After an interrupted night of sleep due to the ship's moving to a new location, we awoke to see a new island outside our port hole. Each evening while we were at dinner a schedule for the next day and a chocolate magically appeared on our beds. We never ate the chocolate and instead put them in our night stand drawer and took them home to Lily. Our schedule for today was the following:
0700-0900 Breakfast
0800 Snoreling and Kayak Briefing (distribution of snorkeling gear)
0900 Deep water snorkelings depart, followed by those going to the beach
10:45 Kayakers depart
1200 All Aboard
1230-1330 Lunch in dining room and at the Pool Deck
1500 Dry landing at Punta Suarez for long hike
1515 Disembarkation for option 2, a shorter slower pace hike
1900 Presentation of "Lindblad Expeditions/Nat Geo, Partners in Exploration"
followed by our first Recap session and a briefing about tomorrow's activities
1930 Dinner in the dining room
Our first order of business was breakfast followed by a trip to the sun deck where we picked up my wet suit and goggles and we both borrowed flippers. Luke brought his wetsuit and diving mask from home. We both agreed to do the deep water snorkel and were pleasantly surprised to see the underwater specialist, Jason Heilman, in our zodiac with his hi-tech underwater camera.
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| Heading out for our first deep-water snorkel |
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| A playful young sea lion did barrel rolls around all of us |
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| The tiny sliver of a fish is a Reef Cornetfish |
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| My snorkel buddy |
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| Heading back to the Endeavor with Jason, undersea specialist |
This was probably the only time we did not attempt to do all the activities and passed on the kayaking and instead learned how to rinse and hang our snorkel gear on the sun deck. We kayak tomorrow afternoon. After lunch we explored the ship and at 3 pm we disembarked for the "long hike" on Espanola Island. The hike was over huge boulders and reminded me of a hike Sharon and I took in Guadalupe NP over a river bed only this hike was made more difficult by the hundreds of marine iguanas sleeping on the rocks.
(I will stay with my original format and post my photos first and Luke's will follow)
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| The only marine iguana in the world is here in the Galapagos. They feed on the algae in the water. When they are on land you can see them spitting out salt water. |
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| The Magnificent Frigate Bird, also known as the Pirate bird as they steal food from other birds mid-air! |
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| The Espanola Mockingbird |
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| Notice the rocky boulders, this was our path |
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| The Nazca or Masked Booby |
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| The Waved Albatross |
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| A breeding male Marine Iguana |
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| Nazca booby and a mockingbird |
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| Our naturalist today was Jose Guerrero |
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| Nazca boobies nesting |
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| A Galapagos Hawk, a great find |
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| The beautiful vista from the far side of Espanola Island |
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| Our Dispatch photo, the tip for today: Wear good hiking shoes and watch where you step! |
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| Waved Albatross beginning their mating dance. |
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| A juvenile albatross |
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| Luke surrounded by Espanola mockingbirds |
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| Sunset as we were leaving the island |
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| The National Geographic Endeavor where dinner awaits! |
Luke's photos were equally good, some even better than mine and his camera isn't nearly as good.
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| Death in the Galapagos is a part of the Life Cycle and definitely photo worthy to a 9 year old boy! |
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| A Nazca Booby with two Mockingbirds in the foreground |
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| This is a favorite of mine that Luke took of a sleeping Nazca Booby |
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| Luke and naturalist Jose on the zodiac ride back to the Endeavor. |
What a day we had today and we are both exhilarated and exhausted! Tomorrow we visit Floreana Island. We will begin our day with a 0630 wet landing and a one mile fast pace walk before breakfast. Good Night!
.JPG)
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