This morning when we awoke we were ALL shellbacks! Many had been pollywogs when they went to bed, never having crossed the equator on a ship before. But we crossed quietly into the northern hemisphere in the wee hours of the morning and became shellbacks while we were sleeping. I made an optional early wakeup call on channel one of our PA system at 0615 and many guests joined Celso and I on deck. It was a lovely morning, with a calm sea, clear blue sky and the volcanoes of Isabela silhouetted south of us. Sea birds winged past and a male frigate attempted to land on our metal super structure, but was blown off by the winds. We spotted three whale spouts but even though we changed course and tried to approach them we did not get a good look at any of them. We are glad however, just to know they are out there!
After breakfast we boarded the Zodiacs and motored slowly along the shore spying feeding and resting marine iguanas, Galapagos sea lions, flightless cormorants, and many sea turtles. The ship was anchored below the eroded slopes of Volcan, Ecuador and the cliffs and caves were both dramatic and colorful. We spent an hour on our “panga ride” and saw and photographed much wildlife and scenery. Back on board we wiggled into our wetsuits and headed out to snorkel.
The water was cooler today – 68 degrees F! And, it was full of plankton, but that was okay because we understood that it is the cool upwelling currents here in the western realm of the archipelago that bring nutrients to the surface and feed the plankton which in turn are the basis of an extremely rich marine food chain. We snorkeled for an hour with over 60 sea turtles (I counted them!), flightless cormorants, swimming marine iguanas and dozens of species of fish – some large, some small and many in schools. We were chilled, but also thrilled when we climbed the white ladders back into the pangas to return to the ship.
We had lunch and siesta – interrupted briefly when I called to announce there was a pod of 60 common dolphins racing to the west – and then an interesting talk about Charles Darwin given to us by naturalist Celso. In the cool of afternoon we headed out for the excitement of a super high tide on Punta Espinoza!
I loaded the Zodiacs light – only 8 guests per boat - because I could see that waves were breaking over the entrance to the landing. Our Zodiac driver cowboys raced us in-between the breakers to the coast, and kept us mostly dry. Once on shore we walked on lava and beaches out to the point with pounding waves all around us. I had warned our guests to wear shoes that could get wet and that was fortunate because much of the trail was wet. A young cormorant sat patiently waiting for his parents to bring him a meal of fish or octopus. He looked healthy and calm despite the waves that had nearly engulfed the lava shelf where his parents had nested. There were marine iguanas everywhere. The males are beginning to display and fight for territories, and the sea lions (some with pups) were crowded on the spit of land that was not flooded by the high tide and waves.
As the sun set our naturalists radioed our chief mate, the Zodiacs came to pick us up, and we motored back to our comfortable ship, the National Geographic Islander. We’ve had a very full day – from sun up to sundown - watching whale spouts on the horizon, swimming with sea turtles and wading thru the full moon induced high tides in las Islas Encantadas of Galapagos!
