Española Island
Our last day in Galápagos was as interesting, beautiful and exciting as the entire week had been. We had a slightly lazy start, with breakfast between 8-9:00 a.m., and then loaded into the Zodiacs for a deep-water snorkel outing around Tortuga Islet. The water was crystal clear and turquoise in color, and we found sharks and rays in addition to many species of fish. We swam around the entire islet; some of us went around twice!
From snorkeling we went directly into a lovely white sand beach. Here we joined those guests who had gone straight to shore, and found dozens of sea lions resting and swimming, and one small fellow who was obviously very hungry and searching for his mom. We naturalists were delighted to see this little pup, as he was no doubt the individual that we watched born on this beach, just last week! He seemed in good health, quite vocal and eager for his Mother to return to suckle him.
While the naturalists coaxed the last of us beach lovers off the beach, some of the teenagers got permission from the Captain to jump from the ship into the water. We enjoyed a jump of several meters and Bitinia took photos. I am just a big kid at heart, so I had to jump too!
The afternoon walk on Punta Suarez along a rough trail of lava boulders was incredible. The tide was high and the surf pounded. The sea lions were sleeping far up on shore trying to stay dry. We hiked through a blue-footed booby colony (some of us saw an egg laid! It was bright turquoise and immediately faded to a sky blue), watched snatches of the albatross courtship dance, found an albatross chick, watched the blow hole shooting spray high into the sky and had a memorable final hike. As we returned to the disembarkation dock our “dry landing” turned wet as we waded along the concrete dock with waves breaking across.
Our last day in Galápagos was as interesting, beautiful and exciting as the entire week had been. We had a slightly lazy start, with breakfast between 8-9:00 a.m., and then loaded into the Zodiacs for a deep-water snorkel outing around Tortuga Islet. The water was crystal clear and turquoise in color, and we found sharks and rays in addition to many species of fish. We swam around the entire islet; some of us went around twice!
From snorkeling we went directly into a lovely white sand beach. Here we joined those guests who had gone straight to shore, and found dozens of sea lions resting and swimming, and one small fellow who was obviously very hungry and searching for his mom. We naturalists were delighted to see this little pup, as he was no doubt the individual that we watched born on this beach, just last week! He seemed in good health, quite vocal and eager for his Mother to return to suckle him.
While the naturalists coaxed the last of us beach lovers off the beach, some of the teenagers got permission from the Captain to jump from the ship into the water. We enjoyed a jump of several meters and Bitinia took photos. I am just a big kid at heart, so I had to jump too!
The afternoon walk on Punta Suarez along a rough trail of lava boulders was incredible. The tide was high and the surf pounded. The sea lions were sleeping far up on shore trying to stay dry. We hiked through a blue-footed booby colony (some of us saw an egg laid! It was bright turquoise and immediately faded to a sky blue), watched snatches of the albatross courtship dance, found an albatross chick, watched the blow hole shooting spray high into the sky and had a memorable final hike. As we returned to the disembarkation dock our “dry landing” turned wet as we waded along the concrete dock with waves breaking across.
