Española Island

Once again, the weather today was very pleasant from early on in the day. During our morning snorkeling session, we had the company of an immense polarized school of black striped salemas. They engulfed us in a parade of sparkling silver shine.

The impressive white sand beach was still covered with sea lions (it has been like that for the last five weeks), most of which were young males and adult females. Several bulls were resting.

At Pta. Suarez the afternoon was bright and hot. With the rising tide and the calm ocean, not very many sea lions were swimming there; instead they were all snoozing on the beach. Before we even landed, it was already possible for us to see abundant albatrosses flying off the south eastern cliff of the island. We even found some of them already taking possession of their future nest sites, "roosting" on the bare lava rocks of the trail. There are fewer Nazca boobies now, but they are busy doing a good job raising their offspring. One was trying hard to eat my camera!

A western wind was blowing today making the spray of the blowhole directly hit the vista point on the trail. Although the rain has slowed down, the island remains very green, and the marine iguanas are persistently laying eggs wherever they find sufficient space to dig.