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Wednesday, March 28th—Genovesa Island |
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Galapagos Islands March 23rd To April 1, 2007 |
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After cruising most of the night, we awoke at Genovesa Island. This crescent-shaped island is actually the remnants of a crater from an ancient volcano. The crater walls are what makes the island unique in that most of the island’s access is straight up walls that soar about fifty feet or more above the Pacific. The result is that not only is it quite scenic, but also it has created an island with absolutely no predators aside from a single species of owl!
For the first time, we awoke to a less than exciting view, as the entire island was enshrouded in fog and mist. As a result, when Kathie and I stepped out on the decks at around 5:30 AM, we quickly returned to bed as there was nothing to see. After five minutes, though, it became obvious to me that I was wide awake and wasn’t about to get anymore sleep so I went back on deck to the lounge area in the back to enjoy an early cup of coffee and the peaceful morning of an isolated island surrounded by fog. |
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Shortly after breakfast, we headed across the bay to climb up on top of the crater to see some of the one million + birds that live on the island, especially the red-footed booby as this was the only place you could find it! To get up to the top of the crater, you had to scale up Prince Philip’s Steps (see right), a series of very steep steps that had been cut into the crater side. When we got up to the top, our effort was truly rewarded as we were greeted by hundreds of red-footed boobies (aside from their feet, they are different from blue-footed boobies because they nest in trees, not on the ground), masked (or Nazca) boobies, frigate birds, and other birds, some of which allowed us to get as close as two feet to them! For the next two hours we explored the top of the crater and saw some magnificent sites, including a mother boobie feeding her young. In fact, the only down-side was that we had been hoping to see the indigenous owl (the only predator on the island), but were unable to. |
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Some of the sea lions relaxing on the cliffs surrounding the bay. |
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Nazca (or Masked) Boobies |
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Red-Footed Boobies |
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Feeding time for Nazca Boobies |
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Victoria and Kate watching the feeding |
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It’s really too neat! |
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We returned to the boat around 10:00 to change for some snorkeling. Because Victoria had been such a trooper (again), she and I stayed behind on the boat to play some cards while Kathie, Sharon, and Kristen joined some of the others to go snorkeling with some hammerhead sharks! While the water was quite frigid, their efforts were rewarded with several hammerheads, including one that was about ten feet long (no limbs were lost during this trip!!!). They rejoined Victoria and me around noon for lunch and an early afternoon siesta. |
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After our siesta, Victoria and I enjoyed some more Daddy/Daughter time with a brief sea kayaking expedition around the lagoon, where we were able to get the boat up to within a few feet of some sea lions resting on the rocks. Unfortunately, my legs started to cramp up because of the position I had to keep them in so we had to cut the excursion short. Turned out this was not a problem as it was almost time to go on our shore-excursion. In this case, it was playing on the beach for Victoria and snorkeling for me and Kathie in Darwin Bay (the lagoon we were in).
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Darwin Bay was a great place to spend the afternoon - awesome snorkeling for the adults and an excellent beach for Victoria to play on. The highlight in the water for us was a school of about twenty or thirty yellow rays that kept swimming in circles as they were feeding. It was a bit disconcerting for us to be swimming along, only to have a mob or rays suddenly appear out of the gloom! From the land, though, I found watching them swim/fly through the water quite soothing and relaxing. We were entertained by a whole bunch of male frigate birds who were all trying to attract a mate by swelling up a red sac on their chest so they looked like they had a giant strawberry on them – all within a few small feet of where we were standing!
↓ Boli’s photo of the yellow ray |
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We were back onboard the boat by around 5:30, in time for yet another delicious meal and an early bed so that we could make sure we were up for an early morning whale watching session in the morning!
Tomorrow: Fernandina and Isabella Islands |
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Kate and Victoria playing with a baby nazca booby. The boobies have eyes at the front of their head (as opposed to on the sides) and will watch movement with their whole head moving in unison with the object. |
