I went up to breakfast first (as SS was once again chafing against authority and would not rush himself ;-) ). I just put all his food on the plate for him (including the brown toast – tough for the rest of them!). Today was scrambled eggs again plus the usual other bits, and the juice was some sort of melon medley (ugh).
At 8am we were on the panga and went for a wet landing at Urvina Bay to see the land iguanas. The beach was quite dark coarse sand, so I spent a good few minutes trying to remove it from my shoes before giving up and resigning myself to a rough pedicure as I walked. There was a turtle nesting site on the beach where we landed, with stop signs all around it.
A few of our group strayed inside the stop signs (including SS of course), and got shouted at. (Our guide started muttering darkly about Jonah goats and biodegradable bullets). SS retreated to a rock and tried to readjust his shoes to remove the sand and also trying to cover his aching blisters with various plasters (which was to be a theme of the day – I believe I counted 4 shoe stops in total).
We were expecting to see about 3 land iguanas, but ended up seeing 17 in total, including two having a near fight. There were lots of iguana nests (apparently there should only be one iguana per nest, but if one gets cold and creeps in after dark, there is a tacit agreement that this is OK, provided the interloper leaves early the next morning).
Also on the walk were native cotton trees, and bumblebees. Bumblebees are attracted to bright yellow (the only colour of most flowers in the Galapagos). So Donna carrying a bright yellow rucksack was not a good move – she was the bumblebee target for the day. They don’t have stings, but that didn’t stop her jumping and leaping around as she got divebombed most of the morning. We also saw the poisonous apple tree, and some bare sections of the interior of the island where there used to be mangrove swamps before the new beach was raised up by volcanic activity. Nothing will grow there yet as the soil is still too salty.
As we left, the first boat load from one of the Tip Top boats landed. This reassured me that we had chosen the right boat - I have never seen such a collection of expanding walking sticks, and excessive camera equipment. The animals are so close, a zoom lens of this size is really not necessary!
Back to the boat, and I was a bit rebellious and skipped snorkelling today. it was sold to us on the basis that the water would be cold, and there might be jellyfish again - not very tempting. on their return the snorkellers were all excited as they saw an octopus which was a little annoying. But they also confirmed that the water was the coldest yet, so I didn’t regret it. We read our books and relaxed instead - SS took the opportunity to get some more sun.
Glasses of apple juice all round on their return.
Lunch was soon called, today was a soup with beans, chicken and pasta bits, followed by fish stew with garlic, new potatoes, salad and a bean salad with egg. Dessert was fruit skewers covered with chocolate. Again a bit more food friction, as it became clear that there was not enough for two fruit skewers each (I was one of the first with the platter, and took two as SS had already left the table). So some people were giving fruit back, some were loudly counting how many were left, looking obviously at who had taken two skewers already etc etc. Very amusing. I was not giving my second one back.
SS headed off to tan his back after lunch, I retreated inside to read my book and nurse my red legs. The ship set off for Fernandina across the bay, and we were told that as soon as the anchor went down, we were to be ready.
Of course I could see problems with SS with this sort of ordering around and time keeping, and sure enough, there were 12 grumpy people sitting ready on the boat when I finally managed to shoe horn him into gear and into his life vest.
Fernandina was worth it – beautiful walk, our favourite.
Fernandina was worth it – beautiful walk, our favourite.
It was very short, but had all our favourite animals etc, and we were also given the time to just sit and be quiet and let things happen around us, rather than walking on and on. Dry landing as well which was nice.
There was sand and flat lava, and we were surrounded by volcanoes as usual.
There was sand and flat lava, and we were surrounded by volcanoes as usual.
We saw marine iguanas swimming around and lying on rocks in piles as usual - I took loads of photos as these really were some of my favourite things in galapagos (good thing, as there were thousands of them! Sourpuss on the boat actually refused to come on the fernandina walk because there were so many marine iguanas, which she called "Ugly rodents" - I think someone didn't do their Galapagos research before coming...):
,turtles in pools (including one with a severely damaged front flipper)
also rays, sea lions and Sally Lightfoot crabs:
(including a sea lion family with a brand new baby that came to say hi to SS - who was wearing his hat for a change as he had burnt his head suntanning)
lava lizards
and a Galapagos hawk.
Very relaxing just sitting around and watching.
We also saw a small whale skeleton that had washed up and been reassembled, some lava cactus and various markers.
And of course the lesser known Boobie - laden down with her camera, rucksack, video camera, water, hat, SPF 30 and dressed head to toe in North Face gear all in "Naturalist Guide" beige...
Back on board, to find banana fritters waiting for us – I had 4! Even SS had 2 which is unheard of for that type of food. Yum!
We settled in for another long journey, as we now had to round the top of Isabela. So we took our books upstairs as the ship motored up around the top of Isabela Island. At the NW tip of the isalnd is an old volcano, where half of the caldera has eroded away over time. It was quite grey and misty on approach:
but then the sun set just as we rounded the point, lighting it up beautifully:
Then I turned and concentrated on the sunset:
My sister would have been proud as I snapped away with the camera - this is only a very small selection of the photographs!
We passed the equator at about 7pm, bit of an anticlimax all round, and the sea got a bit rougher so SS and I relaxed in the cabin for a while before dinner. Dinner was one of the best yet – very tasty spaghetti bolognaise with a cheesy vegetable bake and salad, followed by raspberry sorbet with coconut sauce. All very well done. Again I was tired so went straight to bed after dinner, enjoying the rocking of the boat as we motored along. At about 2:30am I woke briefly as we rounded the top of the island and hit much choppier seas, but was straight back to sleep again (unlike the rest of the boat I found out the next morning).
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