Espanola

It is true, it is getting better every day!!!

Today seems like we had 3 days in one, really it was like a dream.

Last night was the longest travel we will have, and it was quite rough. I am keeping myself very medicated, but doing fine.

Started off this morning with our guide letting us sleep in an extra 15 minutes until 5:45 because it was quite overcast. Thanks Juan, that 15 minutes made a big difference. Breakfast done and we’re on our first zodiac ride onto a new Island.

This is the oldest Island in the Galapagos named Espanola, it is about 15 million years old and pretty barren of vegetation. We landed on what I think is the most beautiful beach we have ever seen or been on. The beach looked to be about 2 miles in length, we landed at one end and are able to walk about .5 of it.

We were greeted by many sea lions of all different ages. The male alpha patrols the beach about 15 feet from shore to watch over his “harem” of females on the beach. He does not stop going back and forth and back and forth traversing, he pokes his head out often to bark to let all the other sea lions know that he is there and he is in charge, it is amazing. The alpha lasts only about 2 weeks and then is so exhausted that the position is taken over by another male. I hope we get to see this take over of power while we are here, so far we haven’t seen a large alpha male on the beach, only in the water.

So this beach is littered with probably 50 sea lions of all ages, little pups less than a week old with their nursing moms. We sat with our guide quietly and watch some of the interaction between the sea lions.

Probably the most memorable for me was watching 3 sea lions all lying side by side cuddled up, they do this to stay warm, then a 4^th one comes along, climbs over the top of the 3 of them and then turns sideways to squeeze into the middle. There is much barking at this point because of the disturbance and this sea lion had just come in from the water so of course she is wet and old, but she does manage to wiggle her way in.

Andre at one point was just sitting taking pictures near the shore and a sea lion and baby came out of the water, the mother I guess could see something up ahead, they have terrible eye sight, the shape of Andre sitting there must have looked like some warmth so they headed off towards Andre and all I could think of was the sea lion wiggling her way into the warmth earlier. Anyway this momma sea lion came within a foot of Andre, smelled him, decided it wasn’t what she was looking for and just plompted herself down to let the pup nurse. I was sitting up higher on the beach and could see all this going on, it was fantastic.

We spent about 2 hours on this beach and had the flexibility to roam where we wanted as long as we kept in wet sand to avoid any turtle nests.

At the end of the beach there was a huge outcropping of rocks that with little tidal pools that we were able to explore. Here is where we found many sally lightfoot crabs which were very pretty against the volcanic black rocks as they are red/orange in color.

We also so some different colored iguanas here.

Sea Turtle Egg

Sally Lightfoot Crab

Back to the ship following our start to the morning to get suited up for our first snorkel adventure. This took a little while this morning to get organized, there is a mixed bag here, some have their snorkel equipment and some don’t. Probably about .5 of guests are like us, they have snorkel and mask with them. But, the most fun was they provide us with full length wet suits. I have never had a wet suit on, and wow are they flattering, yuck. They do make you much more buoyant but I really don’t need that, I have a hard time going down because I am so buoyant, but the extra warmth was really appreciated. We did learn the trick for getting into them, you put plastic bags on your hands and feet so they slide through easier.

So off we go in the Zodiacs again all geared up, we’re not entering off the beach today, but out of the Zodiacs. First jump in and I lost my breath a little, it is pretty cold. But all it took was putting my face in and wow, I just love to snorkel. Not much coral here but lots and lots of pretty fish. I was fiddling around with a camera that a friend lent us, and Andre had his underwater camera, I look up and zoom a sea lion zips by, this is what we came for!!

I was a little slow getting going, I can just hang out over a little school of fish and watch them interact forever, Andre tends to take off more and explore and call me over when he sees something amazing. About the only rule we had today was to make sure you picked up a buddy and watched out for each other. We weren’t forced to wear life jackets, and were told to get out of the Zodiacs any way we felt comfortable. I did not opt for the Jacques Cousteau method of flipping over backwards, I used the ungraceful Wendy method of nearly taking out the drivers head while swinging my legs over the side. Anyway off we go,

 

I look up and can’t find Andre, now I am in a bit of a mess. I think Andre is up ahead with about 5 other people and a little behind me is the rest of the crowd. So I’m debating whether to catch up with the faster group, or hang out with the rest at the back.

I am looking around at another school of beautiful fish and Juan taps me and says give me your hand, he has one of the other girls in his other hand and he tells us not to move, to just float with him, he drifts us towards a sea lion that was just off to the side of us and the sea lion swims right up to our masks to check us out, unbelievable, what a moment, I’m sure I had goosebumps. I don’t know how Juan spots these things, it is like this on our hikes too, he’s always pointing out things we would have missed. I headed back off swimming along the rocks and really wasn’t seeing much, I was by myself and trying to decide what to do, the strong swimmers had rounded the corner, the slower people were way behind me and the current was getting strong.

The lead zodiac came and checked on me and I told them I was going to swim back to the back pack and continue with them. I didn’t get far before the back group arrived in their zodiac and told me we were finished so it was time to move on.

Juan was with this pack and asked me where my buddy was, I told him ask Andre. We then went along with the lead zodiac and picked up the other snorkelers, of course Andre was the last to be picked up. Juan asked him where his buddy was, he said she is right there, pointing to one of the other girls with our group, so he asked him who was Wendy's buddy, Andre said he didn’t know, top bunk for him again tonight.

Back for a quick lunch then we are off again on another hike. This is to be our toughest hike of the week we are told, it is only about 3 miles long but over lots of volcanic rock. It was not a bad hike as long as you watched your footing.

We started off seeing many many marine iguanas. The surf was really big where we landed and we could also see sea lions playing in the surf. These sea iguanas were different from the ones we have already seen, they were much more colourful. I guess it depends on what they eat for their colors.

We then started our hike and saw some baby waved albatross. Most of the parents have left already but we were lucky and did see a few come back to feed their babies one more time. These birds are great fun to watch land and take off from land. They spend so little time on land that they are extremely awkward, landing sometimes causes broken bones, and taking off involves walking off the end of the cliff and catching the wind at exactly the right time.

We also saw more blue footed boobies, and Nazca boobies, very fun again to see.

Blue footed boobie with a chick

Baby Albatross

Albatross going out to sea

Feeding time!

The Galapagos hawk also made an appearance which was fun as it caused such a disturbance with the swallow tail gulls. The gulls sent out such a warning squawk and many left their nests on the cliffs and flew around warning all others of the danger.

We finished off our long day, zodiac ride back to the boat for a quick clean up and supper. We finished supper at about 8:00 and Juan came in and told us all to get ready for bed because we were going to start moving and it was going to be rough. Very funny to hear a boat full of adults told to go to bed at 8:00. We looked at pictures for a few minutes but I know I was asleep by 8:30.