Our newest adventure begins after two full days of travel.  Miami – too much time to sit in the airport but not enough to explore the city.  Overall impression-people aren’t very friendly.  Then Guayaquil, Ecuador.  We arrived in the evening, so what we saw of the city was from the bus to the hotel or from our room.  Beautiful hotel and we were on the 9th floor, so we had a nice view.
This morning we are off to our ship.  It’s almost 2 hours by air to Baltra Island and we’ll be taken by Zodiac to the ship.  We did see an iguana outside the window at the airport before we left.  More wildlife to come.
After several briefings, we finally had our first excursion- a “wet landing” at Las Bachas which is a pretty beach. We splashed off the zodiac and began a short nature walk.  Along the way we saw marine iguanas, brown pelicans, colorful crabs and blue footed boobies on the wing.  I finished my beach time with a dip in the Pacific while Dan continued photographing the wildlife along the shore.
SundayWe started our day early on the Observation Deck. While waiting for the stretching class we saw sharks, sea lions and frigate birds.  After breakfast the zodiac dropped us on North Seymour Island for a walk.  We saw so many iguanas I think I might dream about them tonight.  They were eating, walking and even courting.  Near the end of our walk we saw several females digging nests.  We also saw a lot of frigate birds – some searching for mates, some sitting on nests, and some recently hatched chicks.  The male mating behavior is to pump their red chest sac full of air.  When they put their heads down on their chests to rest they look like a valentine.We have now been geared for snorkeling, which we’ll get to later this afternoon.So, with a nod to my book club, my Indian name shall be Woman Who Swims with Sharks.  We jumped into the deep water and saw LOTS of fish.  Also four white-tipped reef sharks and a sea lion.  My first time with a shortie wet suit and it really helped.  I was more buoyant and able to stay in the water longer.  I’ve earned my complimentary glass of wine!
MondayToday is President Day and it is so relaxing to be away from the news.  At Fernandina Island we landed and took a guided walk with a lot of the trail over lava rock.  We saw hundreds of large marine iguanas.  Some were swimming, some females digging nests or fighting over nest areas and most of the males just hanging out – literally in piles. There were also blue footed boobies, sea lions and a flightless cormorant.  We just got back from our walk when it was snorkeling time.  This time we didn’t see as many fish but did see another sea lion underwater,  a marine iguana eating algae off a rock underwater and several green sea turtles.  Dan is really putting his GoPro to good use. Later in the day we had a zodiac ride along the coast where we saw blue footed boobies, Galapagos fur seals literally jumping out of the water and sea turtles.  We also saw one of the fur seals catch a fish, slap it around to turn it into eatable-sized pieces, then start eating.  A small shark was following him to pick up the pieces. Dan put his GoPro underwater and has “film” of many more turtles than we saw from the surface.  Back on the ship we enjoyed a wine tasting on the outdoor observation deck followed by an excellent dinner.
TuesdayAfter breakfast we took a guided walk on Isabela Island.  This Island has more vegetation, so we saw larger land iguanas, giant tortoises and yellow butterflies and Darwin’s finches.  It also was very hot, so a dip in the ocean was perfect for cooling off.  A word about the weather – so far it has been perfect. Patches of clouds but overall sunny, some sea fog yesterday when the heated air met the cooler water, temps about like June in Houston.  A bit warmer than the guests from Minnesota are used to.Afternoon:  we went snorkeling in Tagus Cove and swam with more sea turtles and…PENGUINS!  I wasn’t able to keep out of their way and they were so fast!  I need to change my Indian name to Woman Who Swims With Sharks and Penguins. The water was very cold, though, so I didn’t stay in till the end of our allotted time.  After returning to the ship we almost immediately set off for a fast hike to the top of one of the six volcanoes that formed Isabela Island.  It turns out that one of the men I met at the Miami airport was a geology professor and today he gave us a presentation on tectonic plates, continental drift and volcanic formation of the islands.  In addition to Steve we  also have on board the CXO of Lindblad and the guy who led the development team for Google Earth.  Today’s lunch was an Ecuadorian buffet and everything was delicious.  Our waiters all wore Panama hats and we had a glass of an Ecuadorian cocktail.
Wednesday Our day started early with a 6:30  beach walk on Santiago Island, which was Darwin’s favorite.  We were very crabby – literally as the beach was full of little ghost crabs that scrambled to their holes as we got close.  There was a large sea turtle making its way slowly across the sand to go for its morning swim as well as gold finches and diving boobies.  The scenery was gorgeous.  Later in the morning we went snorkeling again.  There were LOTS of brightly colored fish and we really enjoyed it until the strong surf wore us out.  After lunch we had a very entertaining and educational presentation on Darwin, then went back to the island for another nature walk.  We saw a few fur seals, but mostly more crabs, iguanas and sea lions.
ThursdayToday we left the ship after breakfast and were bused to the Darwin research station.  Here the giant tortoises are being helped to rebuild their population.  Interesting facts: the tortoise population has a different gene pool on each island.  The population was nearly wiped out in the 1800s by sailors who found that since the tortoises could live up to 3 years without food or water they could be stacked on the ships and stored for food. Also all tortoises & turtles have their nervous system in their carapace, so being on their backs is very painful to them.  After lunch we were driven to a ranch where we walked around looking at giant tortoises in the wild.
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