Galapagos Islands 2023

Jan 25

Espanola island

This morning's adventure is a dry landing on Suarez Point, a chance to see blue footed boobies, nazca boobies, lava lizards, marine Iguanas, sea lions, and hopefully albatross babies.

The Espanola marine iguana turns bright green and red during the breeding season, earning it the nickname of Christmas iguana.

Gallo tells us they aren't social creatures, but they are gathered together in large groups.

Look at those blue feet, they are adorable! Apparently the displaying of feet is a key part of the mating ritual, they do a little walk around showing them off. The brightness and tone increases their attractiveness, and Aqua is very popular.

Galapagos Lava Lizards

This was one of the only stops we made where other boat passengers were near us, and Gallo lost his cool a bit with one of their passengers. There's obvious markers that say STOP, so people don't go to close to edges, or damage habitats, or possibly trample into nesting areas. Some woman is well past the sign taking selfies, and Gallo says "In most countries STOP means the same thing, you need to come out of there! Do you see the STOP sign?"

Minke's Penguin Nazca Booby

Yep, those are eggs! and those fuzzy things are babies!

I'll bet you haven't heard of the Green Footed Boobies.

Gallo was incredibly excited to see this young Albatross, since we had missed the season. He believed that our group was incredibly lucky with every variety of animal we had seen.

Another succesful excursion, and we loaded up the zodiacs (much easier this time), and headed back to the boat.

After our hot hike around the Island, we were given a choice to jump off the boat for a cool down swim, we were all jumping off the back of the boat, it was so refreshing.

Then I got the crazy idea that it would be fun to jump off the very top of the boat, everybody thought I was nuts. As I am climbing back on the boat, I hear the captain ask if everyone is on board, and the crew says yes... so they pull up the ladder, and suddenly you hear a splash, then another splash. Both John and Stipo jumped off the top too. Who's the crazy ones? At least I jumped when there was a ladder to get back into the boat.

They did put the ladder back, and got everyone safely back on board. Just in time to have some lunch and move to our next snorkeling location... Gardner Islet. BTW, it was Lasagna for lunch, I'm really thinking these Italian ladies are paying off the chef.

Snorkeling Gardner islet… We followed the captain snorkeling, there was 1 shark at the beginning by the Italians, then just a few fish and 1 garden eel. I didn't take my camera due to the severe fogging issues, so was relying on Craig's generous donation of GoPro photos and some amazing GoPro videos.

We were taken to an amazing white sand beach, then given some time to snorkel right off the shore. We saw a couple rays, a sea snake, and a couple turtles.

Then we had a little time to walk the soft sandy beach, before heading back to the boat for some whirlpool time, sunset and dinner.
I wonder what Italian dish will be served tonight?

After dinner we all hung out on the decks, filling out postcards for tomorrow's self-service mail. (stay tuned)

As the boat starts moving, the tub is splashing over the edges as the swells are a little bigger. We had to move away.

We are on our way to Isla Floreana, our last full day of our Galapagos cruise.

Jan 26

Floreana Island

It's an early start to the day.

It's a wet landing at Cormorant Point, home of Pink flamingos, turtles and a ray breeding area.

Galapagos Sea Cucumber Minke's Sea Lion

The far end of the beach is covered in turtle mounds, and you can see the little tracks from the babies.

Turtle heads are popping up around the bay, and the dark shadows in the water are rays.

After watching the Sally Lightfoot crabs clean up some of the sea cucumbers off the beach, we head back to the boat.

Next up was our last snorkeling excursion, it would be to a place called Devils Crown. We were told there would be black tipped, white tipped and hammerheads in this area. Based on the captains suggestion because of jellyfish here, we wore wetsuits for the first time, and after seeing the pictures, maybe the last time.

With very little fanfare our final snorkeling excursion was over, no sharks this time, no Galapagos, no black tipped, no white tipped and no Hammerheads. Oh well, I'm not sure Norine's heart could have taken a Hammerhead sighting. We saw a spotted Eagle ray, and some large schools of fish though.

When we got back on the boat we noticed a huge pod of dolphins closer to the horizon.

The captain changed course, and suddenly we were right in the mix with dolphins racing the boat and playing in the wake.

...and then they were gone. What an amazing special time with dolphins.

Our next stop was a truly unique location, known as Post Office Bay. It's a self-serve mail system that was started hundreds of years ago. Passing ships could stop and drop off letters for home, and the next ship that was heading to an addressed location could pick up those letters and take it with them. Sometimes it could take years for the mail to be delivered, but the tradition continued.

The mailbox is a barrel with a lid and a door, inside are ziploc bags filled with postcards from visitors addressed all over the world. We go through the bags, and anyone that found a postcard near their home would take the cards and ensure they get delivered. We mailed cards to our niece and nephew, and one with birthday wishes for my dad, expecting they might arrive some time in the following year. Turns out 2 of the 3 arrived to their homes before we did. We also took a half dozen cards home with us for delivery.

Our Anahi family with our postcards for delivery

With postcards in hand, and wild guesses of when ours might get delivered, we headed back to the boat.

Our final stop of the day was Puerto Velasco Ibara. Puerto Velasco Ibarra is a small village on Floreana Island, the first colonized island in Galapagos, in 1832.

We were picked up in a funky truck called a chiva and driven rapidly bouncing and swaying up the hills to see some turtles.

We are brought to a place called Asilo de la Paz (Haven of Peace), It is the site of Floreana's first human settlement, the caves that initially served as hideouts for pirates and the birthplace of the first person to be born in Galapagos. One of the many mysteries on Floreana involves the infamous Baroness Eloise Wagner von Bousquet and her two lovers who inexplicably began to disappear after settling on the island. Gallo shared a couple interesting stories that sounded like Unsolved Mysteries episodes.

The park also has a protected Giant Tortoise area.

The trails in the park lead to caves that were inhabited by pirates, including the pirate Patrick Watkins, who lived on the island for a period of time in late 1700