We woke up to Gardner Bay, Espanola Island. It also has white sand beaches and turquoise water. We have a leisurely walk on the beach and look out for the Galapagos hawks which are not wanting to come out. There are many sea lions on the beach which we look forward to swimming with later …but none of them were keen to get in the water! Our swim thus turned into an opportunity to cool off and not swim with the sea lions.
A further 30-minute boat trip got us to our off the panga snorkelling destination. The waters were clear, we swam close to the rocks and got to play with many sea lions here. One needs to remember that due to the fact that the animals here don’t really have any predators and weren’t hunted, they don’t have a fear for humans.
In the afternoon we went for a walk at Suarez Point, still on Espanola Island. This is the only place where you can see the waved albatross. It is only April to November that these birds come in to mate, lay eggs and look after the chicks. We thus saw a few birds on eggs, a couple of mating dances. This are fabulous to watch, there is feet lifting, wing flapping and sword fighting with the beaks. The males instigate the dancing and if the female mirrors the movements then we have a match! The video file is very large (>400MB) but well worth watching!
We also see Nazca/masked boobies with some young chicks, as well as swallow tails and red beaked tropic birds. The tropic birds have a long white tail feather, which frigate birds sometimes pull on to get them to drop or regurgitate fish! The abundance and variety of birdlife was extraordinary and we watched them all flying around while we sat on the cliffs of the island.
