JAB Post 30

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 19: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbartucz/20100719?feat=directlink

On Monday, we had breakfast with Doug and Mandy. Doug is in the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center and Mandy teaches biology on the base as a civilian. They live in Kaiserslautern, just outside the base and they decided to travel all the way to the Galapagos for their honeymoon. We ended up eating most of our meals sitting between them and the Swiss couple, Daniel and Cassienne. I suppose it was the “young couples” group.





After breakfast, we were dropped off on the beach of James Bay and went for a really nice hike. We saw our first finches, night herons and even a great blue heron. Of course, the requisite mockingbirds, crabs, iguanas, sea turtles and sea lions were also present.






We spent quite a bit of time near a small inlet/large tide-pool with a natural bridge over the entrance. It was entrancing to watch the sea lions playing together, twirling around and jumping out of the water.





After the hike, we snorkeled around the beach of the same island and we saw a couple more sea turtles and even a manta ray in the sand. Snorkeling in the Galapgos is a different experience every day. The water at this time of year is usually reasonably clear and cold. Javier said that the advantage to the cold water is that there is more oxygen available and therefore more nutrients for the fish (and the rest of the food chain) which makes for a better experience.





We went for one more hike on Tuesday, this time on Rabida Island. The highlight of the hike was supposed to be a nesting ground of flamingos, but none of them were home that day. It was literally the _only_ time we went to an island to see a specific animal and they did not appear. I don’t know if it was typical of the Galapagos, but we seemed to have led a charmed tour.

« Day 10: Isabela and Fernandina Day 12: Isla Lobos / San Cristobal »