We wake up to the distinctive volcano named Chinese Hat (Sombrero Chino) and plan to take a short panga (rigid inflatable powered boat) ride to the beach for a wet landing and short walk. A lone sea lion is on the beach and gets paparazzi-ed by nearly everyone. We see many Sally Lightfoot crabs which are a bright red and blue colours. We also get a taste of a few marine iguanas and see the American oyster catchers. The first oyster catchers were only found on the islands in 2006. Due to the climate in that year there were oysters available for these birds to eat. However, after a climate change event, the oysters died. The oyster catchers were able to modify their diet to eat the crabs and thus survived. We also spot our first penguin- named the Galapagos Penguin. These are pretty small and remind me of the Humboldt penguins.
After our walk we return to the boat and get our swimwear on for our first snorkel of the trip and the day. The pangas take us past coal black lava flows and one can see the various lava flow events by the differences in colour and cacti growth in the older area. The water is warm and great visibility. The fish are too many to mention and have such a beautiful array of colours! I then spot two white tip reef sharks within 10 minutes of one another. They are so agile and I am grateful that they don’t enjoy eating people 🙂
After lunch we head off to Rabida Island or Isla Roja (Red Island due to the colour of the beach sand). We have a panga cruise here and see our first blue footed boobies. Our guide also confuses a pelican for a booby and I give him grief for the duration of the trip about him not knowing his boobies, which leads to endless entertainment 🙂 . We also had a really rare opportunity to see a feeding frenzy- we went out to sea a fair distance as our guide noted some activity on the surface of the water and then as we were head out more and more birds flew in from the islands. There was a school of tuna feeding and the birds on the surface were waiting for scraps. These were shearwaters.
We had a short walk on Rabida Island, through the mangrove and got eaten by mosquitoes. We were instructed beforehand not to wear bright colours as there are dangerous paper wasps on this island…but no one mentioned mosquitoes.
The evening had a big surprise in store for us! We only had to set off again around midnight, so we remained anchored in our bay. There were many Galapagos sharks circling our vessel, together with flying fish that the sea lions were chasing- and boy did they have speed! At one point the sharks (6 of them) got into a bit of a frenzy and there was just white water and splashing everywhere- but none of us knew why? The sharks were at least 2m long each and somewhat intimidating. The flying fish were the preferred food of the sea lions- and it was amazing to see how they got caught, but they did not eat the heads and the sharks didn’t seem to like them either.
One reply on “Galapagos 3”
czerwona plaza! super sprawa. Galapagos podobne do reszty Ecuador? Jako przyroda.