Description: Our first island (after landing on the human-inhabitated San Cristobal island and heading for our ship) was Espanola. At 5:30am, our tour leader's voice wafted over the speaker system "Buenos Dias, campers. It's 5:30am and a beautiful day in the Galapagos. Rise and shine!" By 6am, we were all at breakfast, and by 7, we were setting foot on the pristine, white beach at Gardner Bay. I don't know if it was because it was our first stop or what, but we instantly fell in love with this place. We were greeted by dozens of sea lions lolling about on the beach, as well as mocking birds searching for water. We saw the famous cactus finch, marine iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs, ruddy turnstones, yellow warblers, oyster catchers and our first sea turtle.
We were stunned that the animals let us stand so close to them. Many of the sea lions had just had little baby sea lions (some within hours of our landing), and it was fun watching the baby sea lions learning how to walk and bleating for their moms.
We walked along the beach for about 2 hours before our guide called us back down to the Zodiacs to return to the boat. After a quick break we prepared for the first snorkel. I didn't expect to enjoy snorkeling so much, but in my wetsuit and fins, I felt as graceful as a sea lion. That is, I felt that way until one flashed by me in the water. Wow they are fast and infinitely more coordinated that we were! They had fun swiming among us, and dive bombing our masks. I tried to catch one on camera, but they were usually too fast... you can see a glimpse in one of the shots below. The water was crystal clear (probably because it was so cold), but we really enjoyed the first snorkel.
After the snorkel we had lunch and a quick break before our next shore venture. From Gardner Bay on Espanola we headed over to Punta Suarez, also on this island, but a totally different kind of landing. Here we walked a long a rocky trail, and saw our first blue-footed booby up close and personal. We also saw the Nazca boobies and marine iguanas nesting. We passed by a blow hole and encountered the enormous waved albatross. Wherever we went along this trip, we were accompanied by frigate birds. These are not nice birds, however. They merely scavenge food from other birds, and do no hunting of their own. Despite that they are beautiful birds to watch fly through the air.
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We were taken with the savage beauty of Espanola. It was desolate because it is the dry season, but with the dark stones and white bird droppings everywhere, it also had a wild and magical air.
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