R: Around 2:00 am the boat calmed down as we anchored off of Isabela Island at Pta. Moreno. sabela is the largest of the islands of the Galapagos archipelago and has 5 active volcanoes on it. In the morning, we had a dry landing on a hardened lava flow between the two southern most volcanoes and much of the day’s hike was across lava. I got a little carried away with the cactus photos, I think, because there wasn’t a lot of other wildlife to look at.
A mangrove tree grows in the lava rock.
J: I wasn’t as inspired by the cactus as Rebecca, but I think I got a couple of good photos. The lava made for an interesting walk though. It almost felt as though we were on another planet. The path was a bit precarious in places, but yet still oddly beautiful. There were several lagoons scattered about our walk. The first one had some duck-like birds-morehens- the second had flamingos and the 3rd was filled with sea life. We perched ourselves several feet above the lagoon for a bird’s eye view of the underwater action. We spied several porcupine puffer fish, a sea turtle and a shark. It almost made up for missing the whales the night before, but not quite.
Morehen butts.
Darwin amongst the desolate lava rock.
R: More snorkeling ensued after the morning’s hike. We saw a sting ray and a huge school of really small fish being picked off by the larger fish. Plus we got to swim with at least one (possibly more) sea turtles again and Jen swam with a diamond ray.
Tiny fishies.
R, continued: During and after lunch, the boat moved up the west coast of Isabela Island to Elizabeth Bay. We had plenty of time for a siesta (I took mine on the deck in a shady patch) before loading the pangas again at 4:00. This time we didn’t land on the island, just turned off the motors and were paddled through inlets in the bay. It was very peaceful, but we didn’t see quite as many animals as we’d hoped, despite Juan’s best efforts to make the Galapagos penguin mating call to round them up. We did see some sea turtles swimming, a blue heron, and a sea lion asleep in a red mangrove tree, though.
Heron
Juan leads the charge.
