Saturday, June 17, On to the Galapagos!

We had previously set the alarm on our phones for 6:15 AM, so waking up was not too jarring, since we were able to sleep for about nine hours -- much needed! We drank some coffee in the hotel room using the electric kettle.  There was no need to rush around getting ready; our appointment to meet our guide William was at 8:15 AM. At that time, we would receive a 15 minute briefing (mostly about the process of transporting us to the Galapagos), plus an opportunity to ask any questions we might have. We had previously expressed an interest in how Ecuador came to have the US dollar as its currency, so that is what we discussed.  William explained that Ecuador's economy suffered a collapse in 1997 as a result of a severe drop in oil prices. This situation was compounded by the fact that Ecuador was also dealing with the devastating effects of a very strong El Nino weather system, which resulted in five times the normal rainfall. The economic conditions let to a complete lack of confidence in the currency, then called the Sucre. The only faith people had was in the US dollar. Since then, the dollar has endured as the Ecuadorean currency, but that means that Ecuador is unable to undertake any deficit spending and must maintain a balanced budget, which is challenging. I remarked that it seemed that some of the coins I had received yesterday did not seem to be official US currency. William stated that the citizens had been confused by the US coins (dime small than nickel, etc.), so the Ecuadorean government stepped in to mint its own coins, but no large coins, such as the dollar coin. I was skeptical about this statement as I was certain that one of the dollar coins I had received in change yesterday had the "United States" printed backwards.

After our briefing, we enjoyed a lovely breakfast buffet that had some unusual items: plaintain "meatballs" and corn meal in banana leaf to name a few, along with the normal items, including made to order omelets.

After breakfast, we were once again collected by William and the driver Tito to transfer us to the airport. As we noted yesterday, the terminal is very modern; William informed us that it is only six years old. With no trouble, we boarded our airplane to Baltra, the name of the Galapagos Islands' airport. Before we boarded, however, we admired the statue in the distance, but still at the airport. Rob inquired at the check-in and learned that it was a likeness of two native people: Guaya (male) and Quil (female).

Our flight to Baltra in the Galapagos was less that two hours and uneventful. The plane had a lot of unoccupied seats, so the passengers were able to spread out. Upon landing, we were met by an agent who was also responsible for meeting another, unaffiliated large group. As a result, we were a little bit ignored in the Baltra VIP lounge (that had snacks that we didn't eat), but no matter, we were soon called to the bus to transport the passengers to the Celebrity Xperience cruise ship. This involved putting on life jackets and riding in the zodiac, also called a panga, boat. Our first animal sighting occurred on the bus: a large land iguana. On this panga ride, we learned what our guides called the Galapagos "handshake," where you and the guide or staff person on the panga grasp each other's forearms for stability as you step on or off the boat.

Once on board, we were greeted with a welcome pisco sour, then we were escorted to our cabin, #411. Other than the fact that the safe could not be opened (which officer Christina soon helped with), everything looked good. There was a high level of trust on this ship: no one's cabins lock, so we had no keys! We then received our first briefing from chief naturalist, Javier. The ship has three naturalists on board. Our first outing will be a ride on the panga boats through Black Turtle Cove on nearby Santa Cruz Island.

On this outing, each of the three panga boats would carry eight passengers plus a guide and a driver. Thus our ship had 24 passengers. This is nice as the capacity of the ship is 48. Other than us, our fellow passengers were as follows:

- Anne and Marion, friends from Scotland,
- Vita and grandson Gabriel (guessing about 10?),
- Susan and grandson Ian (guessing about 13?),
- Maria and adult niece Aislin,
- A family from Puerto Rico: father Roberto, with three children: one an adult (name unknown), young daughter Adriana, and young son Nicholas,
- A family from Connecticut, Eric, Suzanne and three teenagers,
- Another family of four (two more teenagers) whose names I did not entirely learn, but the mother was Diane and the daughter was Emily, and
- Paul, a solo traveler from San Francisco, who was in the process of moving to Seattle.

Everyone was very friendly!

Our panga boat was guided by Mari (short for Mariuxi), who was an excellent guide. The weather was a little overcast this afternoon, but it did clear a bit by the end of the boat excursion. We saw so much on this first outing, and I took the following notes to remember. We saw:

- In the distance, but not too far, we admired the Daphne Islands (major and minor) -- two small islands.

- A blue footed boobie was flying and diving, but we could not see his feet. They are quite fast. They also can fold their wings and legs to make their bodies into the shape of a missile as they enter the water -- amazing!
- Mari pointed out a bird called a whimbril, but I didn't see it.
- We did see MANY brown pelicans, diving and trying to catch fish.  Unlike the boobie, the pelican just goes splat when it hits the water and as a result doesn't get very deep. The pelicans are also VERY pestered by a bird called the brown noddy. The brown noddy is not a diving bird, but likes to eat fish.  When the pelican surfaces with a fish in its mouth, bits of the fish escape and the brown noddy stays close to the pelican to scoop up those bits.  This following video shows the pelicans and brown noddies in action.

The pelicans are brown birds with white heads.  The juveniles are all brown.
- Frigate birds fly overhead. They are distinctive because of their forked tail.  The females have white chests. The males have red necks, which they inflate during mating season to attract females. We don't see this at this time.
- There were yellow warblers flitting about from time to time this evening -- difficult to get a good photo of them since they move so fast.
- As we proceeded into the red mangrove trees, our guide spotted a pair of striped herons, who were not that big and were very nice to stay and pose for our pictures.

- There were also white cattle egrets sitting in the mangrove trees. We saw lots of more of these later!

In the distance, we admired the view of the Santa Cruz Mountains (Black Turtle Cove is in the northern part of Santa Cruz Island). Mari, our guide, who is originally from Guayaquil, told us that there are giant tortoises up in those mountains. As we looked into the hills a little closer to us, we saw that many of the trees were bare looking. These trees are called "Palo Santo" or holy stick trees in English. The sap of the bark is used to make incense, which is used to repel mosquitoes. The trees are bare now, since the rainy season has ended.

The next part of our boat ride was to try to find some underwater life to admire. The boats were directed into shallower waters, and the motors were cut. We waited ... There were many creatures that we saw, but very few to photograph since they were underwater.  We did see white tip and black tip sharks (not too big), fish called mullets (common, will swim in the open sea as well -- birds feed on them), a baby concentric puffer fish (very colorful and pretty), and a torpedo ray. The most impressive creatures were (1) three spotted eagle rays -- huge and elegant and (2) Pacific green sea turtles -- many swimming through the water. Mari compared their swimming to "flying." I agree. They can stay underwater for 4-5 hours, but we did see a few surface for air.

Up in the trees we were directed to see the ground finches. They are not the prettiest bird, but the male has a nice yellow beak in mating season (turns black afterwards), and the females have a yellowish color overall. As we were departing the cove, however, a giant flock of cattle egrets was flying all around us -- made a show just for us!

Dinner back on the ship was a lovely buffet with too much food. I had fish and filet mignon.  Rob and I were eating the salads, so hopefully there will be no issue with the water used to clean the vegetables. Chilean and Argentinian wine was served, and we enjoyed the company of Anne and Marion from Scotland as well as Maria and Aislin. We turned in early and were asleep by 9:30 PM.