We had an early start to the day as we disembarked on North Seymour Island. There was an abundance of activity in every direction. Rays were jumping out of the water in the distance, schools of razor surgeonfish swirled in the clear waters by our landing point, sea lions lumbered across our path, frigatebirds swooped above our heads—and that was all in the first ten minutes.
As we made our way along the beach, we had the opportunity to photograph frigate birds feeding their young with fish from the mother’s gullet and males with their red pouches inflated to attract females. We were dazzled by the blue feet of adult blue-footed boobies and observed the pale grey feet of juveniles of the species. Inland we had an amazing chance to see a yellow land iguana munching on the leaves of a palo verde tree.
On board we filled what remained of the morning with a briefing on water activities and used the early afternoon for our first photo talk by Ralph Lee Hopkins followed with a hands-on break-out session with the entire photo team.
After the first snorkel of the trip, we climbed into Zodiacs under a misty sky and motored towards the red sand beach of Rabida Island. As we pulled ashore, we saw two flamingos fly towards the inland lagoon. We quietly hiked into the lagoon and had a spectacular show by the two flamingos, who were then joined by a third, as they walked up and down the shoreline feeding. They were unafraid of their admiring audience and kept close to the shoreline to allow us to even hear the sucking noise that their bills make while feeding. It was an unforgettable end to the first full day of our Galapagos Epic Photo Expedition.
