Española Island

Warm, calm waters greeted us this morning as we arrived to Española Island; this is the southeastern-most island and at the same time the oldest in the archipelago. We began our day visiting Gardner Bay, where we went kayaking along the impressive cliffs of Española Island. Along the coast we found blue-footed boobies fishing, green sea turtles and several Galápagos shearwaters fishing early in the morning. Some of our guests wanted to explore the underwater world of the archipelago and went to Gardner Islet; there several schools of fish, sharks and rays were our companions. We also went to the beach which more than eight hundred Galápagos sea lions call home. We were surrounded by several females and their calves; some looked lost and searched among females. We observed these juveniles making several attempts to steal some milk from sleeping females with no success at all.

After that great time on Gardner Bay, we sailed westwards to Punta Suarez. There we disembarked to visit the colony of Nazca boobies and blue-footed boobies. We were greatly delighted to observe four Galápagos waved albatross flying along the cliffs. We also noticed a large group of them resting on the surface of the water. Only one of these birds was able to land on the island; most of the times the first albatross on the shore are males, their mates will arrive soon. We are expecting to see them in their courtship ritual in the next coming weeks. Not only birds were very active this afternoon; we found several females marine iguanas nesting, as well as Española lava lizards that were showing off their bright colors and aggressive behavior. We said goodbye to the island with a nice sunset and got back on board for the last recap of all the amazing things we saw this week.