North Seymour and Rabida Island
Today is the first full day of activities exploring the very famous Galapagos Islands. Yesterday we went to a beach in the afternoon to give our travelers a taste of the islands, and they were happy, but today they are astonished. After a nutritious breakfast we disembarked on this very small island called North Seymour, indeed small but with plenty of wildlife, one of my favorite places here. As soon as we arrived, the blue footed boobies mating put on the best show; they have a very well elaborated courtship to fall in love, seeing this is one of the most memorable moments that our travelers experience, it is so fascinating and spectacular. But the show is not over, a few feet away from the nesting area of the boobies are the frigate birds, this time it is the male that blows up its bright red air sac to attract the female; and all the colors of nature combine with each other to offer our eyes a magnificent view.
North Seymour is a magical place with land iguanas, marine iguanas, sea lions, swallow tailed gulls, finches, warblers and more. All these creatures live here in harmony; one can spend hours exploring this spot, but after almost 3 hours, we have to come back to our ship for the next activities.
Two hours of navigation took us to Rabida, known as the red island because there is plenty of iron in the volcanic formations, and this mineral in contact with the oxygen of the air corrodes and becomes red. This chemical reaction offers to us a beautiful red beach colonized by sea lions and migratory birds.
We went for snorkeling along the coast; many playful sea lions came to play with us. You might ask yourself… to play? Yes, to play, it only happens here in Galapagos where the animals are fearless and very curious about humans. Also, we found a couple of marine turtles and a lot of tropical fishes, sea urchins, sea stars, and coral. Some of our guests went to kayak and others to our glass bottom boat; everyone can choose from the different activities we have onboard the National Geographic Endeavour.
Our walk on the beach was delightful, finding mockingbirds, flycatchers and Darwin finches, some brown pelicans and sea birds getting some food while the sun was going down leaving on the sky magical orange-blue and yellowish colors, and in our minds we had incredible memories of an amazing journey.
