Day 12:
Today I awoke at 5am when they started the motors for navigation. I then dozed in and out of slumber until it was around 7am and time to head up to the dining room to get our grub on. For breakfast we got a plate of mixed fruit to start along with a fresh squeezed juice and either coffee or tea.
After we finished our fruit we got a plate with an egg, a slice of weird cheese, and a slice of some kind of meat. I ate the eggs and we sat there for a bit. Finally, somebody asked where the bread was and they forgot to bring it up so we ended up with a nice fresh hot loaf of bread for each table. I guess that is what the cheese and meat was for. The cheese here in Ecuador is weird. I don’t like it at all. They make these really thick slices (like half an inch) and it doesn’t really have any flavor at all. I’m not a big fan of awkward cheeses so I usually passed on it. The texture is different as well and not my thing.
We started to head to the island around 7:45 am on Isla Santa Fé. The islands here each have about 4-8 different names so sometimes it gets really confusing. Each time the Galapagos was visited back in the day by the Spaniards, Ecuador, English, whomever they each gave the islands different names… I’m not sure which ones stuck but some people use one name and other’s another. They should just pick one and run with it.
We arrived on Isla Santa Fé where the landing was dry and they brought the boat up to a dock and we had to jump off the boat onto this little narrow dock that was slippery. There were black rocks all around us and seals just hanging out doing their thing. There was a sea lion that we saw when we first got off the boat that was missing half of it’s body. Our guide told us that a shark had bitten it and it was very lucky that the alpha male was allowing it to be in the colony because the blood attracts sharks. He told us that a shark had eaten it. Throughout the tour he showed us other scars on sea lions and told us they were from sharks and that the sea lion learned that sharks are not their friends. (Our guide seems to know what happened to each and every animal and their brother on this tour… to the point where it’s obvious he’s making it up!)
We were told if we were lucky we would get to see a seal giving birth but that it usually happens in the early morning or late evening. He told us that the frigit birds were waiting and looking for seal lion placenta to steal from recent births. This area was kind of a maternity section and the male sea lion would stay around for about 3 weeks before he would be replaced by a bigger better male. Whatever male is there is the father or step-father to all of the baby seal lions in the area and protects them.
Along the trail there are many dead sea lion babies. Our guide tells us it is because the passengers touch the babies and they lose their scent. They gain the oils and perfumes of the person petting them and then the mother can no longer tell what baby sea lion is hers and the baby starves to death. I’m not sure how true that is, but it has been repeated to us every day at least 3 or 4 times along the trail. “You know what happened here… I’ve told you before.” “Do you know why this baby sea lion died? Why? Because somebody pet him. That’s why! It’s not their fault. They didn’t know. I blame the guide. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they didn’t tell them. Maybe they didn’t care. I don’t know.”
The baby seal lion is highly protected by the mother for the first week of their life and then they are free to wander about and play with other lions. Our guide told us you don’t want to get near a newborn sea lion because the mother is known to be highly aggressive to protect it for that one week. They grow quite quickly and it is up to the mother how long she nurses the baby. We saw several seals nursing some only a few weeks and up to two years old… one was almost the size of the mother it was taking the milk from. I think the minimum is 5 months and the max is 3 years for nursing a baby seal lion.
We watched the babies play around in the shallow water and learn how to fish and swim with each other. We were so close to nature it was incredible. They are not scared of us at all and are very curious towards us.
Next we saw some land iguanas that were about a foot in body length plus the length of their tail. (They are much smaller than the iguanas we saw yesterday.) This island has an over population of iguanas and a shortage of food. One male iguana owns each cactus and owns the fruit that falls from it. To show us this spectacle of nature our guide would throw rocks and see what the iguanas would do… their ears are very good, but their eyesight is very bad. One iguana was confused and jumped to see what the rock was while the others laid still. He then took a small piece of cactus fruit and threw it in the middle of this pile of about 15 iguanas. They all jumped and started to fight for it. A female iguana got the food and gobbled it down spikes and all. It is very painful for the iguana to eat this way and not clean the cactus of the spikes before eating it. She must do it otherwise the food will be stolen from her and she will not get the food that she desperately needs.
We sat and watched. The iguanas communicate with each other by bobbing their heads up and down at each other and the male iguana after the female was finished eating started bobbing his head up and down and she ignored him for a bit and then bobbed her head a bit too. (Granted we are only a few feet from these guys). Then he jumped and started to attack her because she ate the fruit from his cactus tree! It was insane! Our guide told us that the iguanas that have black mouths have been eating seal poop or meat for food to survive and are very sick. Iguanas are naturally vegetarians so to suddenly start eating meat or seal poop is not good for them and makes them sick. There is not much the park can do about the overpopulation and the sick iguanas. The islands are heavily affected by el niño and there was a drought two years ago that killed a lot of the cactus on the island so the land iguanas now suffer. The iguanas are now digging at the trunk of the cactus and trying to push it over for food… this will cause food for a few weeks or a month, but then they will be left with one less cactus on the island, which hurts them even more.
The cacti on this island are very different. They have a large tree type trunk and then they have the regular cactus flat spiked leaf with small balls of cactus fruit attached.
Next we walked over and saw a baby Swallow-tailed Gull and her parents. The baby was tucked away under a rock and the parents were nearby. One parent was missing who was going to get food for the baby to eat. The parents take turns getting food and taking care of the little guy.
As we were walking our guide pointed out a bloody seal lion and a small baby and told us that she must have given birth this morning. There were several frigate birds nearby waiting to get the sea lion placenta and were diving down to get it. The mother sea lion will not let any animal get within 4 meters of her newborn and will do some crazy tactics if the bird tries. The birds were testing her boundaries, but we saw no crazy actions taken. There are tons of little baby sea lions here of all ages.
We continued our walk along the trail and stopped at a little cliff where we watched some sea lions in the reject bachelor pad where they were hanging out to gain size before they could take over and become the alpha male in the maternity ward or something like that. We sat and watched the action for 15 minutes or so. It is a dangerous place for the sea lion because if they make a mistake it can cost them their lives in this area depending on the tide and if they jump at the wrong time on the rocky ledges.
We continued on and stopped and one by one we got to go down near a cliff and check out this baby bird that was hanging out under the ledge. We were told to be very quiet as we went down there to take photos of it. I was careful not to lean back or I would fall down the rocky ledge!
We continued the walk and didn’t see much more besides beautiful scenery and more iguanas, sea lions, frigit birds, and blue-footed boobies here and there. When we were heading back to the dock we saw a hybrid iguana which there are very few of on the island and don’t live past 7 years old. They are half marine iguana and half land iguana. The marine iguanas were not marine when they arrived to the Galapagos Islands. They evolved out of a need to survive and can go up to 30 feet under water to feed off of the algae in the sea. We’ll see more marine iguana’s in the days to come.
We then headed back to the boat where our ‘snack’ was awaiting us. Today it was popcorn! Yum. After hanging out for a bit we then started our navigation to another part of the island, which was about an hour of motorboating. The boat is really … really slow!
When we arrived we had about 3 hours to snorkel around the boat. There was one area that we could not enter because it was dangerous with alpha male sea lions where they have had a few incidents in the past. Our guide told us that a alpha male bit off part of a Chinese woman’s face or something crazy like that.
I really didn’t feel like snorkeling and wondered if we would have other chances. The sky was cloudy and the water was cold and I didn’t have a wetsuit and the only thing I had for a swim suit were the boy swim trunks I bought and a sports bra. Stina and I decided to go anyways and it was COLD. She didn’t get a mask and find and tried to go without them. Once we were in the water she decided she wanted some, and I asked one of the crew members if he would get us a pair and he said he would for $10. Screw that… and with that we swam out. (I had some snorkel gear that my tour agency gave me.) She headed back to the boat shortly after we got to swimming to the area to find sea turtles. I saw a few turtles, manta rays, and lots of fish before deciding to call it quits. Others saw sharks, sea lions, turtles, manta rays, and other really awesome things.
I was on the boat when one of the crewmembers offered to take us out on the boat to show us the sea turtles. I took Stina’s camera that was able to go underwater without any special housing. It was pretty sweet. We then started to take photos of the turtles when the German couple gave us their used up disposable underwater camera and took Stina’s from me to get a good photo of the turtle. Off they went with the camera and we were in the boat looking into the water to see some of the sea life. We saw some turtles and sea lions dancing in the water. It was pretty cool, but I was cold and didn’t want to get back into the water.
Upon our return many of the others were coming back from their swims. The German couples were able to get some good photos of the sea lions and turtles and were really excited about it.
Afterwards we all got changed and ready to go ashore for a small walk around the island to see some more iguanas, sea lions, and stuff like that.
It was a wet landing so we had to wear sandals and shorts… it was cold so I opted to wear pants and roll them up. On this island there weren’t that many iguanas, which is much different than the situation on Plazas island where there are many iguanas and not enough food… and are also very sick. On this island there is plenty of food and not that many iguanas. We found one hanging out by a cactus and our guide was throwing rocks again to show us how good their ears are. He then threw some flowers because these land iguanas also like to eat flowers. Soon as the flowers hit the ground the iguana made a beeline for those flowers and ate them quickly. Our guide then decided to grab an entire cactus pad and throw it on the ground near the iguana. The iguana headed towards the cactus pad and then spent a minute pulling off the thorns with his paws by scratching it. It is much different than the other island where they race to eat it spikes and all.
After he was finished scratching off all of the spikes he started to eat the cactus. We watched him eat for a few minutes before continuing to walk. We saw a few mice and mockingbirds along the way. The mockingbirds of the Galapagos are an example of an adaptive radiation. Unlike their better-known counterparts, they do not mock the sounds of other birds and make their meal from lizards, small finches, abandoned boobie eggs, and insects. They have virtually no fear of people and follow you out of sheer curiosity.
We continued our walk down the path and didn’t see anything else besides more mockingbirds, lava lizards, ad a few iguanas here and there. We arrived at the beach where we were dropped off and we had about 30 minutes at the beach before pick up.
Stina, Dominic, and I chatted it up. We witnessed 6 mockingbirds having a stand-off just a few feet from where we were. They were chirping at each other and jumping around and they got into teams and were dancing around for quite a while. It was quite amusing to watch and I got a video of it on my little camera. Then some seals in the background starting going at it. They were jumping all over each other making these really loud noises and carried on and on and on as they got closer and closer to where we were. The while they were trying to get it on, one of them took a poop. Eww.
You gotta watch your step in these parts because there is sea lion poop everywhere and it is stinky. Very stinky.
After watching the sea lions, mockingbirds, and other wildlife the shore boat headed over to pick us up and we went back to the boat. After spending a few minutes cleaning up dinner was ready for us and we began to eat. Our voyage to the next island is 6 hours so our captain has decided to take off directly after dinner.
The Italian couple had offered me some sea sickness pills and I decided to take them up on their offer. About 30 minutes later dinner was served and I started to not feel so well. I ate as much as I could. Tonight was pizza and I was served Hawaiian, but it was made with that nasty Ecuadorian cheese. Ewww. I ate as much as I could, but all the sudden I got that taste in my mouth and I knew it was going to be bad and I excused myself from the table and ran down below. I then puked… and puked… and puked. And then when I thought I was done… I puked some more. I went back up to the dinner table afterwards and played with my food until it was cleaned up and everyone headed up on deck to prepare for the long voyage ahead.
I stayed in the dinner room curled up in a ball in a corner. Then I decided I needed something down in the room and I headed down there to go get my pillow and a few other items. I didn’t make it more than a few seconds before I started to puke again. It was getting worse and worse so I grabbed a bit of toilet paper and then ran up to the dining room as I was wiping puke off my face, arms, and shirt. I then sat there and blew my nose and got all the nasty stuff off. My piece of toilet paper wasn’t quite big enough but I said screw it and went back to my corner and fell asleep (there was no real room on the deck so I stayed in the dining room).
A few hours later I awoke to find the crew setting up their beds in the dining room. I decided, even though the voyage was hours from being over, to head down below to go to sleep. I should be used to the waves by now, plus there is nothing left in my stomach. I headed down below and felt a bit wheezy for a few minutes, but eventually fell asleep without problem.
