Galapagos 2008

Our Itinerary as arranged by the National Park Service... 7 islands on a route that seems to be designed for maximum fuel usage... crossing the equator twice for a total of more than 600 Nautical Miles.

We start on the Island of Baltra where the airport is, and board a Panga (inflatable rubber boat) to get to the ship... the dock is inhabited by some local wildlife who in their typical fashion, take charge of the area

La Pinta is a truly beautiful boat, we first saw her from the plane on the way in... we got settled in and were off to our first destination North Seymour Island

A very short cruise, and a planned walk with the naturalist on a 1Km loop

We immediately got very close to all sorts of wildlife: Sea Lions

Frigate Birds.... some of these are Magnificant Frigate Birds, some are only Great, but the distinction between the species is very small... the males have a red balloon that they inflate to attract mates, and the white ones are juveniles

Then we got lucky and found a snake...

And a Sea Lion came ashore and walked across our path... incidentally the walking on it's flippers is part of what makes it a Sea Lion and not a Seal... we'll see some Galapagos Fur Seals later, but the name is incorrect, they are also Sea Lions...

Sea Lions work and play very hard while in the water, and they get cold, so on the beach, they do little except sun-bathe and sleep, with the exceptions of the pups, who are constantly looking for a meal

Of course the flip side of survival of the fittest, is death and as the islands do not have any large scavengers, there are dead things everywhere... here's a dead Iguana and a Live Land Iguana on a rock... notice the white rocks... a recurring joke the naturalists made was that birds like white rocks... actually the white is bird poo, so while it's true that the rocks the birds habitually perch on are white, the causation runs counter to the correlation.

Here's a Frigate bird in full breeding display

And speaking of Breeding, (which is of course what natural selection is all about) many of the specise seem to breed year round, here's a Blue Footed Booby performing a mating display just for me (there wasn't any other booby around, and I'm the only one that saw it).

A little further along, we came across this Lava Lizzard

As we rounded the bend to head back to the ship, the sun was setting, but there were a few more things to see, a baby bird, a frigate lit by the setting sun, and a prickly pear cactus

Here's another Land Iguana, a Galapagos Dove, A lava Gull, and A Sea Lion to say goodnight