It was a warm morning today! The sun came up in a very clear sky and lit the calm waters of Gardner Bay at Española. We landed on a coralline beach where many sea lions were resting after being out in the ocean feeding on fish for a few days. It demands a lot of energy that needs and they recover by having long siestas in colonies. Some of their pups are active playing around or just milking from their mums.
We had a great walk along that beautiful beach where many mocking birds were so friendly and were very curious to see us. Some pelicans, boobies, and terns, were catching fish and some of our guests got a stretching session on the beach with our wellness specialist, Roxana.
Then we returned to our ship where we had breakfast and afterward went to snorkel at Gardner Islet. It is so near in the bay and it is filled of marine wildlife, so much so that as soon as we jumped into the water we saw king angel fish, sea stars, and some juvenile sea lions that came to play with us. Some of our guests spotted a Pacific green marine turtle and others saw a black tip shark. During this type of expedition, each of our intrepid guests get a different experience
Later in the afternoon we motored for few minutes to Punta Suarez, one of the most magical places that Galapagos has. Here you find many types of animals, such as blue footed boobies, a big colony of Nazca Boobies, frigates, hawks, finches, marine iguanas, mocking birds, and red billed tropic birds. No doubt the highlight of this visitor site is the colony of waved albatross. These are the biggest sea bird of Galapagos and they are endemic just to this place. Every year they migrate to Peru and Chile and stay there for three months. At the beginning of April they start to return to Española for mating and nesting. It is so fascinating to see these big birds taking off and landing as they typically weigh 16 pounds. It is not an easy task to do it and they try several times to land and run about 40 yards to take off.
Another attraction of Punta Suarez is a blow hole. The geology of Galapagos is very interesting. You find lava tunnels and big pockets of lava at the coast and the power of the oceans hit this geological formation, water comes through a fissure and is thrown up into in a form of a geyser. It is spectacular and fun to watch. On our way back to the disembarkation place, we had the opportunity of watching the albatross courtship, a kind of ritual of falling in love that consists of several steps- crossing their beaks, moving their heads side to side, walking in a very funny way, rattling their beaks. All of these movements are done in a very synchronized way.
The sunset on the equator happens so fast, a few more minutes and dusk was presented. We increased our
pace to be on time back on board, but we could not avoid stopping from time to time to take pictures of the beautiful sunset. It was multicolor and the sky turned red, bluish, orange, and purple.
We enjoyed our great day in this paradise. Our eager guests are asking themselves, “What kind of adventure is waiting us tomorrow?”
