The Adventure Begins!
The bell rang around 7 am but we were ready! We awoke about 6:30 am, well-rested and ready to go. And there were activities planned!
We ate a really good breakfast – these yummy potato cakes, fried eggs, ham, cheese, fruit and toast then gathered on the top deck to get snorkel gear and wetsuits.
We are off the coast of San Cristobal, the administrative seat of the Galapagos and the fifth-largest island. Victor von Hagen, a 1940’s travel writer said it had a shape resembling a “shriveled appendix.”
Yepper, we went snorkeling on our first day! Yay!
Before we executed a wet landing (i.e. the dingy came close to the beach, and we disembarked into knee-high water), we got a tour from the dingy of the shoreline and some spectacular rock formations. I didn’t take a camera because – well – we were in a dingy in the water with no waterproof bag so I didn’t get any photos.
We went into a section that reminds me of the great cathedrals of Europe. The walls were sheer and extended hundreds of feet. Along the shoreline were what looked to be barnacles. There were beautiful red/orange crabs with their babies, which were dark and very tiny but could they scramble over the rocks!
We then went through a tunnel that perfectly framed a singular rock in the water they call Sleeping Lion (there’s a photograph). We saw a boobie (there are three kinds here) but I cannot recall what kind. We saw pelicans and sea lions. We even saw an iguana! He was black and probably two feet in length, and he was munching on some of the green vegetation. We also saw a turtle. I believe it was a green turtle. He was small compared to what we’ll see later (the land tortoises). There also was a small heron and a bird with an orange beak that resembles an oyster catcher.
We landed and walked a little way over to another beach – a stunning beach with white sand and lava rocks. We were the first in the water to snorkel and spent about an hour snorkeling. I hate wetsuits but was happy to have one because the water was a tad cold but that passed quickly, and we were thrilled to be in the water snorkeling.
It wasn’t the best snorkeling we have ever done. There were some small fish, a few large ones but none were very colorful.
The boat then circled Kicker Rock while we were awaiting lunch. The crew calls the rock formation a “Sleeping Lion.” Our guide said it took quite the imagination to see the lion. We apparently have no imagination because we couldn’t make out a sleeping lion. Regardless, it was an exquisite rock with sheer vertical stone walls rising from the sea.
We came back to the boat, changed and ate lunch. Most of the couples in the group are world travelers so we heard lots of travel stories. There are two couples from the US: a couple from LA (Dave and Marie), and an older couple from San Francisco (Jennie and Dale). We also have some Brits – Derrick and Carol, Nick and Hazel, as well as some Canadians: Trent and Cheryl, and Vince and Lauren, who now live in Phoenix. It was a great group. We laughed a lot and marveled together.
Dale from San Francisco is a mechanical engineer, and his partner Jennie is a geologist. It’s nice to have a geologist. She’s not full of bravado or overbearing, and she will give you information if you ask. For instance, this first day we’ve been hanging around an island that she said was a shelf volcano (or maybe a rim volcano) - it didn’t explode like we expect volcanos to behave but instead slowly released it’s lava. I did get photos of it.
After lunch, we napped about an hour and a half. Yepper, that snorkeling will take it out of a couple of old women.
The bell rang around 3 pm, and we got on our swimsuits and wetsuits and off we went for a really wet landing. No beach, just the dingy (they call them pangas). We just leaped from the dingy into the water.
We followed the shoreline of rocks for probably a half a mile, and the snorkeling was much, much better. Lots of different fish, all of which had some color. For instance, there was a black fish with yellow lips that I especially liked. We saw two schools of rather large fish that were blue and yellow.
AND we swam with a baby sea lion that the CEO spotted. She played with it by diving and squiggling, and it reciprocated by sticking around and swimming with us. He came so close you could reach out and touch him but, of course, we didn’t because it’s the Galapagos Islands – not Sea World.
When I was heading for the dingy, much to my surprise, the sea lion came out of nowhere going rather fast and straight toward me. I thought he was going to hit me but he swerved away from me when he was about a foot from me! Amazing.
After we got back to the boat, everyone put on their hiking boots for a hike that I chose not to join because even our thin, short CEO said it was a difficult hike for her. I’m not good on rocks, and I didn’t want to run the risk of getting injured on our first day (I really don’t want to get injured on the second, third, etc. day either), and with the “luck” we’ve had……
So I’m on the boat writing this blog. An older man from England with limited abilities also chose not to go on the walk so we’re sitting here on the back of the boat watching the sea lions play.
One sea lion actually climbed aboard the dingy, stretched out and napped for a while.
Beth returned and reported that, indeed, I would not have been able to do the walk. But she came back with some photos of blue-footed boobies, dozens of them – some with eggs, some with chicks. Juvenile and adult frigate birds. Many sea lions including babies, and one that was dead.
Had a briefing about our activities tomorrow, ate supper and retreated to our cabin. We’re asleep by 9 pm.
A note about the islands: There are four main settled sites on four inhabited islands but they account for only about 30,000 people and three percent of the total land area. The remaining land was made a national park in 1959 with tourists restricted to the colonized areas and 69 designated visitor sites spread throughout the islands plus 79 water-based sites. Each site has been chosen to show off the full diversity of the islands.
Black iguanas on San Cristobal.
They cleaned the cabins and made the beds each day.
We went snorkeling the first day! Needed wetsuits. The water was a little cold but only when you got in it then it was fine.
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