Day 2 on the Samba

Wednesday January 25, 2017

Overnight we navigated to Darwin's Bay on Genovesa Island.  The bay is actually a collapsed caldera of a volcano so the whole island looks like a horseshoe.  There is a network of towers that used to shine lights so that boat captains could navigate into the bay before GPS since there is only a small area that's deep enough for boats to get through.

Our schedule for Genovesa Island.  All day every day was busy!

In the morning we took a walk with Santiago around the beach.  There is a mangrove forest where red-footed booby nest and we saw a few babies.  They are so puffy and white!  There are also tons of other birds that nest in the cliffs.  Most of the wildlife on this island was birds but we did see a few sea lions.  The sun was super intense and bright and it was pretty hot standing directly in it on the beach.  Miraculously I didn't get sunburned the entire trip!  I think a good full-brimmed had is definitely a necessity and I'll get one before my next trip to somewhere near the equator.  Also a long sleeved shirt like a rash guard is also important to swim in.  I borrowed one from Brandon's mom and definitely need to get my own.   Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from the Darwin's Bay hike.

A frigate bird warming his wings

Swallow Tailed Gull

Juvenile frigate bird

Red-footed booby bird

Baby red-footed booby

Santiago talking about how this turtle basically roasted to death

A Nazca Gull with a nest.  You can't see the nest since they don't build nests that we're familiar with.  It's basically just a few twigs on the ground.

A Frigate Bird

This sea lion eventually  made it to the shade in the mangroves

After our morning hike we went for a snorkeling test run in the bay.  There was literally nothing to see since the visibility was terrible in the water but I think it was good practice to find out if we're comfortable with the equipment and swimming in open water.  After snorkeling we had fun jumping off the side of the boat!  Other people have pictures of that, I'll have to look for them.

After lunch I was exhausted so took a nap.  Brandon, Jeremy and their parents went kayaking around the bay but I was resting up for our afternoon hike which was up Darwin's Steps (I've also seen these called Prince Philip's Steps?).  This hike started with steps up the cliffs across the top of the island to the oceanside.  There is a small plateau that you're not allowed to walk on since it's a nesting site for storm petrels.  The entire walk is just full of birds- mostly Nazca gulls and red-footed boobies but we also saw Frigate birds and petrels in the distance.  We were also really lucky and saw multiple short-eared owls.  We actually saw a short-eared owl eating a petrel!  The gulls nest right next to the trail so we saw a lot with eggs and some building their nests.  It was really interesting to see the male gulls give the females twigs or stones for the nest.  Unfortunately we saw a few abandoned eggs as well.

Nesting Nazca gull

Short-eared owl eating a petrel

Frigate bird.  These are much larger than they seem in the picture!

Male frigate birds

Another short-eared owl, this one is sleeping though and not eating other birds!

Most of the walk on Prince Philip's steps were lava rocks and small Palo Santo trees

On the boat that evening after dinner we hung out on the deck and saw the Milk Way.  The amount of stars you can see at night is amazing since you're in the middle of nowhere.  There was also bioluminescence in the water and it was beautiful when the fish jumped and made sparkling waves.  We also saw a bright red star(?) or planet(?) set on the horizon.  Other passengers said it was Venus.

There really isn't much to do at night on the boat.  Most evenings after the briefing and dinner and would sit on the deck and watch the stars or look for things in the water.  It sounds boring but it was really relaxing to just sit around and not have to be anywhere or do anything.  I definitely want to look up more boat trips!  I imagine most of the boat trip options are in more habited areas though.

Also we were getting up so early every day (5:30-6am) that we rarely stayed up past 9-10pm.