Early in the morning the sun was already strong. With intense humidity we started our visit in my favorite island, North Seymour, the central island of Galápagos located on the northern part of Baltra Island, in which we found a variety of animals and plants, most of them unique to this place.
Just to mention few of them: the magnificent frigate birds, the great frigate birds on display this time of the year, the land iguanas. Surprisingly we saw one of the most beautiful courtships of some of the blue-footed boobies. The males were calling the attention of the females by whistling, and of course many of these males have already built part of the nest that will attract a female that may pass flying close to them. Their blue feet is what attracted the attention of our guests and we did stay the longest we could in order to enjoy their dance in this unique paradise. We could clearly see the difference between males and females: males have a smaller body than females, and have a yellow skin around their pupils, so their eyes look smaller. It is also astonishing to observe in some of the boobies, the different tones in their blue feet that make a nice combination with the pure blue ocean and clear sky in that moment.
You have to imagine that we have two seasons in the Galapagos Archipelago. Now we are still in the rainy season, it is hot and humid, the plants are still full with leaves, there are still many insects around. While from May on, everything will change. The dry and cool season starts and the landscape changes abruptly. The plants will dry out, the incense trees will drop their leaves, everything will look like it is dead, but the plants are only dormant. The prickly pear cacti, opuntia cactus, will be the source of food for all of the creatures that need fresh water.
In the afternoon, we visited Rabida Island. This island is amazing due to its geological formation, through time the iron inside of the basalt has turned red and no matter where you look, the island is bright red!
There was a natural history walk along a gorgeous red sandy beach, where Galapagos sea lions rest and behind the beach, there is a brackish water lagoon, where white checked pintail ducks were looking for food. There were many Darwin finches and Galapagos mockingbirds around, all of them singing loudly and happily. Several of our guests went deep water snorkeling along the coastal area; they spent an amazing time observing colorful fish and playing with a baby Galapagos fur seal. It was another great day in Paradise!
