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Published: December 3rd 2014
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Enormous Pacific Turtle
This was the biggest one we saw, Tuesday 2nd December 2014 When we arrived here on Isla Isabela from Santa Cruz, we planned to stay just two or three days. However, such is the beauty of this little Paradise that we are staying five days until Friday. Flights on Friday are full, except the over-priced “executive” flights, so we shall be braving 83 kilometres of ocean in a silly little speed boat once more, and paying $30 each for the pleasure of doing so! We contemplated staying until Sunday (our flight back to Quito is on Monday) but with the absence of banks or ATMs and very few places taking plastic, we need to get back to Santa Cruz and hope that the ATMs over there have some money left in them by the time we arrive on Friday evening; if not, plenty of restaurants and hostels there take plastic. We want to do a hike from Puerto Ayora to Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz anyway (it was the last thing on our Galapagos list) so going on Friday will be good, giving us the whole of Saturday to do the hike, then Sunday for some beach time and to sort out and pack. Yesterday was a “highlight”
day, a special one with memories to last us our lifetimes. We saw hundreds of Blue-footed Boobies and they were the last wildlife un-ticked on our wildlife “bucket list”. Today we saw hundreds more! When the Boobies gather on the rocks they really look comical, with their huge bright blue webbed feet, it looks like they are wearing flippers on their feet. When they circle and plunge into the ocean in a feeding frenzy they look less cute, business-like and deadly to their prey. Yesterday was special because it was one of the best snorkel tours we have ever been on. There were only four passengers in our little boat, ourselves and two other guys, and three crew. We lost count of the number of sea lions we saw. Prior to reaching our snorkel site, we stopped at an island where a very macho large sea lion had his territory, as well as a large harem of females. Our guide took our photo and promptly afterwards, the male swam across to where we were standing, barking at us aggressively. He is in the background of a photo of us included in this blog. In the skies above us we saw
Slinky Sea lion
Coming to play! Frigate Birds, Pelicans, Cormorants, a plethora of Boobies with their bright blue feet and Galapagos Penguins diving for fish and swimming around the boat. In the ocean we also saw Galapagos Red Crabs, Rays, Sharks, Marine Iguanas, numerous tropical fish and the biggest Pacific Turtles we have ever seen. John swam with the most turtles, at least eight of them because he stayed longer in the water. Snorkelling inches from these graceful majestic creatures, some as big as the Giant Land Tortoises and weighing 250 kilos, is pretty mind-blowing; it is also a privilege. The white- tipped shark are only half the size of the one we saw in Australia, snorkelling on the Barrier Reef six years ago. These here are only about two metres long maximum. Unlike the Aussie ones, which can be very aggressive and are decidedly scary, these are harmless and they stay in rocky grottos during the day and hunt at night. The ones we saw yesterday were in such grottos; we never saw any near us whilst we were snorkelling. We were rather glad about that. Sharks are sharks after all! Today we went for a walk around the salt lakes and mangroves and saw
some large pink Flamingos. Then we visited a turtle rescue and breeding centre and took our picnic to the beach. As the tide was on the turn Boobies and Pelicans started diving into the surf all around to catch their dinner. We only had tinned tuna sandwiches, whilst they had fresh fish. Tomorrow we are moving accommodation. We are treating ourselves to two nights in a very nice beach-side hotel as compensation for not getting flights booked back to Santa Cruz; they take plastic!
Note: the blog doesn't end here. Don't forget to view the photos below; some people haven't realised that there are photos after the text has ended.
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