Today, we had a wet landing with LARGE waves, on the northern coast of Santa Cruz Island at Bachas Beach. The name comes from the mispronunciation of the word "barges" by the local population during the 1950s when WWII barges broke their moorings and ran aground on the beach. We began our two mile walk (Option 1) when immediately a flock of blue footed boobies flew over, landed on a gigantic rock and started preening themselves to distribute the oil on their feathers. We also spotted hundreds of Sally Lightfoot crabs, flamingos, sea lions and pelicans.
Back on board by 1130 hours as we sailed to our next destination, North Seymour Island. Luckily, as we headed to the port, we were close to the airport, with CELL SERVICE! I needed to book a flight using Delta Skymiles, but had no Internet Service. So, when I called Delta, I told the sweet rep, "Listen, I'm calling from Galapagos, who knows how long my phone service will last, plus I'm paying a dollar per minute, so we need to talk FAST," which she did! Mission accomplished! Back to North Seymour Island. This island is just north of Baltra and was formed through a series of uplifts of lava that was originally erupted underwater. These sporadic uplifts took more than a million years to bring the island to its present level. North Seymour hosts one of the largest colonies of frigate birds in the Galapagos. We left around 4:45 for our Option 2 excursion: Zodiac Ride and Short Walk.
We had a dry, "cliff" landing and immediately saw frigate males with huge inflated red chests, blue footed boobies, and land iguanas.
Then, right in our path, we watched adorable baby sea lions playing!
I could barely leave these two! Next, we encountered a flock of frigates and blue footed boobies. The frigates were buzzing and dive bombing us, which was I thought was amazing, when we came upon a blue footed booby and her new baby!
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