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