WEATHER: FANTASTIC and 25C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Swimming with 2 seals
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single one
WORD OF THE DAY: That makes me LOL……
Today we are visiting 2 islands. Bartolome and Rabida. The sun is high in the sky, and the colour of the water was an amazing colour of blue. Wake was at 7am. The way La Pinta gets you up in the morning is to play classical music low and then the sound is increased and then we get a good morning with the weather temperature and the water temperature and then reminds us that breakfast is at 7.30am. Charlie, Lada, Aimes and I had to get kitted up with our snorkel gear just before breakfast on the sun deck. So with my size 9 flippers, a mask that hopefully won’t leak and a breathing tube I am wondering if it has been washed, goes into a green mesh bag with our cabin number on it and this will live at the back of the ship each time we come aboard from a snorkeling excursion. They also had wetsuits you could hire for 30USD for the week, but besides worrying if they would have one that fit me, with the water at a constant 20C I think I would be able to cope with that temperature. I think the big snorkeler that I am – not.
So at 8.30am donned with our life jacket we were shipped to Bartolome Island for a dry landing. There was a small jetty that we could pull up to and as we got close to jump off there was a marine iguana, actually 2 of them right on the steps and around 10 Sally Lightfoot crabs, which are a beautiful orange colour. What a great introduction to the wildlife AND as we were waiting our turn to get off the zodiac a large pelican was dive bombing right next to the zodiac looking for his next meal. It was a massive splash and scared the hell out of us till we knew what it was!!!
Bartolome Island is a volcanic islet just off the east coast of Santiago Island. It is one of the "younger" islands in the Galápagos archipelago. This island, and Sulivan Bay on Santiago Island, are named after naturalist and life-long friend of Charles Darwin, Sir Bartholomew James Sulivan, who was a Lieutenant aboard HMS Beagle. This island is one of the few that is home to the Galapagos penguin which is the only wild penguin species to live on the equator. The green turtle is another animal that resides on the island. With a total land area of just 1.2 km², this island offers some of the most beautiful landscapes in the archipelago. The island consists of an extinct volcano and a variety of red, orange, green, and glistening black volcanic formations.
Our destination was to climb the volcanic cone and to get to the top to get great views and hopefully some photos of the other islands. So once we landed there was a boardwalk that takes you slowly up the extinct volcanoes edge with a few lookout stops and photo opportunities along the way. I have failed to mention that Amy has a spider phobia. She’s just not scared of them she is petrified. So thank goodness, as we made our way up the initial climb she was in front of me, as some-one behind be cried ‘look a Galapagos snake’. I turned and it was around 60cm long and a skinny thing. I retraced a few steps and took a snap of the snake and continued on my way. Well I just couldn’t contain myself and I told Amy that she missed a snake, so she shouldn’t be scared anymore, we have passed it. Well I knew after the words left my mouth I shouldn’t have said anything at all, her face went white and she broke out into a sweat. Sorry buddy, I should have kept my mouth shut.
There were 364 steps we had to climb to get to the top and it was worth every one of them. The island was not what Amy and I expected to start with, there is not much vegetation, it is dry and arid, but after hearing the history behind it, it is a volcano after all, so there would be a lot of volcanic rock and ash.
At the top we did get a great panoramic view, some awesome shots of the 2 bays, the underwater volcano and shots of the nearby Santiago Island. It was really windy up there, but not cold as the sun was high in the sky and it really was just a magic morning. After spending around 40 minutes up there, after also got my Bernstar jump, we headed back the same way we came to get back to the jetty. Amy checked with me when we were just about back on how much further was it till the ‘snake’ sighting place, which I could tell her we had already passed it which was good for her to not have to worry about it.
From here we were ferried back to the ship to change into our swimmers and to collect our snorkel gear. A lot of people have been telling us how strong the sun is here, so it has even scared me and we applied a lot of sunscreen. As I have lost my Africa tan, I didn’t want to get too sunburned on my first day. Hell I must be getting old if I am being responsible with the sun these days. So with a 10 minute turn around we were back in the zodiacs heading to the white sand beach of Bartolome. We were going to have 2 hours here and we were hoping that we were going to see a few penguins and some sea lions. The beach was beautiful. It was white sticky sand and Amy and I found a great spot to set up our gear more towards the rocks. Bartolome is famous for its Pinnacle Rock, which is the distinctive characteristic of this island, and the most representative landmark of the Galápagos. Pinnacle Rock Overlook has two visitor sites. At the first one, you may swim and snorkel around Pinnacle Rock; the underwater world there is really impressive. You can snorkel with the penguins, marine turtles, white-tipped reef sharks, and other tropical fish. The bay is also an excellent place to go swimming. Galápagos penguins are frequently seen, and a small cave behind Pinnacle Rock houses a breeding colony. Seasonally, Bartolome is the mating and nesting site for the green turtles. With herons, they make use of the gentler beaches.
So we donned on our snorkel gear and headed straight into the water. As you know I am not a big snorkel fan, but I am in the Galapagos, so I just have to suck it up and be brave. Bartolome was the perfect place for me to start, so I could go in off the beach and it was a shallow bay, so it was re-assuring for me to not have such deep water to start with. In saying that there were heaps of fish, schools of these beautiful blue fish which would have been the size of footballs, and fish fish fish. It was here that we also saw sea lions swimming, and I even surprised myself when I wasn’t scared of them. They were swimming with some of the group in the middle of the beach and then before Amy and I knew it they were with half a meter of us swimming around. Well we were trying to fumble with our underwater camera’s to start with as they frolicked with us but then we just watched them as they swam around us. It was a very SPECIAL moment and super awesome. They were full sized and beautiful. It is funny to see the sea lions being so friendly and active, as the seals we had saw in Antarctica were just fat sausages sitting on the snowy beaches. But I probably would be sad and not be moving if I was living in the cold when these guys have sun all year round. May be it would be like comparing to living in London for the seals and Australia for the sea lions? This was the highlight of the day by far.
So now that I was a bit more confident, it was time to head into deeper water, and around Pinnacle Rock, as this is where we may have got the chance to see some Galapagos penguins. They are the only penguins that can be found living on the equator and they too have been known to swim with people. How cool would that have been if I told my Antarctic friends that I had swum with penguins? Well as we rounded the rock, I saw a penguin standing on a little ledge and at this point nobody else had seen the fella. So I yelled out to Amy and got a few more people’s attention and then he was the camera star as everyone swam over for their photo with him. I was lucky and able to get a standing up picture of him but he then laid down for the others. So I have now seen a Galapagos penguin and he looks smaller than his Antarctic counter parts. We swam nearly to the next beach, stopping to see some sea lions on the rocks further along. One of them jumped in but didn’t really come too close to me, but it was cool to see him swimming under water all the same. On our way back to the beach we saw more fish and a few star fish. What an incredible first day in the Galapagos. All this and it was just on midday!!!!!!
We were ferried back to the ship for lunch and then we had free time till 3pm which was going to be our next landing at Rabida Island this afternoon. I went upstairs to the lounge and purchased some Wi-Fi. It was 60USD for unlimited access for the week. They have some computers in the library you can use and that cost was 5USD for 30 minutes, so my package doesn’t look too bad and am excited that I can be connected to the world and be able to upload my blog each day. My phone has no network here which is a bugger, but a week without my phone isn’t going to kill me. Right? At 2pm they showed part 3 of a BBC documentary on the Galapagos, but I put in my headphones and started to catch up on my world of Facebook and emails.
We arrived at Rabida at 3pm. The island has also been known as Jervis Island named in honor of the 18th-century British admiral John Jervis. Rabida was the name of a convent, where Columbus left his son during his voyage to the Americas. It has an area of 4.9 square kilometers and a maximum altitude of 367 meters. The special thing about Rabida Island is the colour of the sand. It is an amazing colour of red. The high amount of iron contained in the lava at Rabida gives it’s a distinctive red color. As we landed there were at least 30 sea lions on the beach, but we would be back to see them later on. We went for a walk on one of the tracks for around 40 minutes, getting us to a look out where we had a great view of the long stretch of red beach and then on the other side of the mangroves the saltwater lagoon where there used to be hundred to flamingos, but they have now moved to other islands, likely due to lack of food on Rabida. There were just some male bull sea lions in residence there now. There have also been nine species of finches have been reported in this island.
In 1971 the National Park Service successfully eradicated goats from Rabida. This introduced species upset the natural environment and led to the extinction of several native creatures including Geckos, Land Iguanas, and Rice Rats. The landscape was studded with small volcanic craters along sharp slopes and cliffs. It was good to see the other side of the island and the rocky cliff faces into the ocean. So after we walked past the saltwater lagoon and having to change paths as bachelor sea lions were blocking out path we had looped back to where we had started. We then walked the entire length of the red sand beach and got some great photos of a blue sky, the red sand and sea lions basking on the beach. Right down the end there was a rock full of water iguanas, probably around 20 of them all sunning themselves and spitting salt water out of their noses at us. I do have to say that they are ugly creatures and they are right up there with the wildebeest from Africa. They are U-G-L-Y.
We had plans of snorkeling here, but as the afternoon wore on, the sun moved around the headland and the temperature dropped a little and the water was lot colder here than this morning. We had also really run out of time, as it was nearly time for us to head back to the ship. We spent some more time with the seals and they really couldn’t give a toss about is being so close to them. In total I rekon there would have been over 120 of them all on the one beach and they are a pretty easy going animal. We hopped on the next available zodiac and headed back to the ship in time to see a wonderful sunset and my first one of the Galapagos. We had some free time till dinner, so I decided to pump out some more blog, as I was 2 days behind and get some Facebook’ing done as well.
Dinner was ala’ carte this evening and we had the ‘team’ back together again. Charles and Lada are amazing people and I am going to miss them when they leave in a few days’ time, as they are only doing the 3 nights. As usual the dinner was amazing and we were tired as again.
So it was goodnight from me and good night from Amy and we were tucked in bed and lights off at 10pm. What an INCREIBLE day as I fell asleep with a smile on my face…….
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