Well, well, well. It’s been quite the day. We were greeted this morning at breakfast with face masks and told to wear them when in the room together. The geologist’s husband thought he had COVID.
We were given some options – do our morning hike and snorkel then head to Santa Cruz to get tested OR continue with our activities but compress them then go to Santa Cruz to get tested.
We opted for the compressed activity schedule.
So after breakfast, we headed over to a beautiful sheltered bay on Plaza Sur.
The water was a beautiful aqua, and the sand was white. It was a wet landing so we put on our shoes amidst a colony of sea lions. We watched them for a while. There were a lot of pups playing around. And there was one aggressive one that I walked past to get a photo of a pelican. I thought I was far enough away from him/her but my compatriots yelled at me as he lunged toward me from the back. Beth said she hadn’t seen me move that quickly for a while.
A Galapagos hawk was kind enough to fly over us a couple of times.
We then hiked up around the island, dodging sea lions who were parked in the trail. We saw a male and female land iguana and saw what we called a prickly pear tree. It was Opuntia cacti, some of which grow to 10 meters or about 25 feet or so. They were all over the island. The tree is endemic to the islands – it is only found in the Galapagos Islands.
We then returned to the boat, put on our swimsuits and wetsuits and were off again back to the bay but to snorkel. It was the best snorkel so far. We saw a huge school of fish, lots more colorful and various fish as we snorkeled along a rock wall.
AND we swam with sea turtles! We saw three – one was rather large and kind of just sat on the bottom, the other we saw only on the surface but the third one – well, we followed him for quite a ways as he swam. It was about four feet long and two feet across and had really big flippers!
The sea was very, very choppy today, and it was a challenge to get the panga close enough to the boat to disembark but our crew is excellent, and we safely returned to our cabins until dinner.
As we ate, the boat headed to Santa Fe Island where we took another hike. The island is dry and kind of desolate but was beautiful. It featured the prickly pear trees but also patches and patches of Sesuvium, that turns crimson during the dry season but turns green during the rainy season. It was beautiful.
The west side of the coast is sheer cliffs in which birds nest, and at the far end of the island is the “bachelor” pad where bachelor sea lions hang out. This was a dry landing, and we were greeted by several curious and playful sea lions. We also saw a Galapagos canary bathing in a pool of water along with several Sally Lightfoot crabs.
We saw several land iguanas that are unique to Santa Fe Island, having a paler color and longer spines on its back. There were tons of nesting gulls as well as a Darwin finch. Flying around the cliffs were red-billed tropic birds and petrols.
We spent probably an hour and a half on the island, then headed back to the boat. It was 2:30 pm when we boarded.
We arrived in Santa Cruz at 6:15 pm and, as I said, the sea was very choppy with huge swales so the best place to be during the trip was flat on your bed. We tried not to take naps but, alas, sleep came very easily after all the activity.
After we set anchor in the harbor at Puerto Ayora, Venus (our CEO) sent for a nurse to come onto the boat and test everybody – the 13 passengers and the six crew. She gave us our briefing for tomorrow, and Carina, the bartender, was offering us a citrus/rum drink to say farewell to three of our compatriots BUT the couple from northern England advised us not to drink it before the test because apparently, citrus will throw off the test. He said teenagers in England were drinking orange juice then getting tested so they could miss school. Go figure.
Supper was served at 7 pm then we waited for the nurse. In the meantime, Dale tested positive. They sent him and his wife to a hotel to quarantine for seven days before they can leave. They had a difficult time finding a room for them – some hotels won’t accept people with COVID and all the hotels were full – except for the one room they found for the couple.
The nurse arrived about 7:30 pm so we took our passports and got the nose swab. She was very gentle, and it wasn’t that bad.
About half-way through testing everyone, the nurse got seasick and had to go out onto the deck and do what people do when they’re seasick.
We waited about a half-hour and the all-clear was given. Everybody tested negative. Sighs of relief and back to “normal.”
We said our good-byes to the three people leaving the boat and retreated to our cabins.
We go to the giant land tortoise breeding center tomorrow, then on to the highlands on Santa Cruz to see the lava tubes.
We’re also going to welcome four new folks.
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