Thursday, March 10: Santa Cruz and North Seymour  Islands

We woke up to a bit of a shock: there were two islands seemingly floating in the air nearby.

I didn’t know islands could float in the air.

  Not just one island, but two.

Of course, if you look closely, you can barely see the real horizon at the level of the islands, but it does look a bit strange when you first see the sight.

Our morning activity was a long hike on Santa Cruz Island.  It turned out to be mostly along the beach and we saw several interesting sights.  There were plenty of the bright orange crabs, including one that I think was trying to threaten us with his mouth parts.

There were plenty of these bright crabs.

One of the most interesting things to see were the several “turtle trails”: the tracks made by large sea turtles the previous night on their way to lay eggs at the upper part of the beach.

  Trails coming from the water and going back

There were also several Marine Iguanas and even a Flamingo in a small pond.

  This Marine Iguana was trying to dig a hole to lay eggs

 The Flamingo was not impressive after what we have seen in Bonaire

When we got back to the Flora, I happened to look over the side of the ship and there were two sea lions that appeared to playing or checking out the side of the ship.

 They were in no hurry.

We watched them for some time as they seemed to start close to the stern, slowly swim up to the bow, then slowly return to the stern again.  They were just out for a lazy swim. 

Our first activity for the afternoon was another deep water snorkel just off North Seymour Island.  By this time of day, the water is starting to get rough, the clouds had rolled in, and there was quite a bit of sediment in the water, so visibility was not great. 

Soon after getting in the water, I did spot a large Eagle Ray below me.

An Eagle ray seeming to fly through the water

Soon after that, I saw a White Tip Shark below me, then another (or, perhaps the same one again). 

The sharks paid us no attention.

Just as I started to take a video of a large Puffer fish, a large shark, I think a Bull Shark, swam between me and the Puffer, quickly grabbing my attention.  It just swam along, ignoring me, which was fine with me.  The visibility seemed to be getting worse and I’d seen enough sharks, so we headed back to the tender and then back to the Flora for a short rest.

The last activity for the day was a long walk/hike along a rocky trail on North Seymour Island.  This turned out to be an excellent opportunity to see many of the local animals “close-up”.  As soon as we got off the tender, a Golden Ray cruised past, suggesting this will be interesting.

 One Gold Ray, cruising past

  There were quite a few Frigatebirds nesting and trying to attract mates. 

These three males seemed to be having a contest.

Frigatebird males inflate a bright red balloon-like pouch under their neck to attract the attention of nearby females.  Sometimes they would also spread and flap their wings for more attention.  

This Frigatebird male was really showing off.

But the Frigatebird in this video was going all out: inflated pouch, spread and flapping wings, and a warbling sound.

There were numerous land Iguanas all around, some of them were rather colorful.

   This Iguana seemed to be posing for photos.

We didn’t see many Iguanas up in trees in the Galapagos, but the Iguana in this video was giving it a try.  (“I meant to do that flip, really I did!”)  The shape of the Iguana’s mouth with a little upturn always made them look like they were smirking.

 Doesn’t it look like the Iguana is “smirking”?

A very colorful and “smirking” Iguana.

Most of the land Iguanas were fairly colorful but we also learned that some researchers had recently discovered a new species of Iguana that was largely pink. 

 All the animals were interesting, but the Blue Footed Boobies just seemed to steal the show.

This Boobie just stood there, like it wanted us to take photos.

 All of the Boobies seemed very calm and used to being around people, but this one Boobie seemed to actually enjoy standing there, letting us take as many photos as we wanted.  The Boobie in this video seemed to be watching us as much as we were watching it.

Then there were the Sea Lions.  They were along one beach with some in the sand and some lounging and playing on some rocks.  They seemed to be coming from the water onto the land to rest and perhaps warm up a bit as they did tend to sun themselves. 

 This big Sea Lion seemed comfortable.

Like the Boobies, it seemed that the Sea Lions were showing off a bit for us.  I cooperated by getting this video of one large sea lion rolling around and showing off.  A little further on there appeared to be a couple of families, complete with domineering fathers, attentive mothers, and playful kids.

 Some of the sea lion family group

There were two young sea lions, about the same age, playing like typical siblings in this video, complete with what appears to be a mother keeping an eye on things.  We left the Sea Lions to their play and relaxation and headed back to the Flora for a relaxing evening, a nice dinner, and a couple of glasses of wine.

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