The next morning, we were on our boat in the Baltra harbor by 1130. After a tasty lunch, we headed over to the North side of Santa Cruz island to Dragon Hill for our first bit of exploration and snorkeling. I was super excited when our guide pointed out our first marine iguana. Over the next hourish walk, we say a ridiculous number of birds, land iguanas, and marine iguanas. The land iguanas are the largest, and they eat low hanging succulents and plants as well as fruit that has fallen from trees. They do not swim like their smaller marine counterpart who eats algae and seaweed from the rocks. They both lay eggs in nests dug into the ground, and they both share a common ancestor, the green land iguana. It is thought that this iguana drifted to the Galapagos on vegetation several million years ago.
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| Isla Santa Cruz- So this is where sand comes from? |
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| Isla Santa Cruz noms. |
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| Vegetation |
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| Isla Santa Cruz noms! |
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| Heron! |
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| Yep, they have flamingos too! |
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| Land iguana |
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| Weird ear holes |
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| Scales |
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| No fear of humans |
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| Scuse me, you're in my path |
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| Isla Santa Cruz |
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| Not so camoflauged |
After the walk (holy balls these islands get hot), it felt great to jump into the water. It was a bit murky, but it was still exciting to get to see several types of fish. After swimming around for about half an hour, we went back to the boat. That evening we got to meet the rest of the crew and get to know a bit more about the fellow passengers. Rodrigo was our guide and the boat had five other crew members. There were also eleven passengers. French, Italian, British and us Americans. An interesting mix.
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| Serious case of crabs |
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| Such cool colors |
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| Getting knocked about |
During the night, they moved the boat from Santa Cruz to the south side of Isabela. When we woke up we had a whole new view to check out before breakfast. Isabella islands has several very large volcanoes on it. They weren't the pointy kind like we think of that are super tall. They were really wide, flat and not very tall.
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| My nap vehicle. |
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| My fishing boat. My fish. |
After breakfast we got to go onto Tintoreras Islet for our first walk on lava flows. At this point we still couldn't believe how many of the marine iguanas there were. So many photos. The iguanas dive down into the water to eat algae and seaweed, but need to spend a decent amount of time in the sun as well to stay warm, so in the early morning you find them all over the dark sunny lava rocks. We also got to see a couple of penguins zooming around in the water (its amazing how awkward they are on land), as well as some pelicans and blue-footed boobies catching their breakfasts. As we hopped off onto the island, we woke up a sea lion who had been sleeping on bench. After some stretches, she hopped off the bench and wobbled her way through the pack of us and down to the water. No fear. Purely annoyance.
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| Awesome lava rocks, not covered in bird poo, covered in minerals |
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| Sun cuddles. |
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| Morning yoga |
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| Good morning!!! |
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| Awkward bird dive photo. |
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| Penguino!!! |
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| Awkward bird |
At this point I was amazed at how many animals I had already seen. I'm used to hiking or tours where it's really exciting to get to see even a couple of (insert fancy animal/bird/lizards here). Already we had seen half of the things I was stoked to see, including a couple of sea turtles coming up for air on our way back to the boat.
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| Helllo finches!!!! |
We then headed onto Isabela island where we got to check out a second breeding center for turtles and a lagoon for flamingos. A majority of the islands don't have any fresh water springs or sources like that. What will happen with some of the inland lagoons is that ocean water is filtered by the porous lava rocks. That way, these lagoons are great for flamingos and other animals because it is brackish (aka much less salty). Many of the plants here are evolved to store water for long periods of time or to pull the moisture out of the humid air.
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| In case you didn't know |
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| Birds in the mangroves |
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| NOM some fishies? |
After lunch we got to snorkel and check out the little town on Isabella. We wandered around on a beach and got a drink. The town seemed to be full of restaurants and little tour agencies.It did not seem full of people though. I spent a decent amount of time on the beach watching marine iguanas run across the sand down to the water and swim across to the rocks. They just don't look like animals that should swim. Bwhahaa.
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| Comfortable? |
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| They're everywhere! |
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| Beware, iguana crossing |
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| What you looking at? |
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| They've got no fear of being knocked about! |
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| I must go! |
The next morning we were up to take a look at some more lava flows at Moreno Point. These ones were younger and we got to check out several lava tunnels. This happens when the lava on the top of a flow cools and hardens, the insides are still molten and continue to flow, leaving a large empty tunnel. We checked out some more tunnels, a little laguna and some more birds. Then we got to spend a couple hours snorkeling and it was one of the coolest things I've seen. I saw parrotfish over a foot long and so many sea turtles that you would be watching one while another bumped into you. The water was maybe about six to ten feet deep over this large shelf of rock. The fish and turtles seemed to love eating whatever was growing on these rocks. It really made me regret not having an underwater camera.
