Galapagos Islands - Day 3

6 February – Day 3

It was quite a rough night. We sailed from Santa Fe to Punta Pitt on San Cristabal Island. However, luckily for me the sea sickness seemed to be under control. Darwin woke us up at 6:15 am for our morning walk before breakfast. We went on this little volcanic island which had the rarer red-footed boobies. Like all islands here it was full of lava lizards. We also saw sea lions, land iguanas and lots of interesting plants. The terrain is very eroded by wind and water and looked very edgy. It was all very beautiful. We also 2 snakes, they were rather slim which were kind of brown with black dots. We saw red-footed boobies with white feathers and others with brown feathers, blue footed boobies and nasca boobies. We saw a dead rat skeleton. There have been some rat eradition program. Darwin told us that the rangers have to be careful as sometimes the blue rat bait gets eaten by birds and they would kill them. Also if mocking birds were to eat the poisoned rats, they would die as well. It is about finding the right balance. Unfortunately this island also has goats and cats. These feral introduced species are a really problem. There have been extensive programs to eradicate the feral introduced species but clearly it is not easy.

After about an hour we went to the boat for breakfast. Finally I could even eat breakfast. Breakfast was fruit, cereal, yoghurt, fried eggs, funny little frankfurters and toast. The bread was nice. Most of the bread we have tasted since coming here had not been that great. They were mostly quite sweet and more cake liked in texture.

We decided to snorkel first so the boat set sailed to the place where we were to do a boat snorkel. The spot was just off a small but very high rock island. It was fabulous. The water here was very deep but it was full of fishes,marine turtles and sharks. Simply delightful. We snorkel around the smaller part of rock of the island. We were in the water about 1 hour but if felt like 5 minutes.

We returned to the boat for lunch. Lunch was smoked pork served with boiled potatoes and cabbage salad. For dessert we got nice grapes, water melon and bananas.

At 3:00 pm we disembarked at Islas Lobos and there were lots of very cute sea lions. We witnessed two pairs of great frigate¹ birds at their mating ritual. It was so amazing to see the male frigate birds puff up their red pouches. Apparently according to Darwin it takes a lot of energy to puff up. It can take up to 20 minutes to fully blow it up.

We saw a lot of baby sea lions just lying around. Some were younger than 1 month old. They were so cute.  The temptation to touch was so strong but Darwin kept a very close eye on us . NO TOUCHING.

We went back to the boat after about 1 hour. Given that we were early, the boat sailed to the town on San Cristabal. We disembarked and agreed to meet back at 6:30 pm. The town was delightful. Elisabeth joined Meryl and I for the walk. There sea lions everywhere. They just share the space with people. Here Meryl and I posted our post cards. We went into a couple of the local shops and bought more post cards. Post cards were much cheaper here – 25 cents each. We have paid as much as 50 cents each. Postage to Australia is $3.00 which is very expensive.

The tourist information centre was still opened so we went there and got some nice broachers. The person also gave us a CD about San Cristabal as well. That was a lucky find.

We felt thirsty and decided to stop at a local cafe for a cool drink. Elisabeth insisted on buying Meryl and I a fruit juice. Our mango juice was very nice indeed. It cost $1.60 which was more than Elisabeth expected.

The walk along the promenade was just lovely. There were lots of people enjoying the beach and swimming with the sea lions just lying there. It just felt like the most natural thing to do. Being Sunday, there were lots of families just enjoying the nice weather. I would not mind spending a week here. The temperature was just perfect.

Dinner was at 7:00 pm as usual. Tonight's dinner was chicken with an interesting curry flavoured sauce served with mashed potatoes and broccoli baked with tomatoes and cheese. There was also a cucumber salad. Dessert was bananas cooked in some sort of syrup.

After dinner Darwin gave his usual briefing about what is going to happen the next day. Tomorrow we will head towards Espanola Island. In the morning we will do a 2 hour walk. Given that we will be walking on beach sand, we can go bare footed. Later on we will return to the boat and get ready for a snorkel. We should expect to see more marine turtles, fishes and sharks. Can't wait. Then we get back to the boat for lunch. After lunch we will go to Punta Suarez where we should see nasca boobies.

1There are two kinds of frigate birds – Great frigate birds have green feathers on their backs and Magnificent frigate birds have purple feathers on their backs