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Published: December 31st 2005
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We flew from Guayaquil to Baltra (Santa Cruz Island) and were met by Willow, our Naturalist guide and our boat Lobo del Mar III (whih translates as Sea Lion III, a creature we were soon to fall in love with). On board we were met by the crew and the rest of the passengers, a mixture of ages and nationalities, 11 of us in total. The boat was a 16 birth, 25m vessel which was to be our home for the next 4 days. Our ''Sea Lion' was spacious and kept spotlessly clean. We were quite jammy and landed one of the best cabins on the top deck.
Neither of us suffer particulary with sea sickness which was lucky as the cruise was not always 'plain sailing'. At night, as we were tucked up in bed, after our customary cuba Libre (wrong country I know but hey!) the Captain was busy plotting our course between islands. On one hand this was great as we had more time during the day to explore but it meant very little sleep as the boat motored against the waves, ebbing and flowing. Each morning we were awoken with the ring of a bell calling
Lobo Del Mar III
Our trusty ship... us for breakfast and then off we went to explore. Each day was packed with visting different islands (Santa Cruz, Floreana, and Espanola).
On land we saw a variety of weird and wonderful creatures, most endemic to the Archipeligo. The highlights being:
Land and Marine Iguanas; These chaps don´t seem to do an awful lot. There were hundreds, mostly grouped together just sitting there (sometimes in quite large mounds!) gazing out to see, contemplating...they only munch on algae whih contains so much salt, it causes the Iguanas to spit it out at intervals. I was caught several times.....nice!
Sea Lions: Never having seen these creatures in the flesh before, we got stupidly excited on our first enounter and began snapping away manically. On land they are smelly, noisey, ungraceful and just flop around on and over each other. They are also extremly good at burping, grunting and sneezing snot in all directions. That said, they still manage to be extremly cute and we never tired of watching them, basically doing very little. In water, however it was a very different matter. We snorkelled and dived with these creatures and loved every minute of it. They gracefully glide
Seal Huddle
The best way to sleep... through the water and are masters at water acrobatics. They were as curious about us as we were about them. One came flying through the sea, right up to my mask, i just wanted to reach out and hug it but at the last moment it turned sharply and slipped away...the tease!
Waved Albatross: We were lucky to be entertained by these the largest birds on the islands performing their mating ritual and what a sight it was! Lots of beak pecking, head wiggling and other amusing movements, acompainied by some rather interesting noises.
Blue Footed Boobies: Yes these little fellas really do have blue feet! and a beautiful shade of blue too. Their name is derived from the spanish word "Bobo" which means "fool", I happen to think they are quite skillfull especially when they fish. There are loads of them (and thier cousins the Masked Boobie) around and they are just gorgeous!!
Turtles and Tortoises: We snorkelled and dived with the largest turtles we have ever seen and also visited the Charles Darwin Research Station on the last day where we saw the various breeds of tortoise on the Galapagos. These creatures are HUGE and
plod around in slow motion as you would expect. You cant help thinking that maybe these creatures belong to another era.... We spent sometime with Lonesome George, who is the last existing member of his breed. Despite their many attempts at enouraging George to copulate, he shows no interest, perhaps due to his age! He is a very old chap.
The great thing about the Galapagos, apart from the fact that most of what you see can only be found there, is the fact that the wildlife seem to have no fear of humans. You can happily approach the birds, iguanas, sea lions etc... and they wont even flinch. In fact, most seem to like the interest they attract and play up to it.
After our cruise, we spent a couple of nights on Santa Cruz island and did some more diving at North Seymour. We have dived and snorkelled in many places around the world but this proved to offer a whole new experiene. The water is quite chilly (20 degrees), visability (especially at this time of year) is not great and there can be strong currents to contend with. Also, you don´t see a great deal
Albatros Dance
The Waved Albatros mating dance of beautifully coloured marine life or coral. But that said, you do see LOTS of big fish. We dived with White Tip Reef sharks, Galapagos sharks, schools of Eagle Rays, Baracuda and a gigantic sholl of tuna... Plus it seemed that every corner you turned, ET would be waiting, otherwise known as a Porupine fish. We also stumbled aross Balloon fish and Puffers in thier dozens and er...lots of other big fish... The best bit though was playing with the sea lions.
Diving in the Galapagos is expensive and if you are looking for tropical fish, multi-coloured coral, warm, calm, turquoise waters, then this is definitely not the place. It is more challenging then you are lead to believe, mainly due the Humbolt Current. But with a good dive company and a bit of cash (Scuba Iguana come highly recommended) you can safely enjoy a new diving perspective.
We also visited Tortuga Bay which was beautiful and got chased out of "Las Gritas" (Lava Fissures) during a romantic picnic by the resident rats who showed a keen interest in our food stuffs.
The Galapagos Islands are very interesting and well worth a visit but be prepared for
Marine Iguana
The red back variety endemic to these islands your budget to take a large hammering!! Given more time and cash, we would´ve liked to have stayed to explore more of the islands but we needed to make tracks to our next destination, Trujillo, Peru to help out at the Bruce Peru charity.
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