February 2- last day in the Gallapogoes

                    We said good bye to Roberto and meet up with Celso again .  we are now 5.  

                                        

                                        

                                   

 

Febrary 1 -Kicker Jill and Wizard Hill

 We got up early to see Kicker Hill which is a volcano coming up out of the water. The locals say it is a lion. The captain took us around twice as this was a special event.  He had to get permission from the National park to do this. We saw some beautiful Fret birds that puff up the red sack in their throat to a track the female.

We went out on a quick ride on the zodiacs to see Wizard Hill.  This is a volcano that came up out of the sea. As we got closer you could see the rock splitting.as the weather eats away at the stone of ash and salt.  We went through the cave that had been formed by rock falling.

Next we are off to Darwin’s museum .

                            These birds are puffing up their red Brest to attract their mate

We had a lot of these guys visit us before we started out for the day.

                        Watching this island as we came closer. The sun wa beautiful on it.

                                                        Volcanoes rising from the water 

                                                            On to the next island

As we came closer we saw the opening and soon we were going through. The current was really strong!

                                                        Evelyn and Roberto

                Our afternoon stop was to explore this island Cristobal where our welcoming guests were in the way!

                                                                Lazy boy!!

                                                        The sea lions are everywhere!

Gallapogos- January 31 st.

 We are off to Island for some exploration.  Later we will be off to another island with some snorkeling from the dinghy and then walk along the beach.  The sea lions were sleeping in the sun and were so funny.

The snorkeling wasn't very good as the undertow was very turbulent so you couldn't see anything.

The pictures have loaded backwards meaning the first ones are in the afternoon and the last grouping was from the morning adventure.  It was all good.....

We landed on the beach to go snorkeling but it wasn't good.  The under tow was too much for any fish to be seen as the sand was being turned up.  So we just swam and enjoyed the water.

We think this is a whale???

The next serval pictures are of the sea lions enjoying the warmth of the beach and each other.  I took a lot of pictures because they just were fun to watch.

                                    This "little" guy was hiding in the rocks as we walked by.

                            Our birthday girl!

                                A bird that is looking for trouble..He was has the raputation of taking things!

                    The waves were big and challenging to go over.  We did this for our morning outing. The pictures below are of this adventure.

                        a little baby testing the water.

                    Sometimes it is hard to tell the rocks from the sea lions.

                        They are so cute!

                                Sea Lions getting up on to the rocks for relaxation

the waves are hugh and we had trouble going over them to get into this cove.  our drivers were amazing.

January 30 Galapagoes —post office bay

 Our first venture out was to see the area around the island and give those that wanted to kayak a chance to do so.. i was going to be an odd man out so i decided not to do it. We instead were able to see sea lions and their cub basking in the sun along with the blue footed boobies.

Next
We traveled to Post office Bay for our mail delivery in the barrel of the post.  This has been there since the 1930;s and is still going.  I picked out 3 cards to deliver personally. And we will see when i get mine returned.  Snorkling after but it was very choppy and the water was jerky.

After lunch we got dropped off to Cormorant Bay to view the flock of flamigos and the turtles.  The turtles were resting of the beach waiting to come up in the late afternoon to lay their eggs.  They lay about a 100 at a time and then go back to the water.  The eggs will take 3 months to hatch.  We watched a hole that the turtles were hatching and so did the great blue herring and the frigate bird.  The herring won as his beak was longer.  He poked his beak in and grabbed a turtle.  He helped himself to 5 baby turtles while we watched. 

Our after dinner excitement was watching the sharks circling the boat and hoping for a meal of the flying birds. The sea lion was getting most of the meal. We counted up to 11 sharks at once.

                                                        We are off for the morning

                       Some were going to try kayaking. I would have gone but i didn’t have a partner

                                Julia and Cheryl were the first crew off

                                    Looking good

                                Next were Ingrid and Rick

                            Blue feet boobies

                                This guy was watching a sea lion basking in the sun.

                                            These guys were so cute

                            A face only a mom would love.

Here we are at the post office barrel. A tradition that has continued on since the ships and sailors came through with mail.

We took the mail out of the barrel and read off places that the postcards were going.  If you were near that place, then you took the mail to deliver when you got home.  I took 3 to deliver.  One was in Providence RI but i ran out of time so I continued up North and went to Lowell Ma.  Here i met the lady that had mailed her card.  She took my Providence one because her daughter lived there and she was going to see her.  The last one was in Campton NH.  No one was home but as i placed it in the door I noticed a Campton fire dept. Coat so i figured i would catch up with the owner sometime since we do mutual aid together. Turns out that the woman was connected with the our school here in Lincoln. Her teacher friend had connected who I was. This was told me at the local ski area..such a small world.

My post card was delivered by a couple that was from the Durham area where UNH is .  They had taken a day trip up hoping to catch me.  I was just coming off Covid so I was home. They were so nice.  She had written a book about her 500 mile walk across France and the Camino.  She sent me her book called Walking France by Gale Carey.  On amazon.  She told me they were traveling to Vt for another delivery in a the near future,

                                                                                Our lunch

Off to see Flamingos 

                                                                    Turtles

We stopped to watch a frigerate and a blue herring fight to get the baby turtles that were just hatching  we couldn’t see them but they did.  This one won the feast as his bill was longer.

                                    Caught his pray and now off to eat it…sad

                            He did this 5 more times that we watched.

                                                        Our special cocktail hour

The next pictures are of sharks that were circling the boar.  There was a seal lion under the boat that was shooing our flying fish were they were hiding  These fish would come flying out from under the ship,  skimming the water and the battle would begin between the sharks and sea lion trying to catch the fish.  The sea lion almost always one.  The sharks didn’t bother the sea lions because they were bigger.

                    It was hard to get any good shots of the sharks.

I was glad to not be swimming!!