Silvergrrl Arts

Today was our last full day on this wonderful adventure. Our morning outing was in dinghies to Black Turtle Cove (in Santa Cruz Island), which is shallow salt water with lots of mangroves growing all over the place. This area is a popular place for sharks to give birth – because it’s shallow and has the mangrove roots, the baby sharks can live safely for the 5-6 years it takes for them to get big enough to brave the open ocean. There’s lots of fish for them to eat there. We saw baby black-tipped sharks and baby white-tipped reef sharks.

Young Spotted Eagle Ray

There are also large marine turtles there, but they are very hard to photograph as their heads come up out of the water for just a second and then they are gone again. I was not lucky enough to get any photos of this. I did get a picture of the young spotted eagle ray that swam by our boat!

We also saw juvenile frigate birds – they are recognizable by their white chests and heads. These looked almost full grown in size and were a delight to watch as they soared around. And last but not least, I got a great picture of a Great Blue Heron perched on top of a mangrove.

Great Blue Heron atop the mangroves

After lunch, we went back to Santa Cruz to visit the El Chato Tortoise preserve. This is privately owned land that is dedicated to providing space for the giant tortoises that live on that island. We spent over an hour there and it was magical.

At the end of the afternoon, we visited the town of Puerto Ayora. It had a lot of wonderful shops that were fun to browse through.

Tomorrow we have a morning outing, but we have to get all packed up to go to the airport immediately after.

Us with a giant tortoise

Santiago Island was formed by ash and lava spewing volcanic action. Along the coast, you can see quite clearly the thousands of layers of compacted ash (called tuff, pronounced “toof”) and lava that created it.

We started our morning with a dinghy ride along that coast. The most exciting part of that ride was the large school of golden mantas and mobula mantas that were skimming along just under the surface of the water to eat – there were probably over a hundred of them, and they kept swimming back and forth past us as they ate. It was amazing, and according to our guide, very unusual to see that many at once. We also did at last see some blue-footed boobies, but not very many, and none of them posed well in terms of being able to take pictures of their feet. They fish just like pelicans do, diving straight down into the water to catch their prey.

After the dinghy excursion, we changed into swimsuits and wetsuits, and snorkeled along that same part of the coast. Many more fish than the day before, and even some white-tipped reef sharks. Those are not dangerous to humans. Sadly, the mantas had moved on and I didn’t see any of them on this outing.

Layers of weathered tuff

In the afternoon, we started at a black sand beach on the north side of the island, and walked over land to a place on the western side where lava had flowed out into the ocean. There were some tunnels/large cracks that let in sea water – we saw sea lions and a large turtle (medium size by Galápagos terms). Then we walked back along the shore for maybe half a mile until we picked up our original trail again. The rock formations along that walk were incredible. Those layers of tuff were eroded and weathered into big sweeping curves. Adding to that, there were places where lava explosions had flung big globs of lava onto the tuff and literally melted it, so that the result looks like stone droplets and splash patterns. It took my breath away.

Lava “splashes”

We didn’t see much wildlife. There were birds, of course: a cattle egret, a lava heron, and some American oyster catchers. Lots of little lizards. Some marine iguanas, and our first land iguana since the one we saw at the airport on our arrival.

Land iguana

After we returned to the boat, a delicious snack of sushi was prepared for us to tide us over to dinner. Tomorrow is our last full day on this adventure, and it will be a busy one!

Yesterday there was a miscommunication and I accidentally misidentified one of the types of bird we saw -what I thought was a blue-footed booby was actually a Nazca booby. I already corrected the original post but I wanted to let you know as well, dear subscribers!

Today we visited Genovesa Island. Three trips, altogether.

Female Frigate bird

For the first one, we disembarked from the cruise boat at 8 am in rubber dinghies. The cruise boat was anchored a short ride from the island, and we motored in the dinghies along its rocky cliffs to the point where steps had been cut in the rock so people can climb to the flat top. Along the rocks, we saw several sea lions – they like to lounge there in the shade while they can. There were swallowtail gulls, frigate birds, pelicans, and tropic birds flying around as well.

Male Frigate bird with his chick

The top was a flat expanse with probably hundreds of nesting  Nazca boobies, red-footed boobies, and frigate birds. The Nazca boobies were pretty much entirely on the ground – walking around and nesting. The red-footed boobies were primarily in the trees. In addition to their feet being different colors, their faces are quite different too. You can see that in these pictures. We saw eggs and babies of both. The frigate birds are dark: the males have red patches on the necks, and the females have white chests.

Nazca Booby

At one point we saw a vast number of storm petrels swooping around. They were beautiful. We also saw a short-eared owl, which hunts the storm petrels.

Our second visit was to snorkel along the rock wall. No pictures of that! But it was very enjoyable. Lots of colorful fish.

Our third visit, in the afternoon, was to the only beach on this island. There were many sea lions sunning themselves and swimming there. We walked down for a ways, then waded further in a small inlet. While in the inlet, a baby sea lion came over to check some of us out! We just stood quietly and it came over to several different people, curious, and sniffed their legs. On this walk we saw more boobies, of course, and two different types of swallowtail gulls. One is native to the Galápagos, the other comes from Chile to the Galápagos each year to mate. We saw one juvenile of that species and several instances of mating. We also saw a lava gull, which are quite rare.

Red-Footed Booby

All in all, it was a lovely day. Tonight we will motor to another island, and they have promised it will be rougher than last night’s passage, so thank heaven for Dramamine!

Curious baby sea lion