Another calm night aboard the Sirius Galaxy. A guy could get used to this. 6am comes too soon, but the superautomatic coffee machine right outside our cabin door has become our new bestie. And gets us showered and dressed in time for breakfast.
First adventure today is exploring Urbana Bay on Isabella Island, so into the pangas we pile. The waves are big, twice as high as us in the tenders, but our pilots manage to back us in without having a wave land on our heads. It is a wet landing, meaning you ungracefully jump out of the little boat into the surf and splash to shore. It’s fun and we all laugh while awkwardly running and trying to maintain some sense of athletic dignity.
Gathered on the semicircular beach we see a whale skull that our guide estimates has been there for 30 or more years. Next to that, a portion of the beach is cordoned off as a nesting ground for the fragile sea turtle eggs.
We do a 90 minute hike around the island, flat but hot. Lush with 6 foot vegetation, this is home to a very happy population of Galapagos giant tortoises, genetic descendants of the ones we saw on Santa Cruz a few days ago. As these gentle behemoths do not swim, they must have been here for thousands of years since before the shifting of the tectonic plates ripped the lands apart. We watch as one particularly large male stomps through the underbrush, climbing up then thumping down anything over 10” tall. They never learned to be afraid of people, so they’re not.
We see our first land iguana, three and a half feet long and fatter than a baseball bat. Also not afraid, we get so close we can count the scales on his mustard yellow skin. When he walks, his big tail leaves a trail that looks like a bicycle tire track.
We also get nice pix of the islands’ indigenous birds, more bashful than the reptiles, so every clear shot is accompanied by dozens of blurry ones. I can’t imagine the talent required by those who came before me shooting on film.
Returning to the black sand beach, we strip down to our suits for
a nice dip. In the water, we meet some folks from our sister ship, the
Eco-Galaxy, a very similar catamaran which has been tracking with us on our
voyage. The Eco-Galaxy is a bright white beauty, and they have taken
to calling our boat The Pirate Ship because of our black livery. Turns out,
they are from our neck of the woods (Allentown, PA), so obviously we start
talking about the Eagles and how we did in last week’s draft.
All this nature is exhausting, but nothing a dip in the top deck
jacuzzi can’t fix. We get the chance to chat with the Finish mother
and son and the Ecuadorian cousins and bond over the shared experiences that
transcend boarders. Meanwhile, Mandy seems to be settling into her new
lifestyle quite nicely.
Lunch is served on the 2nd deck aft dining space while we motor to
our next stop. It’s the best meal so far, and that’s saying
something. Wahoo steaks, shrimp skewers, and one of the best
preparations of calamari we have ever had (and we’ve been to Italy and Greece!)
We have choices for Part Uno the afternoon… kayaking, paddle
boarding or snorkeling. We’re here to snorkel, and snorkel we
do. It is another phenomenal experience. We have swam with
turtles before, but it’s been a find and chase kinda thing. Here the turtles
are perfectly content to let you hang out with them, just being pushed and
pulled with the currents. There’s something spiritual in the interaction.
Mandy spots a big ray on the sea floor, and I see the exotic
chocolate chip starfish (nilla wafer yellow with black spikes) and a red
starfish. This is a mile past our expectations.
Returning to the ship at 3, we’re once again greeted with hot tea
and a snack. The water is relatively warm, but it drops your body temperature
after a while as evidenced by Mandy’s blue lips. We didn’t know
snorkeling-and-tea was a thing, but now it’s the only way we ever want to do
it.
Part Dos of this afternoon’s adventure is a dry landing at Tagus Cove, where we see more of this stunning island, and take more photos of the landscape and its inhabitants. The flora differs from island to island, and even by sides of the same island, each set manifesting beauty in its own particular way. Our guides always remember to have us take a moment of contemplation in places like this. We drink in our environs like cool water.
Part Tres of this afternoon’s fun is boobie watching, because, in the words of my comedic idol Ron White, once you’ve seen one boobie, you pretty much want to see them all. I’ve considered myself a professional boobie watcher since I was twelve, but today we’re going to see dozens all at once. An exciting prospect indeed. From the panga, we pull up to a tall cliff face, and scattered all over the rocks are the birdies that are so indelibly linked to the Galapagos that they have become its logo. In Iceland, the puffin was my get. Here, it’s the blue footed boobie. I shoot hundreds of exposures. Mandy shoots dozens more. We put down the cameras. Just watch. It’s still hard to believe we’re here, on a little boat observing nature as Darwin did some 200 years ago. To state the obvious, we are happy. I do not apologize for the number of boobies you will see here.
The lot of us guests has really gelled by this point. It’s always a worry with a group like this that one cranky, drama-bomb person will spoil things. Absolutely not the case here. Conversations are easy and fun, and you feel lucky no matter who you sit with for a meal. After dinner, we retire to the lounge to continue the camaraderie. We realize how many of the people here we have already crossed paths with. We saw the couple from St. Petersburg eating lunch in the same restaurant as us the last day we were in Quito. We were on an airport shuttle with the couple from Minnesota. The good here would be that we drank and laughed until the wee hours of the morning. The reality is that none of us make it past 9pm. We’re happily exhausted.
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