transport people to the other end of the island, and lots of people ride around in open backs of trucks. Eric and Kali look at photo books---Olympus Cameras is buying all Eric's film from the trip, and Kali is his "bag toter and reflector holder." They straggle in for the 11:30 Panga (bar La Panga) back to boat for lunch. Kali and Eric come to chat, then wander away. Bed last night SO relaxing that I woke at 6:05 and wondered precisely WHAT I was doing here. No doubt islands have INCREDIBLE animals, but I'm ALREADY jaded with sea lions and Yellow Warblers. picture of a Yellow WarblerThe Galapagos Turtles this morning, surely I thought beforehand, would be interesting, but there's so much PEOPLE chatter: J Marie REALLY chews your ear off WHENEVER she can, even when I wander away from her to photograph. Voices will ALWAYS be on my TAPES! But it's all certainly extraordinary. Good breakfast (ALL meals are good, imaginative, and widely appreciated DESPITE the fact that J Marie is vegetarian, Delores eats no tomatoes or eggs or fish, but shrimp is OK, etc). Onto Panga for rare DRY landing on slippery steps of dock, but we HERE have to put on LIFE jackets (as we do in every PORT!), which DOES remind me of Antarctic Zodiac-rides! Past LOTS of ships in LARGE sea-swell in OUTER harbor, to INNER, tiny, calm harbor at lowest tide, marks on mangrove at LEAST six feet up. Onto dock after other shouting groups and onto trail to Darwin Station, where we tour an interesting museum after photographing many LABELED plants and trees, and shooting a huge marine iguana right at entrance pier, romantic under lowering mangrove branches. Lots of photos of TEXT, videocam SO convenient, and then Juan Carlos has bad news: the Prince of Luxembourg (who later turns out to be on, or even President of, the Darwin Station Board of Directors) has dropped in for a visit this morning, so we won't be able to see the incubators this morning with Linda, as hoped, and there's no SECOND herpetologist available for our tour. This brings enormous consternation to Delores and Michael. They KNOW they'll be able to come back the week after next when we're at the Hotel Galapagos, but know also that the L.s, the Komodo people, WON'T be with us then. We'd scheduled snorkeling with the sea lions at Santa Fe this afternoon, but we can't see the incubators until 1PM (they INSIST on lunching 12:30-1, and are scheduled all AROUND that time), look till 2, and it takes 2.5 hours to get to Santa Fe, which puts it too late, around 5PM, for being in the water! They look to rearrange everything by putting in the highlands this afternoon, push off Santa Fe and South Plaza to tomorrow, and maybe dropping the Chinese Hat, or squeezing it in with something else. Lots of talk, and Michael is very concerned about possible concessions in FUTURE planning, and later Delores says she's getting so pissed she's thinking of demanding a large REFUND of the "$30,000" she's paid for the Resting Cloud. So they agree, everyone leaves Van Sicklen building but me, and as I leave at 9:15 I don't look where I put my left foot as I step off the entrance-porch, and I twist it under me, foot flopping inward so that the outer edge of my upper left foot takes the worst of it, with a secondary hurt in my right knee where it hits the dirt (thankfully in my heavy denims, rather than my white cotton lightweights), and tomorrow I'll have a half-dollar-size circle of five small cuts already scabbed over. I HEAR bones crinkling in my foot, but hope it's only JOINTS popping, not bones breaking (though Delores keeps talking about breaking the base of my fifth metatarsal). Fall to the ground with (no pun intended) a sinking feeling: "Oh, no, will this mean the trip is over for me?" as two Spanish-speaking guides rush over to help me up. I had my video camera in my right palm and it flipped out, leaving my right palm free to hit the sandy ground and get embedded grains that I hope I scratch all out. Then to another (formerly hatchery) building with displays, and then out to a feeding area for four adults, munching away, luckily, at their twice-a-week feeding, otherwise they'd be scattered through the huge compound. Next are three females with one male, then others brought from various islands for maintenance breeding. Out about 11 and walk back past the manzanilla poison tree; I keep taking pictures, then to the road where we find the Hotel Galapagos, everyone going into the WWF building for T-shirts and Delores's iguana, floppy in black felt. I keep looking for a map but can't find one. Nothing really strikes me, though I AM impressed with the range of BOOKS available. Sit finally in the central square and write (F, above). Panga returns at noon and we're back to the boat for lunch, then by Panga to the CLOSER entrance to the Darwin, now into the central area to meet dykey Linda, who takes us into the hatcheries. Lots of one- and two-year-olds, lots of photos, and OLD incubators. Then past the corrals we'd already seen and through a locked gate to the inner sanctum, where they keep land iguanas. LOTS of huge yellow- and green-crested monsters, lots of photos, and lots of talk. Linda encourages donations and on the way out at 2:15 we pass the brother of a Cincinnati zookeeper who has a shirt of Komodo dragons that the L.s react to. Again to the Hotel Galapagos, walking becoming painful, and this time we go IN for 700-sucre Coca-Colas in spacious lounge looking over agave and bay through huge windows. Get second Coke---each time he has to RETURN to office for 300-sucre change for 1000 bill. Will be nice place to stay. Bus arrives about 2:30 and Kali and Eric pile into back, so I get right front seat, great for viewing outskirts of Puerto Ayora, only 3000 four years ago and now around 9000 people. Cloudy, but he says we're lucky it's not raining in the Highlands, as it usually is. Higher into hills, passing lush flowers around poor tin houses, and balsa trees. Off onto red-mud road through barbed-wire gate to the Divine Ranch, long drive in rutted fields, glimpses of Crimson Flycatchers, and off at foot of trail. Walk through wet grasses and I'm ahead when I spot the first Galapagos Turtle-shell off the side of the path. It hisses as it draws in its head, Juan Carlos saying it's not a menace, only the sound of the air leaving the shell as the head is drawn in. See a few more here and there, then over a fence there are TWELVE by count, and Eric later estimates 30, and Michael goes off on his own for MANY. I hurry ahead for MANY first contacts with the ET models, and others follow behind, then go up to restaurant for grapefruit juice from a cooler and special mountain coffee, the first of which is tart and good and I don't taste the second. L.s are there after Delores and I exhaust what appears to be the largest, and I later wander back and find two more head to tail, but the first one is totally "in" and the guy behind seems pissed. Finally Michael and Delores join the group on the veranda of the rancho and Juan Carlos appears with the bus and we're back to town about 6PM, phoning for Panga through radio that doesn't quite work. Back to ship in near-dark and have dinner almost immediately, and then Delores says we can watch slides, pleasantly saying that I can start, so I sort of steal a lot of ohs and ahs by giving the first penguin and ice pictures, and the main comments about their professional and Velvia shots are on the incredible color and clarity. Lots of people doze off during their 40-50 slides after my 30 or so, but then Juan Carlos announces that he's going in to the Halloween party tonight, who wants to come? Kali and Eric and I! We play cards a bit with the L.s, Mary dropping out and I coming in, and I've been drinking Southern Comfort, so am feeling NO pain! Two full tumblers and I'm slurring my speech. I win after Kali gets three scoreless games, and then at 10:30 we're into the Panga for the NIGHT ride through the harbor, quite thrilling. I take my video camera, and when we arrive at the Disco some guy is using HIS, so I feel permitted. Juan Carlos gets us admitted free to the Disco as his friends---no, there's a 2000-sucre charge that I PAY for him! There’s a line of white-faced Raggedy Anns in strange dresses, an iguana roars (to Delores's disgust: "He only hisses! Did he blow salt through his nose?"), and the bikinied "beauty" goes to the Caballeros (mens) room! Couple guys may be gay. We ask for beers but they "have none." I ask for vodka and naranja and everyone agrees, but when we try to pay, "It's onto Juan Carlos's bill." Drink and try to photo, and it's loud, with lots of strobe lights amid the darkness. Sit and stand and bob with the infectious Spanish disco tunes, catching some on tape, hoping the iguana comes out OK. At 11:30 we start thinking of leaving, Juan Carlos dancing with his former girlfriend, who's now married and OUT as a guide for Quasar Nautica. He says we can stay until 12, and we watch as the prizes are announced and leave as the curfew means "lights out" except for the disco with its own generator. Depart at 12:05 for a magical ride across the bay (and pitching in 5000 sucres for two of our four drinks), and loudly into J Marie's but she doesn't wake at 12:30. Up at 2:35 for Lomotil (nothing came of it) and Bonine.

SATURDAY, 10/26/91: At 8AM I write: Ship started at 4:30AM, says Mary, got into Halloween party at the Puerto Ayora Disco at 10PM, loud, taped music, chorus line of 8-10 Raggedy Anns in whiteface with cupid's-bow lips, Mother Hubbard hats, and blue polka-dot pinafores, the manager of Hotel Galapagos is an iguana, and a "rise-again" coffin has a cock inside. Back outside at dot of 12 as lights go off. MAGICAL boat to ship: magical in the darkness. Tape the trip over the sound of the Panga motor. Cruise into Santa Fe for breakfast and out for another wet landing, and up a STEEP cliff where my SWEAT condenses and causes a symbol that only my reading my instruction book AFTER tells me about as too much moisture. Lots and lots of land iguanas and when I show my video (one whole hour!) that night, I'm verbally slapped on the wrist for tempting the iguanas with plucked flowers. I keep thinking I've SEEN it all, but there are still cute sea lions and perky lava lizards and floating birds to capture again and again. VERY hot and I keep camera at arm's length afterward to keep it DRY. Lots of still photos as a consequence, but only when J Marie says she may BUY some of mine do I think I may even go through the UNMOUNTED stuff. Back to snorkel, FANTASTIC with one and then three seals, exhausting myself and WOLFING down a lovely shrimp buffet lunch, and then do a DRY landing on a jetty for orange and red susuvium plants and birds, birds, birds over steep cliffs for which I switch from telephoto to wide-angle lenses, getting them ALL salted up. GREAT views and shots and stories with frigatebirds fighting over a seal placenta and mother not quite figuring how to nurse her newborn. I'm ALWAYS behind, and many leave at 5 and we're left till 6, sitting on beach and gazing at ruling-seal of jetty, Sally Lightfoot crabs, and fearless Yellow Warblers, and lots and lots of marine iguanas. Back aboard by 6:30, lots of talk about tomorrow while I borrow a drop of their lens cleaner and a lone tissue for all my lenses. Started showing my last video to good reception, stop for dinner and it puts EVERYONE to sleep by 8:15! I brush my teeth thoroughly, sorry I have nothing to watch, and go outside to ALMOST see a totally naked Mary going to bed, and Delores's head (I don't want to see any more), and open crew hatches (later I saw that the two bunks literally meet in a point at the front of the hull). Sit on the farthest point and ASTOUNDED to hear barks, whimpers, coughs, croaks, snufflings, and burps from the shore! GOT to RECORD this. Meet Michael and HE comes out, too, and we're looking over the side and see GREEN PHOSPHORESCENT flashes near what turns out to be the anchor chain. I hear little SPLASHES and think I see a SHAPE in the water, saying that I'm really feeling SPOOKED. Few on OTHER side and few far out, but when I go to back I find the SUMP OUTLET stimulates the phosphorescence. Later Juan Carlos says there are THREE kinds of bioluminescence, some an INCH in size. Read directions and put the video controls up to MAXIMUM light, but haven't played it yet. In about 9:30 and crawl into bed, but up again at 11 when the ship starts up, to pee, and decide to use HER john, since I decide the little irritating noise comes from her CLOSET, moving a hanger, AND I'd stumbled into the TOES of the guy on one side of the long table. Don't quite shut the door and the ship gives a lurch and the door SLAMS shut, bringing J Marie out of a sleep with a pinwheel arm to each door. Off to sleep and up at 6:15.

SUNDAY, 10/27/91: Find her up already, and she and Michael are reading by themselves in the lounge. I write some at 6:50AM: Immense dream of inventive man whose car was wrecked when he parked it at the corner on a hill and it slid backward into an intersection, where it was demolished by a truck. It was his work area, and I retrieved two objects, one of which I forget, the other was a tiny, rubber-plastic toy that loped and leapt and crept forward at random moments, and I turned it over to find plastic cage within cage, separating little lips like labia to reveal inner workings that contributed to its varying gait. I felt privileged to meet and help him. To summarize 10/27 so far: we're eating by 6:50 off Tower, and Juan Carlos says we can go in EARLY, like 7:30. Do so and beat everyone there. To end of short lava-trail and back to beach at 9:45, saying some can return to boat and others can swim or snorkel. I do one side and then they decide to return, almost forgetting me at 10:30, and I shower and hang stuff out and chase boobies off bowsprit and shoot Michael and Juan Carlos about to skin-dive, and pulling up anchor, and get beer and write this at 11:30. Breakfast was orange juice, melon pieces (the FRUIT salad last night was great, though the "steak" was tough, but the French fries were good), and PANCAKES, quite good. Out, as noted, BEFORE 8, recording date and time on my video for the first time, and practically ignore seals on beach and marine iguanas on path, but nesting swallowtail gulls, frigatebirds, and red-footed boobies are irresistible. CLUTCHES of black marine iguanas on far rocks and LOTS of seabirds wheeling off the cliffs. Back at 10 and start snorkeling, but we're quickly back to ship. I try videotaping Michael skin-diving but am content with Juan Carlos's body. I keep writing after showering and hanging out clothes to dry, and lunch is at 12 of fried chicken, good heart of palm salad at the start, and pea and carrot salad, and I drink a beer (they have an honor system that I sometimes honor) and two cokes, quite full, and Michael comes back having seen a ray, a school of large fish, and a sea turtle---ah, as we Pangaed out this morning we saw a PAIR of turtles we probably interrupted copulating! And now at 1:50 Eric and Dick and Mary are napping, J Marie and Delores are sitting on the floor doing camelback humps and stretches, Kali just gives up to nap, and I'm feeling stuporous myself. Caught up to date NOW, on this EIGHTH day of trip, almost 1/3 through, as well as almost HALF through the ship-time. On 33rd page, about three per day! Lie down for rest at 1, seeming to need it, and at 2:30 they try starting engines to go to Prince's Stairway, and FINALLY succeed (as I do lots of lightwork) at 2:50! Up to take Motrin, pee, and change from shorts to long pants for afternoon's hike. Off on the Panga at 3:10 to see the Reina Silvia's boat cruising the cliff-sides, so we diagonal across the bay directly to Prince Phillip's stairs, just a cleft in the cliff-rock with a mooring post at the base. Relatively easy 70-foot climb to arid plateau-top covered with nesting masked boobies with frigatebirds thrown in, with an occasional iguana to delight Delores. Through thickets of desert branches---last El Nino was nine years ago, so a big one is due soon and this, the end of the dry season, particularly dry---to see nests in trees and on ground with even a NEWLY hatched chick with no feathers yet, up to almost flying juveniles. Lava rocks underfoot like an ill-made jigsaw puzzle. No owls. No other groups until the VERY end, when they're blocked by our return over a narrow bridge connecting two clefts. I'm out ahead, wandering slowly, taking in the desolation, existentially wondering about my presence, rather disappointed not to see LOTS of the 700,000 pairs present, but the Panga trip back with lots of birds on the cliff from 5-5:45 was glorious with cactus, tiny trees, pelicans, lots of water birds and even a few land birds, and back to play some rummy, dinner of beef stew with cling peaches for dessert, and watch the first hour of Alice's tape of Antarctica, that I brought, before everyone falls asleep about 9PM.

MONDAY, 10/28/91: Wake at 5:15 to pee, having wakened previously with almost-strong wave-slaps. Up at 6:40 to write to now at 6:55 and French toast is served alongside watermelon after orange juice, with hot water provided for tea. Second order of French toast goes down easily, and Juan Carlos suggests and Delores mandates we sail to Black Turtle Cove FIRST, since there's no sun on the North Seymour dry landing. It takes an hour, and of course as we start up, the sun comes out on our landing beach left behind. I get up onto very TIP of bowsprit and get to see a sea turtle and a huge manta ray bounding away from the ship. Sail from 7:45-8:30, and everyone's in the Panga after I put on LONG-sleeved shirt for first time (put on the sweatshirt for the AM breeze), putting sunscreen only on face and hands. Put shoes on but others are barefoot or in sea booties. My going LAST means I have a FRONT seat until Eric legs into the bow as we enter the harbor at 8:45. I miss all the golden rays and eagle rays, but get lots of mating turtles and white-tipped sharks. Red mangrove all over, Sally Lightfoots, and one sea iguana. Lava herons and pelicans lodge on cactus and mangrove. Another boat behind us in the outer bay, but we have the inner coves to ourselves, when we're not chasing Dick's camera-top and then BOTTOM camera case overboard, dodging mangrove arms, one of which seems to hit J Marie in the pregnant stomach! Lots of camera talk and about all I say is, "There's a turtle." Three-four mating pairs, some with three or four in a row, but top one is "only masturbating himself," as Juan Carlos says with obvious relish. He chatted with me on the bowsprit about my NYC life, and his mother owns a Galapagos travel agency and operates a hotel/SAETA laundry franchise he'd like to expand. But in Quito. He's coming to the States in January, but I don't rise to the bait. Seeing the turtle reminds me of the one I saw yesterday on the way to the steps. We stay out till 10:45, just over two hours, getting very hot, and by 11:25 I've had two Cokes, four chocolate-chip cookies, and three pieces of cheese with crackers. Women talking of laundry, while all joke with Eric's wearing the same shirt every day on the trip so far. Now we're on our way back to where we started this morning. I finish FIVE rolls of TV film, I GUESS starting on last, or sixth. By 12 lunch I find I have SEVEN rolls of 14 hours, having finished ten hours already. After lunch I check through first three to find I've gotten them RIGHT, and at 2:15 everyone starts getting ready and I dash through to be last AGAIN on boat at 2:30. Another rocky landing that everyone negotiates safely, and we're into an almost deserted blue-footed booby hatchery, only a few adults and juveniles left. VERY narrow path, and by the time we get to the frigatebirds, Juan Carlos's constant comment is about staying on the paths. There are a few full-bellowsed males, but mostly distant and behind branches, and I must constantly "push" my lens to focus on the BIRD and not the BRANCHES. Delores gets chewed out for something: "You've been here before, you should know better," to which she clearly manipulatively says, "I didn't NOTICE." Hear amplified announcements for the 100-150 passengers on the Santa Cruz, where the passengers are divided into groups for Zodiacs and seatings: Albatrosses, Boobies, Cormorants, Dolphins, Egrets, and Flamingos. One group AHEAD of us, speaking German, had an inquisitive college-age fellow and his girlfriend, but he really LOOKED at me. Out to beach as it begins to be loaded with at least four groups of 15 from the Santa Cruz. News of an old Frenchman from the Nortada who's in a local hospital dying of a heart attack. Over a HUNDRED marine iguanas singly and in groups on beach, with sea lions, birds, and warblers and finches, and ice plants. I get ENTHRALLED with a school of rays being caught by the breakers, and the fact that sea lions actually SURF through the transparent combers, but so rarely that they're almost impossible to photograph. Just when I'd KNOWN I had to CUT down, I take over 45 minutes today, mostly on empty BREAKERS. Toward sunset, seals come out to greet their pups, MORE rays, more birds, and delay return to LAST Panga at 6:05, after sunset between Daphnes, my battery expiring (with exposure experiments) as the light dies. It's cooler, and we both (Juan Carlos and I) have to pee. Back to wash, look at a pre-made TV tape on the video that WORKS from the START, and during the beer at dinner I get TIRED, hardly staying awake during preparation for tomorrow, brush teeth, and fall into bed above the already-asleep J Marie at 8:50PM! RIGHT to sleep!

TUESDAY, 10/29/91: Wake at 1:50 to pee, then at 5:50 to lie awake till J Marie goes to the john at 6:10 and I'm up and writing by 6:35, breakfast at 6:50. Finish bacon and eggs (and too-sweet passion-fruit juice) at 7:10, everyone still gabbing. Delores's accent GETting on my NER-VES. Interesting New York Review of Books dated October 24 on Ballard's Kindness of Women (meaning SEX), and at 7:40 catch up and prepare for landing. Pack and ready---and Juan Carlos wants our TAME tickets NOW! Board Panga at 8:25AM. Smooth ride across to Daphne Mejor, but the tide's OUT and I just CAN'T find the second foothold on the sheer rock-face of the landing. Finally stretch out and OOMPH my way up, and the rest is easy. Not many birds along the way, but there are boobies on eggs and chicks RIGHT on the foot-wide path, a great Tropicbird (THIS is what was on the nest in the cleft next to the blowhole!) in its cubbyhole, and only ONE shot of a distant one flying inside the caldera and one QUICK close-up in the air on the way back. To the rim after Dick falls and scratches his lower leg AGAIN. Juan Carlos gives the news that the Nortada heart attack was to a 48-year-old CREW member! Three of us older than THAT; Dick's birth year is 1929 in his book on the Taruhumara Indians, whose index I critique. Lots of dead birds and two puffed frigatebirds in the caldera, plus two egrets later. The boat WAS to have refueled in Baltra, but the round trip meant the boat would have returned at 1:30, so we get back down at 10:20 and return to the ship to sail to Baltra by 11, refuel, and HOPE to leave early enough to get to Bartolome by 2PM, early enough for two landings and swimming with the penguins! Quasar Nautica say they didn't even know J Marie was PREGNANT, and she certainly CAN'T climb Alcedo, so I'm the last AGAIN of us five, only Kali near, at 43, to my age, Delores and Michael in mid-thirties, and Eric "still" 25! Keep catching Eric "regarding" me, probably wondering what he can GET out of me, since he seems SO much an opportunist. He's now disgusted we're not doing anything, still loading fuel at 11:30, and Juan Carlos said he had to get permission even to walk on the BEACH, since Baltra looks SO militarily commercial. Film it anyway, just to "touch" it, since I feel they'll plead SPEED not to let us go ashore. Looking forward to Bartolome to extract me from the "wish the trip were over so we can get ON with it" feeling that's starting to show its ugly head. Delores walked past 6-7 times with laundry to dry on rail, keeping the clothespins full. Now 11:35 and we seem to be lining up for fuel? J Marie seems determined (since only we two sit around dining tables while the Spanish tapes blare from loudspeakers) to "entertain" me with talk, since everyone else is on deck. NOT ashore; I watch fueling (screwdriver jams too-wide hose into hole), and I actually READ. Lunch 1:10-1:35, take mosquito pill, pile togs into snorkel-basket, and ready for long afternoon. 2:15 SMOKE pours out of kitchen. Engine stops. Cooling system failed. I'm in the bunk 2:20-4:20. SAIL offshore Bartolome by 5:30. Sunset at 5:52, photoed. THEY play cards and I DON'T, because they don't ASK me! Pot-roast dinner and in rice I get a piece of broken GLASS and don't finish that OR poor Ecuador corn and cheese. Finish Antarctic video, Southern Comfort on canned strawberries good. Everyone to bed at 8:40: up tomorrow for coffee, 7AM landing, breakfast, 9:30 landing, lunch, two MORE landings! BUSY!

WEDNESDAY, 10/30/91: Up at 1:40 to pee, then at 5:30 to lie till 5:45, then to my bathroom to shit the good shit and dress in jeans and heavy socks and up with camera on deck for sunrise at 5:55. Clouds, wind, and gray. Record at 6:04AM. Toast and tea and coffee are out at 6:15, and I have four or five slices with butter, guava marmalade, and one drippy cherry honey. Three cups of tea and pee TWICE. Panga boards at 6:45, Delores and Michael last at 6:50, land at 7, and climb quickly past pioneer plants and lava tubes and aa and pahoehoe lavas and cinder cones and iron-rich colored rocks. Up scree, then sand, then log stairs, then actual plank stairway. Good view from top, two lighthouses, and photos without sun. Lots of tourist ships (ALL ships are tourist ships, even Tui de Roy's chartered ship for Malcolm Forbes was a tourist ship). Down quickly and into Panga at 7:50 for slow ride along rocks and cliffs for crabs, marine iguanas, lava herons, a blue heron, and one standing and two swimming penguins, to which I devote LOTS of film. Cool morning warms up a bit to take jacket off, and we're back to ship at 8:30 for toasted cheese sandwiches and orange juice followed by apricot juice, and Dick actually tries and approves of the jelly on toasted cheese, telling me HIS favorite sandwich: peanut butter and jelly, closed-faced, dipped into egg and fried like French toast. Have to try it. Catch up with this at 9:05AM, ready for a two-hour ride to Rabida, being told that Alcedo is TOMORROW! My foot is better, but by no means perfect. Hard day coming tomorrow. Put on bathing suit, listen to talk, sit outside for a bit, play solitaire, then we're there by 11:35. Check stuff in snorkel basket and put on socks to stand in sun outside as we approach Rabida. Along shore in Panga and see one penguin, but not any more. Land at 11:45 at far side and walk past salt lagoon with sea lion bachelors, a monster beach king, and a few females with nurslings. Pelicans nesting, but sea lions drove flamingos away. Green iguanas on rocks, some dead pelicans in nests, and rocks mark end of beach. Back to OTHER side to snorkel ONLY along rocks, NOT along beach or be attacked by male sea lions. (Eric said one swam toward him and opened his mouth just as he dove beneath Eric.) VERY clear water and sun catches blue-green GLINT in eyes of black wrasse. Spectacular! Many pairs of male/female parrotfish, the angelfish herding the brown-striped surgeonfish, the unidentified rose-bottomed brown fish, a number of zippy sea lions from a CAVE under the rocks. Eric points out a deadly Spiny Rockfish, and the seafloor is CARPETED with schools of brown-striped surgeons. Only marine iguanas I see are on rocks. Swim WAY around for half an hour and back AGAINST current, fighting cramps in lower calves. Delores has her period and isn't swimming (or eating lunch) at all. Back last, in time to see a juvenile Galapagos hawk after its mother flew away and before Eric chased the juvenile away by getting too close and spooking it. Back to ship at 2 for waiting bonito and rice appetizer and tomato, potato, and DARK fish (tuna?) with great platter of cut fruit: apple, tangerine, and grapefruit. Finish at 2:30, having hung snorkel clothes to dry and rinsed off with fresh hose water before SECOND snorkel at St. James Bay, said to be as clear, around 4PM. GREAT snorkel and walk to 6:05, back to boat for GREAT shower and dinner 6:45-7:15 and THEN hassle with packing---I finally take Michael's backpack---which lasts till 9:30! AND we're to be up at 5AM!!

THURSDAY, 10/31/91: Wake at 4:50, fruit and tea and tomatoes and cheese for breakfast. Last-minute fusses get us into boat at 5:40AM, luggage over first, and by the time I start up, last (having Juan Carlos redo my sleeping bag WITH the extenders), they're ALL ahead of me. Juan Carlos waits for me, I say he can go ahead, others get to top in three hours, I'm last before Michael at 10:40AM, in four hours and 40 minutes, "Faster than Barry Boyce." Take SOME video, but mostly agony, agony, agony, with my 35 pounds, though Michael has almost TWICE that with about 60 pounds! I leave water at base of hill: fuck 'em! Eric making BEAST of himself. Then I feel WORSE going to the "next camp," up and down four or five exhausting times; feel AWFUL! Put stuff down about 1PM and wander till 4PM along rim for garua wind and tortoises. Back to set up MY space by 4:45, no one BACK yet. Halos around sunset are fetching, but they joke at me for leaving water behind, so I have to scrounge for it, feeling like a thief. Dinner reasonably filling, and it doesn't get cold, thankfully, after the sun sets, though the wind leaves enough water to make EVERYTHING wet. I start fully clothed, finally taking off piece by piece until I'm almost in my underwear, and gratefully the sky is clear early on, so I can gaze up at the stars in the hopes of falling asleep, which I grimly know I probably won't do with any ease.

FRIDAY, 11/1/91: Up at 12:15, 1:20, 2:05, 3:40, 4:15, 5:40, and start back after breakfast at 6:50, getting to FIRST camp at 8, bottom of scree at 8:30, and onto ship at 11:45 after 2,100+ painful paces along the final stages of the beach. Lunch at 12:30 after I shower, then to flightless cormorant Gutheral (?) Point for blue heron and aa lava from 1:30-2, nap from 2 to 3:45, to James Bay GREAT to 6. Dinner of shrimp and noodles, with orientation at 7 for tomorrow, and fix EVERYTHING, wash white pants, take sleeping pills, and to bed at 8:05PM! Asleep QUITE quickly!

SATURDAY, 11/2/91: Heard motor start, some say VERY late, at midnight, and blessed oblivion till 5:05AM! NINE HOURS SLEEP! Leave and pee in MY room, pants still damp from "washing" last night, and out at 5:30 before sunrise to see NO whales as we pass the northwest corner of my trip. Sunrise almost cloudless at 5:50, reset my TIME which had been incorrect on the camcorder, and chat with J Marie as we sight Roca Redonda. Captain says we cross equator in half an hour, but do so closer to 7:15AM. Breakfast at 6:45, cereal and toast and pineapple and tea. Take pills, photo a bit, then dress in long sleeves and booties and sit on the bowsprit until the wind threatens to whip off my cap. Back to change into bathing trunks and damp white pants (almost completely dry after I wear them about ten minutes) and take a mosquito pill against flies at Punta Espinosa on Fernandina this morning (hope!) and get this out at 8AM, as boat rocks furiously and things bang around in cabin and halls, retrieve my sunscreen from the shelf of the upper cabin, be sure to take my LAST tape, since I'm within five minutes of end of tape 6, next to last, and finish this to date by 8:10AM, and Delores is taking sand from under Michael's moleskin---I'd better check that, too! She DOESN'T look under mine, just says it's sticking. I'd taken a Bonine at 5:30, for possibly rough passage around cape, but Juan Carlos says it's smoother than usual. Now 8:15, about an hour to landing, and I'm counting: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, only ONE full day afloat left. Hotel Galapagos will see me washing and hanging out clothes to dry! Wonders! The day after tomorrow! Again, that feeling of "enough" of the ship, but at James Bay last night it was total magic, possibly the best part of the trip: clouds revealing and concealing sunset, lots of birds in the skies, iguanas and seals and pelicans on horizon-rocks, great tide pools with anemones and snails and 6-7 sizes of crabs, even two warring schools of 3-4-inch fish tumbling in one area, roiling the surface, then glinting in the sun as they turn on their sides to feed, play, or kill. Quiet surf outside of cataracts into and out of connecting thirty-foot-deep grottos gouged in the aa lava, relieved by slick, ropy coils of pahoehoe. The dance of the red and the black crabs, the rings of tiny, white snails at various tidal levels, the linear "sandstone" (still lava) with waves from uplift, the bubbles and cracks and undulations and stone-churned cauldrons in the shore; the single, pair-with-nose-nestled-in-groin, and cozy-groups of 3-8 iguanas I could easily wander through for hours, and the others seem tranquil, too, though Juan Carlos has to show off by clapping to make a young sea lion leap into the air, after he'd pulled up a rock to reveal the slimy worms, anemones, sea slugs, crabs, and one large pencil sea urchin. Talking of snorkeling today, what to wear, and even the indomitable Delores is complaining about her sore toes, but we conclude it's not arthritis. Boat rocks harder, Fernandina large outside the window. At 8:35 decide to get sunscreened for the landing, BUT everyone starts shouting, "Dolphins!" and takes distant photos of Spinner Dolphins, white on bottom, and then there are close WHALES, maybe sei whales, two of them, and Juan Carlos hollers for the Panga, and Michael, J Marie, Eric and Kali go out to see, but I stay on bowsprit and see they don't see MUCH, from 8:45-9:25, and Michael says, "No closer view than from the ship; Juan Carlos jumped in and chased it away!" NOW sunscreen and we're still Fernandina bound at 10:05AM. Funny red spots on TOP of right foot; left foot still sore. Delores and Eric talking of what to do while we're in the Hotel Galapagos. Others read, I'm really glad it's getting to END. Off at 10:40 for dry landing that becomes wet when we find the tide higher than we thought. Iguanas, iguanas, and more iguanas. Dark from sea, light from sun, reddish, greenish, yellowish, fatter and longer than ever. Lots of photos, and then to tide pools and leave lava walk for afternoon, so back to bays to snorkel, getting wave-washed trying to find an exit to the rock-aisles, and lots of FISH, FOOD fish, and three seals at end play and play and PLAY with me. Finally out about 1:50, long-rocky, slow-surgey ride back to ship for 2PM lunch of chicken, cactus rice-cake, potato "pancake" one inch thick (like rosti, later!), and green bean and bacon salad. Lots of Coca-Cola. Talk is of immediate landing and at 2:40 we're back ashore, this time to walk an HOUR over the pahoehoe to its boundary with the aa lava, incredible ropy disks, plates, churns, arenas, chasms, amphitheaters and stairways. At last back to beach and I get enthralled with tide pool (after Juan Carlos leads us back to old pier, inhabited by three poor seals half-blind from fly-eye infection: VERY sad). Back to pool at 4:30 and sit till 6 while others go to other beach and some return to ship. I'm in heaven: starting with five cavorting seals, 100 predatory Sally Lightfoot crabs, an incredibly tame lava heron six inches from my foot, as was a Sally Lightfoot crab, and loads of iguanas swimming, eating, running, and snorting salt. Then the fish, crabs, and snails in the water, more seals, some WANTING something from me, made more poignant by the fact one is blind in one eye! And a black-and-white-topped bird that Juan Carlos thought might be a Wandering Tattler, but the drawing doesn't look like the evenly black-and-white-checkerboard wing-tops. Pelicans flying in echelon, boobies in clumps, others in swooping files. Magical moments, just sitting watching. But the iguanas are SNORTING for territory, the crabs EAT each other, the fish ATTACK, and the seal is half-blind. IS the world savage and evil? Are humans, as BAD as they are, the only moralists? Time to think may not be all to the good. Back at 6:10 to find EVERYONE at the table: four reading books, three writing journals, two staring into space, so I stop staring and get my journal out, too, to 6:40, when dinner's about ready. Two beers down already and will probably end with Southern Comfort---about half a bottle left, and got to finish! Moody and misty and romantic---what a PLACE! What a day! What moleskin on my blisters! Dinner soup served at 6:40. Bed at 8:40, again with sleeping pills---and two aspirin as anti-inflammatory medicine for my foot, as recommended by Delores, since she finished all her Motrin on her period.

SUNDAY, 11/3/91: Wake at 4:40 when engines start, doze till 5:40, no sunrise expected, but get dressed and watch captain steering from back lounge with his foot. Breakfast at 7 and dressed for wet landing at 7:30. [Talk with Dick about self-publishing: $2000 for 1000 copies of 500-page Indexing Handbook, for "rule of thumb" selling price of $15.95. Bookstores take 40%, distributor takes 15%. Design FOR self-publishers. Pagemaker for IBM AND MAC has Indexing. Like L.'s book. Compuserve about $15/month and WORTH it to send book to and from Dick and J Marie. Publish under MY imprint---NO marketing. 200-page novel, 500 copies, approximately $1050; 1000 approximately $1300. Advertizing USUALLY about $1/copy---$500,000 for 500,000 copies. He suggests I read EITHER Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, OR The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Rose, by far the best of THIRTY of these.] Load at 7:45 and land in HUGE swells at 8AM, scrabbling over HUGE lava chunks between beaches, crossing HUGE marine iguanas, then inland past LOWER-lying corals at BEACH to HIGHER (about twenty feet) white coral brains. Get "lost" looking for land iguanas and Eric FINDS one and I photo it and show it to Delores later. Hot, hot walk and TIRED back over beach at 12, leaving 12:15 EXHAUSTED. Drink LOTS of Coke and start lunch, then nap 1-2:30, looking at Isabela passing outside portholes. Board Panga for Elizabeth Bay ride for sea turtles, unseen hawksbills and rays, just a few iguanas, herons, and lots of mangrove, then at 5:30 a WEARY ride back to "Bird Rock" for PENGUINS and boobies and a SECOND trip with Juan Carlos and Eric at sunset. I also shot ship and passengers and kitchen and Almir. Eat at 6:30; they're running out of food, TINY pieces of chicken and LOTS of rice, and wait for tomorrow: ten hours to Puerto Villamil, lunch at 12 on ship. Five hours to Puerto Ayora, dinner on ship, then leave. See last of Delores and Michael's slides on THEIR iguanas and Antarctica's albatrosses, and at 7:45 I prepare to wash teeth, take a Bonine, and go to BED. Also got BOOK information, above, and exchanged business cards. I'm to send J Marie Xerox of "non-mounted" instructions. Sit out back for a while, thinking, but there are no stars and NO lights and I begin to think I should have worried about the ship NOW! How experienced ARE these sailors? WHO relieves the Captain during a ten-hour night cruise---EVERYONE?? ARE there lighthouses at ALL the points? Where are the uncharted rocks? We started cruising at 7PM, should be there, in ten hours, at 5AM. Wanna bet?