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Sunday, March 25th - Espanola Island |
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Galapagos Islands March 23rd To April 1, 2007 |
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This will probably be the first of MANY times that I say WHAT A DAY!
I’m not sure if it was because we were excited about being in the Galapagos or that we were still on East Coast time, but we were all up by 5:30 AM – well before the sun came up! It was really something, enjoying a freshly-brewed cup of coffee as the sun comes up over the Pacific. What really made it special was watching the flying fish and tropical birds streak across the waters.
The sun raising over Espanola → |
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We arrived at Espanola by about 6:15 AM and were in our pangas (the large rubber boats we used to transfer from the Evolution to the islands) by 7:00 to beat the passengers from one of the larger cruise ships onto the island for our walk. And what a walk it was! We hadn’t even made it off the jetty and we had already seen over a dozen sea lions, scores of crabs, and a number of marine iguanas. But it wasn’t even so much that we saw them, but it was the fact that we were passing within a matter of two or three FEET of them! In fact, I literally almost stepped on one sea lion before I realized that it wasn’t a rock! |
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Our naturalist, Alex Cox (who was born on St. Christobol Island) took us for a walk that revealed one wonder after another! If it wasn’t watching a pair of Galapagos hawks eating from about six feet away (see above right), we were watching two marine iguanas fighting over nesting grounds. We even were able to get so close to the iguanas that we could have easily reached out and touch them if we had chosen to!
The highlight of the walk, though, was definitely the birds! We saw a number of frigate birds, night gulls, American oyster birds, and one of the icons of the islands, the blue-footed boobies. Even though seeing the baby and fledgling birds was neat, it was quite an experience to see the blue-footed boobies doing their mating dance. It was literally a dance as the male and the female bobbed around each other while slowly lifting one leg and then the other, all while hooting and whistling to each other. |
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Through it all, Victoria was an absolute trooper, even though it was quite warm (there was little to no protection from the sun). At one point she got to squat down on the beach as a sea lion pup crept up to her and sniffed at her hand! After about two hours, though, she started to wither in the sun so I ended up piggy-backing her the rest of the way back to the boat! |
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The amazing thing was that because our day started so early, it was barely 10:00 when we got back to the boat. After a thirty minute rest period, a number of us boarded the pangas to get an intro- or refresher- course on snorkeling. It was quite something, having to snorkel around with one eye on the water around you and the other on the male sea lion who kept roaring on us to stay away from his females and pups! We decided it would be the smart thing to do as he asked and head away from him. Turned out to be an awesome decision as we soon found ourselves swimming among four or five sea turtles, the smallest of which was probably five feet across! After about an hour though, the cold water started to get to us, in spite of the wet suits we were all wearing so we headed back to the Evolution for lunch. |
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As we were dining al fresco on the back deck of the ship, the Evolution made its way eastward to Gardner Bay for more snorkeling and some time on the beach. Kathie joined me this time (she had stayed on the ship with an exhausted Victoria in the morning) as we snorkeled in water as deep as thirty feet. The highlight was the school of yellow-striped surgeons (below-left) that we followed around for a while. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see any more turtles but it was still beautiful. Again, we lasted only about an hour as the water started getting to everyone quite quickly. |
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This female sea lion came up to a person and “encouraged” her to leave the towel. When it was time for all of us to leave the island, one of the guides unceremoniously dumped her off the towel since you can’t leave anything man-made on the islands. |
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Our brave adventurer on the isle of Espanola - notice the marine iguana blending in to the rock next to her. |
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One of the young locals coming out to greet Victoria and Grandma |
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Marine iguana basking in the sun - the greenish-blue tint on the back shows the iguana is in mating season. |
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A Galapagos Hawk |
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Blue-footed boobies in their nesting and nursery area (the baby next to Victoria is actually a nazca or masked booby) |
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A beautiful sunset to end the day.
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Tomorrow: The Charles Darwin Research Center |
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Okay, Boli, our naturalist, took these pictures, but they really show how beautiful the fish were!
Our last “excursion” for the day was onto the Gardner Bay Beach for a couple of hours of fun in the sun. This was definitely Victoria’s favorite activity of the day, frolicking in the water with Kathie and Grandma. It was made all the neater as they were frequently visited by itinerant sea lions (see below right) and even a leopard ray that was about three feet across. Shortly after five, we boarded the pangas to return to the ship. Along the way, though, we had a magnificent site – a school of about 100 yellow rays that were circling the bay (see second set of pictures below right). This even surprised Alex and Boli, our naturalists, and was a really neat way to end the day. |
