North Seymour and Rabida
Our first day in the Galápagos has been so overwhelming that it is hard to imagine how the rest of our trip is going to be. This morning we visited a small island that was uplifted and is home to a large colony of frigatebirds and the nesting site for blue-footed boobies.
When our naturalist told us that a little further up the trail we were going to get closer to the frigates we were doubtful, so we took many pictures, thinking that there was no way to get closer to them, but as we strolled on the trail we found small colonies of these magnificent birds: some sitting on their nests; others with their red pouches all puffed up, waiting for a female to fly by; males and females sitting on eggs; juveniles waiting for their parents to feed them and baby chicks preening their down feathers.
The blue-footed boobies were right in the middle of the trail doing their courtship dance and others were already incubating their eggs. Land iguanas were just starting to come out of their burrows to warm up with the sun’s rays.
The biggest surprise was yet to come, before our afternoon visit we got to enjoy bottlenose dolphins, which gave us a spectacular show bow-riding the National Geographic Endeavour. After this experience we had another great adventure in the water with hundreds of fish, sea lions, and a white-tip shark being chased by a sea lion!
The contrast of colors on the afternoon hike was the highlight for many of us; the whole island was a beautiful rusty red with stark sandal wood trees, prickly pear cacti and the deep blue ocean that surrounded the island making this a unique place to remember.
