Galapagos Islands and Peru Part 3

Friday morning and our last chance to explore the islands.  I have a busy day planned: two hikes, one before breakfast, and some kayaking. We're anchored by Genovesa Island and the early hike is to the Darwin bay area. This was a short, but for me difficult, hike. Birds everywhere and they paid no attention to us at all. I got so many pictures it's going to be hard to pick just a few. After breakfast I went on a kayak trip, paddling around the bluffs of an island.  Here I saw my first fur seal, not a sea lion. Ocean kayaking is a lot different than on the streams back here where I get to land on a gravel bar and fish for awhile instead of constant paddling.

I got back from the kayaking just in time to go on the last photo hike, this one was to Prince Phillip's Stairs. After climbing his stairs, we went in search of the supposively illusive short earred owl.  We found eight of them and I even got a fairly good picture of one. As I mentioned earlier, too many pictures today, so I limited myself to about twenty for this.  Hope you enjoy them.

Red Footed Booby

Darwin Finch

Tommy on a navigation tower. See how frightened the birds are.

Galapagos Mockingbird

Short Earred Owl

Two male frigate birds

This does it for the islands. Saturday was a travel day, thirteen of us flew to Lima where we met up with eight new people.  Three ladies that I had enjoyed a meal or two with were the only ones I knew fron the ship, but I soon made friends with the others from the ship and the new people.  Most passengers were going home and a few were going on an Amazon River cruise. Six of the new people were going on that cruise after Peru.

The galapagos were a real surprise to me.  I expected to see lots of animals and wasn't disappointed at all.  What I did not expect was that we would get so close to them. To go onto an island we had to be accompanied by a naturalist and the size of the group with each was limited. Also, the naturalist had to be Ecuadorean, which I think is a good idea. All of the crew and my fellow passengers were easy to get along with and this helped for a very enjoyable journey. I'll start a part 4 of this blog for Peru.  Once again, I'll probably do two or three parts as I have a lot of pictures I want to share.

Galapagos islands and Peru Part 2

Flamingos!!! Overnight Tuesday we sailed to a different part of Santa Cruz. So Wednesday morning I once again went on the early morning photo hike. We landed on a lava beach and spotted the now ho-hum crabs, sea lions and iguanas. Not too far from the beach we came to a stagnant water pond and in it were flamingos. The light was good and I got several pictures, a few I'll post here. We then hiked to an overlook and saw our ship in the distance. Along the way we saw several land iguanas and some interesting cacti.

Hate to say it, but I was so tired upon our return that I took a great nap while others were out snorkelinh. After lunch we took a zodiac ride to Conway Bay...lots of birds, a few iguanas and sea lions. A sea lion was thrashing a fish on the water trying to stun it so he could swallow. this attracted a large number of frigates that tried to steal the fish. Fun to watch. Sailed around Daphne Major and had supper and a relaxing evening.

Thursday and we are going to visit both Bartolome and Sombrero Chino. Bartolome looks like the lunar surface, and that's from one of the astronauts thats been both places. The summit is 359 feet high and I climbed all 376 steps.  Luckily there were places I could stop and catch my breath. When I reached the summit, I did notice some vegetation and beaches.  On the way up I saw a couple of lizards and an occasional cactus. After breakfast, yes once again the hike was before, I took another glass bottom boat ride and saw another whitetipped reef shark, a chocoloate chip star fish and a tiger fish eel that was quite snakelike.  Lots of colorful fish were also seen.

The Chinese Hat looked very much like one.  I went for a relaxing time on the beach.  We saw lots of crabs and a small group of sea lions.  On the way back we spotted some penguins on shore.  I'm going to blame my cutting their heads off on rough seas.  They were a little choppy today, but I should have done better.

Camo?

Your's truly

Some of our naturalists and photo instructors

That highest point is where we hiked to.

 

Galapagos Islands and Peru

I expect to take a few days to complete this, but I'll post what I get done each day, Just returned from a wonderful trip.  Traveling to and from was not too adventurous... long delay on the way there and an aborted landing on the way home.  The air travel days all seem long and these were no exceptions.  But in between was great. On Sat. morning we landed on San Cristobal Island and were taken to the Endeavor by Zodiac.  Unlike a certain Italian cruise ship, we almost immediately had a safety briefing and found our muster stations.  This was followed by a nice brunch, and introduction to the Galapagos and then our first trip to the beach. This beach trip was an introduction to how safe the animals felt.  We had to be careful not to step on them.  And the best was yet to come. A few shots from the beach at San Cristobal:

On the Zodiac ride to the island

Sally Lightfoot Crab

Galapagos Sea Lion

Find the lava lizard?

Marine Iguana

 Sunday morning I went with the photo group to a beach on Espanola Island at Gardner Bay.  We left at 6 am so as to have the best light.  After returning for breakfast we had briefings on snorkeling and kayaking, gathered our snorkeling equipment and left for various adventures.  I chose the shallow water snorkeling and didn't do too well,  I think I had a flipper problem because I kept going in circles. Still enjoyed the time at the beach.  After lunch we had a presentation on photography, my camera was on the higher end of the low end of equipment.  Many of the people had lenses that cost thousands of dollars.  I believe I still got some good pictures. Then I went with the photo group for a wet landing at Punta Suarez for a "long hike". The hike was tough, on lava rock and a few people had to return because of dehydration. Once again here are a few pictures from Espanola:

Blue footed booby

Monday morning we are by Floreana.  A short, easy walk before breakfast.  After a short time we came to a beach on the other side of the island and spotted several sea turtles.  Difficult to photograph, I'll show my best one after the discussion.  Breakfast was followed by a zodiac ride and my first outing on the glass bottomed boat. Saw lots of fish, some brightly colored, a black tip shark and a white tipped reef shark, and a soft sea star. I also wrote a post card to Rowan to be mailed from Post Office Bay. This is a barrel where the whalers would drop off letters for their families and other sailors that were about to return home would check for letters close to their destinations. They would then hand deliver the letters.  The tradition continues today with the tourists.  One of the ladies who went on to Peru heard from her husband that her post card had already arrived...no postage. She lives in New Jersey and there must have been someone on a ship the next day or so that picked up her card.

When we went to leave the island their was a large sea lion blocking our pathway to the zodiacs.  He wasn't about to move for us.  Finally, the naturalist told me to quickly walk past him and the others followed. Another zodiac ride before we headed to the ship.  After supper we had an astronomy lesson on the top deck.  Because we were so close to the equator we did see some of the stars we do here, but their positioning was strange. My program on the iPad worked down here too! A few pictures.

Sea Turtle

Two Red-billed Tropicbirds

Looking for dinner

Tuesday morning and we're going to spend the next day and a half on Santa Cruz.  This is the second largest island and is home to over 17,000 residents (including most of our crew) which is, I believe, over half the population of the Galapagos. We do a dry landing and walk to the Charles Darwin Research Station and visit their "zoo".  I call it that because the animals are restricted, but they are making sure that most will be released back onto their proper island. Among other projects they are raising tortoises.  The most prominent resident is "lonesome George" who for a tortoise is just a juvenile. What makes George lonesome is he is the last of his kind.  No other tortoise from his island has survived so in a way, when we saw him we were seeing extinction in the process. George really isn't that lonesome as there are two females with him, but all attempts at mating have failed. The only picture from the CDRS that I'll include is one of George.

After visiting the CDRS I walked back into town with some friends. I'll add a couple of pictures taken in town. Then we caught a bus for a ride to a restaurant in the hills. It was here, after lunch that I discovered my biggest mistake of the trip. I went to take a picture of the grounds and my camera was dead. I had a fully charged battery and a second camera...back on board the ship. For some reason I still haven't figured out, I'd left my camera bag behind. No one had a spare battery that would fit my camera, but CT, one of the professional photographers, insisted that I use one of her cameras for the afternoon. Her camera could easily spoil me. On the way to the restuarant we stopped at a sugar cane press where we sampled several products they made. They also grew coffee beans. The sample of their rum was definitely warm all the way down.

Lonesome George

Sugar Cane Press

Crushing Coffee Beans

Happy New Year

If the first day of the year is any indication, it is going to be a happy year.  Cool, sunny, very windy and fairly crowded at Taneycomo, the day started slow. I couldn't buy a take on a red soft hackle.  Finally switched to a hare's ear soft hackle and things improved.  First trout of the year was a 15 inch rainbow.  After several more takes and fish the fly was so torn up I decided to change.  Put on a red squirrel soft hackle and hardly had a break the rest of the morning. First cast and 7 of the next 9 casts I had takes and usually fish. After several fish and beginning to get tired, I said three casts without a take and I'm heading home. It seemed like an hour later, but probably wasn't I changed to 3 casts without a take or a fish landed and I'm going.  The next cast I had another 15 incher.  Time to call it a morning. Once I tied on the red fox squirrel I never had more than 2 casts without a take. The entire time I was fishing there was a great blue heron across from me.  I missed a few fish when watching him; the funniest moment was when a flock of crows very noisily flew by and the heron was stretching his already long neck to see what all the ruckus was about.  Three hours of fishing, 25-30 fish with two 15 inch fish is a beautiful way to start the new year. I just may try my luck again tomorrow.