Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Galapagos 2018 - Day 14. Yate Fragata, at sea

Today we explored Espaňola, the southernmost of the islands (also far to the east, although not as much as San Cristobal). We first disembarked in Punta Suarez, on the west side of the island, for another bird watching expedition. Of course there were a bunch of sea lions sunning on the rocky beach, but what amazed us most were hundreds of marine iguanas, laying pell-mell above each other, apparently waiting for the sun to warm them up so they could dive into the cool ocean. According to Roberto they feed from sea algae at depths of a few tens of meters. The females are small and almost black; the males, in contrast, are big and, in Espaňola in particular, are brightly colored carmine red on the sides, and beautiful turquoise green on top and bottom (they are, however, even uglier than their counterparts in the other islands).

Bird watching was fairly successful, with sightings of albatrosses (an adult in flight, and a couple of teenagers clearly planning to leave the nest at any moment now), Galapagos hawks, and finches of three different sub-species feeding in the same tree (or so claimed Catherine, who is the only one sophisticated enough to see the minor differences between the subspecies).

Once we were back on the boat we moved from the west to the east side of the island, to Gardner Bay. There we made a brave attempt to snorkel, but the swell was up and the water was too turbid to see anything more than a few fish.

I skipped the afternoon walk along the beach, plus an hour of sunbathing, and instead watched a bloody movie on board: Al Pacino’s “Hangman”. 

No comments: