We arrive at the island of San Cristobal and the capital of the Galapagos Islands; Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in the early morning. We have time to visit the interpretation center which gives us the natural and human history of the island. It is well put together and interesting but does not take long to get through.
We then have to split with the half of the group that are leaving us after their 7-day trip. Unfortunately this means that my Norwegian and Irish friends are leaving…a good reason to catch up in Bergen and Dublin in the future :). They go off to the airport while we stroll around town, then meet up with them later to say our final good byes.
A funny story: the airport is right next to the town, so locals go to the airport a few hours before fly out time; check in, do a bag drop and get their boarding passes. They then go home and only come back to the airport when they hear & see their plane landing.
We head back to the boat to await the arrival of our new passengers and wonder what the tide will bring in.
The new group is made up of primarily Canadians and New Zealanders, and also a considerably older group but still fit. We also get a new (hot-hot) 🙂 guide and some crew members.
We have a late lunch, as we waited for the group and then embark on our first two activities: A snorkel around Isla Lobos (Sea Lions) which was lovely and cooling, though we did not spot any new fish or water species. What was more interesting was what was happening in the air; where frigate birds were gathered and many males were showing off their inflated red sacs to females to impress them in order to mate.
The walk on Isla Lobos afterwards was great as we got to see nesting blue footed boobies and the mating rituals of the frigate birds up close. The male frigates perch on the trees and then inflate their red throat sacs to impress the females that are flying overhead. If one of them likes what she sees she will perch next to him. If another male wants to interfere they will fight with the male completion and make him fly off with his sac still partially inflated. This is dangerous if he perches in another tree and possibly punctures his sac on a branch) these birds are not used to flying with their sacs inflated). This will not kill the bird but will have him out of mating action for the season as he will not be able to attract a mate.
We also note a nest that has been abandoned by a blue footed booby couple with three eggs in it. The mother would have been concerned that she would not be able to feed her hatchlings and thus abandoned the eggs.
From Isla Lobos we need to travel back to Puerto Moreno to overnight until after midnight due to navy regulations and we commence our trip to the north of San Cristobal Island (Punto Pitt) after 01h00.
Pete (fellow traveller), Paula (Su Chef) and I decide to take that opportunity that we are in port to head out on a panga to town for an hour and a half. It was a quiet walk and a look as to what was happening and finished off with a beer and I had a fried ice cream for the first time. It was OK, but I think I prefer the traditional type 🙂 It was good to get away though and cured a bit of cabin fever with some guests.
