Boobies!

March 17 – Word of the Day: Afortunado (Lucky)

I picked the word of the day as a nod to the holiday — happy St. Patrick´s day! — but also because it describes how I feel to be able to enjoy and explore the Galapagos!  We began the day with a breakfast buffet – yummy! – before taking the dingy back across the bay to the town.  There we caught a bus that took us 45 minutes to the other side of Santa Cruz where the channel was located.  We got on the mini-yacht called the Sea Finch to head over to North Seymour island (which is supposed to be a bird lovers paradise). 

We saw all kinds of wildlife including land and marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, lava gulls, frigate birds, fur seals and sea lions.

Initially arriving we were greeted by playful baby sea lions.

Blue footed boobies!!

Wildlife was everywhere and we kept seeing birds in pairs — guess it was mating season!  Some had already mated though and were raising their babies or protecting their eggs.

 

 

After spending time learning about all the species on the island from our naturalist guide, we learned that we would get to snorkel near this island too which was exciting because it meant the slight chance we´d get to snorkel with a better variety of wildlife.

Okay now this may be TMI for some of you but it´s a funny story so don´t read on if you don´t want to.  Whe we got back to the boat, there was a Galapagos shark circling it… now normally this wouldn´t be a problem but my period decided to come a whole week early and needless to say I was unprepared.  Most of the women on the tour with us were older and didn´t have to worry about that sort of thing anymore.  So I was having an internal debate… snorkel anyway because it´s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and risk the sharks…. or skip it.  Luckily, there were two younger girls on the boat and one of them came to my rescue! (See the photos below of the circling, hungry shark)

Because of the shark circling, our guide decided to have us snorkel further down the island where it would be “safer”.  Luckily for us, it was closer to where some of the sea lions were playing too.

J got a picture of me snorkeling and just past me you can see one of the sea lions that jumped in.  That made me day.  We saw a variety of fish, lobsters and even a few nurse sharks down below.

After snorkeling we had all worked up an appetite so we had some lunch on the boat before heading over to north Santa Cruz island for some swimming.  By north Santa Cruz we saw lots of crab colonies and some flamingos.  By the way… did you know flamingos can fly? I sure didn´t.

Later that evening we headed into the little town/the capital and visited the fish market.  We had heard that it´s pretty entertaining because of all the wildlife begging for food…. and it was. 🙂

The last thing I will note about our visit into town was that we went to the supermarket and bought some boxed wine which happens to be from Chile and is about 1,000 times better than the boxed wine in the states.  We also found Aji which made me very happy.  (Aji is this great sauce they have at almost every meal in Ecuador).

Tomorrow we´ll be hitting up another island and we´re excited!