Sunday, April 30, 2017

Day 7 (last day!) on the Samba

Well my Paris trip has come and gone and I'm still working on writing up the Galapagos trip!  Life comes at you fast I guess.   After coming back from Paris I was really busy at work and then I had two weeks of jury duty that ate up my life.  Now things are a bit quieter so here I am again.  It seems kind of silly writing up a trip from January in May but I'm sure 10 years down the line I'll appreciate reading about it.

January 30, 2017
This was our last full day on the Samba.  We spent the morning on Floreana Island which is one of the few populated islands on the Galapagos.  Once we landed we were met by a guy with a large truck that took us up to the highlands where we took a short hike through a tortoise zoo/sanctuary.  The zoo was not very impressive though but we saw so many larger tortoises in the wild on Fernandina it would have been hard to match that.

The truck to take us up to the highlands

A tortoise as the zoo

Part of the labyrinth of stones that around the pirate caves

I like the silly cartoon couple on this sign which does nothing to accurately depict the odd (deadly) relationship of Ritter and Strauch 

Part of Strauch and Ritter's cave

Our guide said that no one really knows the origin of this face carved in stone

After the zoo the hike continued to some pirate's caves at the top of hill.  The caves were also used by a couple (Dr. Ritter and Dore Strauch) that lived on the island together in the 1930's.  Another person in our group said that they watched a documentary about the couple and told us some of the crazy stories about the mysterious deaths on the island during that time period!  Also the story about the couple pulling out their teeth and sharing dentures is pretty brutal.

Colorful iguanas around the pier

Jeremy's new friend

After the highlands visit the boat moved to Devil's Cove for our last snorkeling trip.  It was probably some of the best snorkeling of the trip!  Devil's Cove is located around a rock formation that creates a kind of circular formation underwater.  The currents all converge around and through the rocks and it makes it a great place to see tons of sea life.  The visibility was great and we saw flounder, sharks, sergeant majors laying eggs and just tons of large schools of fish!  It was great.

Devil's Cove from above water (where it doesn't look too interesting)

After lunch we navigated to Santa Cruz.  During the trip Santiago gave a powerpoint presentation about the fish we had seen which was semi-interesting.  I think it would have been better before we had seen the fish so we knew the names of what we saw.

The dinner on the last night was nice- the crew dressed up in their formal white clothes and there were nice table cloths.  It was nice to say thank you and give them their tips!  We got to the port of Santa Cruz that evening where I was able to get data/internet service.  It was a little disappointing to learn about all the terrible news we were blissfully ignorant of (like Trump's travel ban).

Anyway, on a lighter note here is the picture of us getting to Santa Cruz!  It was interesting seeing all the traffic coming and going from our boat once we got to civilization.  There were so many water taxis and delivery boats coming and going!



Sunday, March 26, 2017

Day 6 on the Samba

Well obviously I wasn't able to finish my Galapagos write-up before leaving for Paris- I got back from Paris a few days ago (on Thursday).  Paris was wonderful of course but for whatever reason I didn't want to spend my limited free time writing detailed blog posts!  I guess I'm much more the type that likes to reflect on everything afterwards.

We leave for India in mid-October and I assure you I will have everything documented by then!  That trip will be about 3 weeks with a lot of time in a car so hopefully I will be able to write about it a bit during the trip.

January 29, 2017
This morning started off at Elizabeth Bay on Isabela Island.  We took a tender ride around a mangrove which was only okay.  It was really hot and once you were in the mangrove forest there was no breeze.  There also wasn't really that much to see.  We saw sea lions resting up in the mangrove tree which was pretty cool.  On the way back in the bay we followed some groups of penguins for awhile.

Pelicans taking off in Elizabeth Bay

Flightless Cormorant

Blue-footed Boobies


Sea lion in the mangrove tree

   


Penguins are really hard to photograph!  This was the best I could do.
In the afternoon, on the way to Punta Morena, Santiago called us all to the deck to see another Bryde's Whale and a bunch of boobie birds and pelicans diving into a bait ball of sardines.  We hopped into the tenders to go closer and it was probably one of the coolest things I've seen.  It was crazy to see the birds diving with such precision into the water and then seeing tons of sharks circling the bait ball.  The whale came by a bunch of times too!

We were in two tenders and would drift over the bait ball and all of a sudden we felt a huge THING ram the bottom of the boat.  Of course it was a shark going crazy and feeding and not paying attention but it knocked boat so hard!  I can't even imagine if one of us had fallen into the water.  We fell onto the floor of the boat luckily though.

The last bird to arrive were the frigate birds who actually steal fish from the pelicans and the boobies since they can't dive.  We saw them hover a few times and steal the fish from right out of the mouths of other birds!

Not the best picture but the only one I got with the whale!

The other tender,  you can see the mass of birds

Our fearless guide and tender driver



This video above is from when we first arrived.  You can see there's a lot more action and birds diving than compared to the video below which was when we left.  Also in the video below there are frigate birds (the large  black birds).  They are skimming the surface (and looking to steal fish from other birds) because they can't dive.



We headed on to Punta Moreno.  We first went snorkelling but the water was really rough.  We were still able to see a sea turtle and some rays.  It was interesting snorkeling here since the water was pretty shallow you could dive down and see the bottom pretty easily.  We were looking for sea horses but Santiago said the water was too rough and we wouldn't see them.

The last activity for today was a walk around Punta Moreno.  It was mostly lava rocks so there really wasn't too much wildlife.  We saw some flamingoes and ducks in the small pools.  There were some small pioneer plants that were slowly turning the lava rocks into dirt, that was interesting to see.  The green plants around the salt water ponds was very striking.

This was also where I finally figured out that my camera was fogging up when I took it out of the air-conditioned cabin immediately into the humid, warm air- the interior lens would fog up for about 15 minutes.  Now I know to take it out earlier the next time I travel to a humid place!  I'm not really a photography fanatic but my early photos from each hike seem dull and not crisp and this is probably why.

The landscape of Punta Moreno

Pioneer plant

The lava had many different textures

A saltwater pond
Flamingoes and a duck
Another saltwater pond.  I loved the contrast of the green with the black rocks.






Saturday, March 11, 2017

Day 5 on the Samba

Wow I am cutting it really close on my goal of finishing my write-up of the Galapagos trip before I leave for Paris!  I've been super busy at work these past few weeks and I think that's normally the time I would do stuff like this.  Anyway, I'll do what I can!  If anything, I'll have tons of time on the plane right?  We're also predicted to get 8+ inches of snow on Monday night so maybe Tuesday will be a snow day??

January 28, 2017

In hindsight I think today was my favorite day on the Samba.  This day was so great everything afterwards seemed kind of dull and throwaway.  I know that sounds terrible to day because it was still vacation in an amazing place but really nothing could compare to what we saw this day.

We started the day on Fernandina Island at Punta Espinosa.  The part of the island we were on was mostly lava rocks and marine iguanas.


The day started out cloudy but towards the end the clouds burned off and it was pretty hot and sunny.  The tenders brought us to the rocky beach and the algae covering the rocks made it so so slippery!  Luckily no one fell but there were a few times I thought it would!

Santiago was telling us that the El Nino last year (?) made it hard for the green algae to grow and the marine iguana population really suffered because that's all they eat.  Punta Espinosa had a lot of iguana skeletons all over so it was very clear how hard it was for the iguanas to survive during that time period.  What I thought was so interesting about the Galapagos was how untouched everything was- if an animal dies it's body it just left there for nature to take care of and eventually it will turn into bones.
Slowly making it over the precarious rocks

An iguana resting on the skeleton of another iguana


The cove at Punta Espinosa


A sea of resting iguanas around a shrub


Probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip.  A sea lion in a cove on Punta Espinosa surrounded by crabs and algae.



Santiago telling us about this whale skeleton
Next we went snorkeling in Tagus Cove which is on Isabela Island.  This was such a great snorkeling session.  The cove has steep walls so we stayed along the walls and were able to see all the wildlife along the wall but also everything that hung out in the deep water.  On this trip I also started to learn how to dive with a snorkel- have I mentioned yet that I am a very novice snorkeler?

The captain of the boat, Jose, was a great snorkeler/guide and somehow saw lots of animals that I never would have seen on my own.  He could also dive really deep and took people down that wanted to see things closer.  I never went down that deep with him since the water pressure made me uncomfortable but it did motivate me to dive a little bit!

Anyway, on this snorkel we saw penguins, swimming cormorants and tons of starfish.  There were lots of different colors of starfish- some were yellow, others were blue and we also saw brittle stars and sea anemones.

Most of the group went in after a bit but Jeremy, his parents and I stayed out with the Captain and I think that's when we saw some of the best stuff.  A school of golden rays passed by deep under us and I dove a bit to get a better look.  We saw a large sea turtle and another very large ray with a snubbed nose.  The Captain saw a swimming puffer fish that he held lightly but it got really mad and puffed up.  It was absolutely hilarious how puffed up and mad it got.  It swam away furiously beating its little fins.

After lunch we went for a walk/hike in Urvina Bay on Isabela Island.  It was gray and raining so I had very low expectations.  We landed on a lava rock beach that was mostly fenced off because it was used as a turtle nesting ground.  We started walking a bit and almost immediately saw a giant tortoise eating in some long grass.  I was super excited so I took a bunch of pictures of him/her.





Little did I know that once we turned the corner on the trail we would see tons more giant tortoises!  In all we saw 21 giant tortoises which Santiago said very rare.  Apparently the rain brought them down to the beach from the highlands to eat, drink, play in the puddles and mate.  Even Santiago was flabbergasted by how many we saw!  At the end of the walk we ran into another group and that guide was surprised as well.  It was truly a wonderful experience.

I was struck by how large and slow the giant tortoises are.  The pictures below don't really do them justice!  They are so shy that even when we walked past them some would shrink up into their shells with a giant exhale to compress their lungs so they would fit.  I regret that I didn't think to take any videos of them.









In the tender on the way back to the boat we saw a bunch of jumping rays.  The crew said that they were small juvenile rays playing.  They leap out of the water so high!  Before this trip I don't think I knew that ray jumped out of the water.  Apparently when they are adults they do it to get rid of parasites but as juveniles it's playful.

As we were heading to the next location the Captain saw a Bryde's whale.  It was such a beautiful sunset and seeing a whale was a bonus!  Not to belittle the experience but I only saw it's back surfacing a few times. I'd love to see a whale tail or head sometime too!

On the lookout for the whale