Española Island
Today we had unforgettable experience when we landed on Gardner Bay at Española Island –hundreds of sea lions lay on the beach. From a distance they looked like rocks, but as we approached the beach, these “rocks” began to move around, and also started to make different noises…! Definitively, these were not big boulders! Several females were nursing their pups, while others rolled around on the sand. All this looked like a very relaxing scene and it was, but we were not looking at the other side of a sea lion’s life – the times when they go out to the sea to hunt and get fish.
Some explorers decided to swim around these waters and had the chance of seeing and meeting a sea lion in its own element; in the water they change from the clumsy creature that we see on land to a graceful and elegant marine creature, sliding around people and swimming in such a graceful way. The group that went deep-water snorkeling had a great experience with some playful sea lions; just like their friends on the beach, they decided to show off and demonstrate how skilled they are in the water.
Not to stay in the background, several mockingbirds decided to explore the contents of one of our bags, looking around the bag and searching; after a while they gave up and took off to a nearby tree. These animals are so tame, and scenes like this are unique to the Galápagos Islands.
During the afternoon we visited Punta Suarez, the land of the waved albatross. However, several other species of animals also waited for us. As expected, some sea lions moved around the beach. During the walk we saw a male blue-footed booby performing the courtship dance in front of us, then right above us several waved albatrosses glided by. On land, another albatross was incubating an egg, and to make things even better, two hawks perched on a rock not far from us.
As we reached the cliff before starting to return to the dock where we had disembarked, two waved albatrosses performed their courtship dance, getting ready to start a new cycle of life on this island. These elegant birds had travelled a long distance to reach this place where the conditions of the ocean, the current and the presence of their prey create the right timing and the necessary conditions to start these cycles of life.
As we left the island the sun was getting low, and a Nazca booby arrived to the colony to feed a young chick, giving us a sight that will be with us forever.
