Genovesa Island

Today was a day dedicated to love. Since the very moment we landed on Genovesa, we could see the big red “hearts” decorating salt bushes along the shoreline of Darwin Beach. Those were the inflated pouches of male frigate birds, trying to look attractive to the flying and choosy females. If you let me take the “literary license” of being a little romantic, I would say that we saw different kinds of love. Parental love of red-footed boobies caring for and tendering their fluffy chicks, and the love and pride of a mother sea lion enjoying how her pup played around, discovering its new world. Swallow-tailed gulls exchanged rocks and other sorts of presents to reinforce their pair bonds, and we saw iguanas loving the shade of small bushes in the heat of a sunny morning.

In my opinion, this is all love. If we share so many genes, why can’t we speak about love when we talk about animals other than human beings? And then there was the love we saw in the eyes of our guests when they came back from Genovesa. A deep love for nature, for planet earth, for human kind. However, to top every experience of the day, we had a ceremony on board, conducted by our Captain Juan Rueda, with Polaris guests and crew as witnesses. Ian Tuck and Ann Fitzgerald renewed their wedding vows in the middle of Genovesa caldera, with the solemnity of the good Pacific Ocean and the sun setting at the very same time. They reinforced their commitment of sharing their lives with love and respect, “sailing” their existence in the same boat, facing together any possible storm, but also enjoying together the many good calm seas they will for sure encounter.

It was just a lovely day!