Filling Sila's Water Tanks: A Story in Photographs

On Sila, we have two 300 liter water tanks. When we are careful about our water consumption by washing dishes in salt water for example, those 600 liters can last us for many weeks. But we stil have to fill them. Sometimes getting water is easy. Most marinas have spigots and hoses that we can run to the caps that are on the deck. But in the Galapagos, getting water was a little more involved. First, we had to find someone who would sell it and deliver it to the marina for us.

Here you can see three men helping Christopher load 85 gallons of water in the form of seventeen 5-gallon jugs onto a cart.

 Then wheel the cart to the top of the ramp, no problem.

Bigger problem is rolling nearly 700 pounds of water down the ramp to the finger docks.

Next, load the water into the water taxi and pay the taxi driver the equivalent of 3 passengers to deliver it to Sila

 Next, cut the side off of an old soda bottle to make a funnel.

Then pour the seventeen jugs of water into the two tanks, call the water taxi on the radio, load the empty jugs onto the boat and return to the dock where you load them onto a cart, haul them up the dock and load them into the waiting truck.

And the best news is that it was good tasting water- well worth the effort! It was especially worth the effort when you consider the fact that we filled our tanks in the Galapagos on July 22nd and still had plenty left when we arrived in Puerto Montt on August 30. - Molly