This is the first full day of our expedition in the Enchanted Islands. As the sun rises, our ship is already anchored in beautiful Gardner Bay, located northeast of Española Island. There are a few islets in the middle of this bay and Gardner Islet will be our snorkeling site this morning. Amid schools of razor surgeon, parrotfish and salemas, we encounter a bunch of playful Galapagos sea lions. Right in the center of the bay there is a wide beach of fine white sand and turquoise waters, the perfect location for snorkeling. Once again, we have close encounters with the many fearless young sea lions of the local colony. There is also time to relax and take abundant pictures of the many sea lion harems of Gardner Beach. Another interesting creature here is the endemic Española mockingbird. Several of them inspected every backpack left unattended on the sand.
By midday, we all returned to National Geographic Endeavour. We weighed anchor and navigated west by southwest toward Punta Suárez, one of the most spectacular places in the Galapagos for wildlife. The area is bathed by highly productive waters and, therefore, many marine birds inhabit Punta Suárez. Upon setting foot on the island, the place teemed with life: black-colored and red-colored marine iguanas basked in the sun after a hard day’s work of feeding on local algae. Young Galapagos sea lions leaped around in the shallow waters, joyfully playing with each other. Meanwhile, a lone Galapagos hawk observed the entire area.
We followed a rocky trail that led us further inland and into the various sea bird colonies. We were fortunate enough to find many blue-footed boobies performing their world famous “booby dance.” Not far from there, a colony of Nazca boobies inhabits the cliffs that are now painted in their white guano. The waved albatross is a seabird species that is endemic and unique to Española Island. They favor the southern coast of this island. It has tall cliffs from which they can take off, making the most of updrafts and the abundant food of the area. The birds are well into their breeding season and, by now, many chicks have already hatched. The chicks were this afternoon’s main attraction, enchanting everyone with their clumsy behavior and coats of brown fluff.
The yellow light of the setting sun enhances the beauty of this area. With a smile on our faces, we returned back to the jetty where Zodiacs awaited for us. More fantastic experiences are surely in store for us in the coming days.
