After a wet landing that required us to thoroughly dry our feet in order to put on our shoes and socks, we set out. We spotted some interesting birds right away -- a yellow warbler? -- and tried to photograph. It's not easy to capture them. Almost immediately we came across a tortoise a little way off the trail but easily within view. Everyone took the opportunity to photograph him/her from a distance, then we left him/her alone. The land tortoises do not swim. It is thought that they came to the Galapagos Islands by floating on something, debris perhaps. As a contrast, the sea turtle is always in the water. The female only comes ashore to lay eggs. The male? Never. Regarding tortoises, Javier also told us that when they want to retract their head into the shell (when nervous), they must exhale the air in their lungs.
We passed a poison apple tree (small yellow fruit dropped to the ground), which our guide, Javier, told us is food for the tortoises. He also pointed out a few birds: the small ground finch, which we've seen many times before, and then the Galapagos flycatcher, which I had wanted to see, but failed at this time to catch sight of -- oh well.
Our next sight, which came quickly, was the Galapagos land iguana. It is a kind of yellowish color. It is the same type that we had seen on Baltra when we rode the bus from the airport to the pier. Javier told us there are three types of land iguanas: two are yellow and one is pink.
We passed by holes in the sand that Javier told us were dug by the land iguanas. Unlike humans whose internal temperature is regulated automatically, land iguanas have to regulate their own temperature. To cool down, they climb into holes. At night, to stay warm, they find spots to protect them from the wind. Land iguanas do not care for their offspring. The young are on their own. Hawks and snakes are predators.
Other things that we learned on this hike: There are still a few cats and dogs (and pigs) that are feral and live on some of the islands, which threaten the natural wildlife. Later in the hike, Rob actually saw a feral cat. The area where we were hiking was once the seabed, and we saw evidence of that in small shells lying on the ground. In 1954, an earthquake uplifted this land about 15 feet. It is estimated that this have happened in as short a time as one minute! The islands have about 500 earthquakes per day.
After following a narrow path through the vegetation (which got quite narrow for a while and required a lot of ducking to avoid branches), we came across white coral reef formations that had been uplifted. This is very unusual, as the Galapagos are not known for coral. Here is a photo of our hiking group in front of the coral:
We also saw two yellow flowering plants: yellow cordia and cotton.
The end of the walk was along the shore, which required a challenging climb over uneven black lava rocks -- some are pretty big! This is not a short distance, either! I lagged behind the group with Maria who liked to take her time with photographs. The group had another option for snorkeling here but we passed.
Returning to the ship (beautiful blue water!), another big lunch awaited us, but first we had a short lecture on the geology of the Galapagos (see separate blog post). The afternoon afforded a little extra free time with no activity until 4 PM.
HOWEVER, we did have some great excitement that afternoon as the ship traveled north up the western coast of Isabella Island (destination: the "sea horse's mouth," named because the outline of Isabella Island resembles a sea horse). Everyone was alerted to the fact that a sperm whale was surfacing to the right of the ship as we were moving! It was amazing as we were able to get close enough for some good photos!
The remainder of the afternoon was sunny and pleasant on the ship's sun deck. I especially enjoyed the frigate birds, who were floating along on top of us, really following us for some reason.
At 4 PM, everyone was ready for the ride in the panga boats. The weather was as usual lovely and we had all been admiring this particularly scenic location from the ship this afternoon. The "sea horse's mouth" is nearly to the top (north end) of Isabella Island. It was once part of a giant caldera (volcanic crater), where the western side of the caldera had collapsed into the ocean.
Our panga boat began the excursion by traveling toward a large natural cave. Immediately, Mari, our guide this afternoon, pointed out a blue booby in the water using his beak to take oil from the glands on his back to spread it on his wings -- very interesting process. The panga proceeded to the area to the left of the entrance to the cave where we saw an impressive amount of bird life. Right away we struck the jackpot: a large group of blue footed boobies perched on the ledges that jutted out from the cliff wall. This was just what I most wanted to see up close! We took photo after photo, but it was hard to get a clear shot of the blue feet as we were looking at them from below. We moved a little to the right and Mari was excited to see brown noddies nesting with young ones. Then we looked up and saw another male blue boobie -- but this one was doing the mating dance! Oh my, he was stomping his feet, chirping, and then throwing us tail feathers up! What a moment! I took a two minute video of the whole process that turned out pretty well -- this was more that anyone had expected to see (but what we had all hoped for)!
Down below the boobies, we were treated to the sight of sea lions playing and trying to maintain a perch on a rock -- one hardly knew where to look there was so much going on! Just to the right we saw a male frigate bird up close, a flightless cormorant next to a brown pelican and then a juvenile blue footed boobie all by himself. Then we saw a mound of marine iguanas sunning themselves -- Rob proposed to Anne that we should grab one by the tail to see if it would cause the whole colony to go crashing off the rock into the water!
We rode the panga into the cave, which was larger on the inside than it had appeared from the outside. We spotted an orange harlequin fish and then countless sea turtles. They were swimming around and around -- at least a dozen. Those who opted to snorkel this afternoon had been swimming with this group earlier.
We continued along the cliff from the cave where we were able to spot a nazca boobie flying, and then perched up on a cliff (they have black under their white wings with a yellow bill). We also saw from some distance a swallowtail gull. This is the nocturnal gull that can be seen from the ship's deck at night. Finally we turned back toward the ship, as Mari pointed out a candelabra cactus high up at the top of the cliff.
Fearing too much splashing, Rob had elected not to bring his "good" camera on this ride, which turned out to be a mistake. Marion, however, was very nice to share he photos from this ride with us -- in exchange for my "boobie dance" video -- a "win win" for everyone!
We still had a little more excitement before dinner as the ship was going to cross the equator (from south to north). We had crossed it before, but it had happened at night. Today, we all gathered up on the captain's bridge to celebrate the crossing together. I was able to snap a photo of the ship's instrument showing "0.00" latitude. Later, we would all receive certificates from the ship that we had crossed the equator!
Before dinner, the ship hosted a very nice wine and cheese tasting on the rear deck. Then, dinner that night was fun as Anne took the initiative to lead everyone in a "boobie dance"! We stomped our feet and shook our tailfeathers! Young Gabriel, grandson of Vita, was enormously amused and joined right in!
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