A Way to Remember My Trips: 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.