I went on the trip of a life time to the Galapagos Islands. By Raea Gragg, August 2014 The following artwork is from my journal in ink and water color, sketched on location in the Galapagos. The Sally Lightfoot crab painting is in oil on canvas and was completed after we returned home.

It was a long flight from SFO to Miami then to Equador, but we finally got to the Galapagos….

Galapagos is awesome! It’s amazing how habituated the animals are to people. We have the great opportunity to watch them up close and to see how they interact with the other organisms in their environment.

….the story of the geological history of the Galapagos, the evolutionary history, the story of survival, of adapting. It’s a story about finding a new way to rebuild a world that started at the bottom of the sea… It’s a story that is still being written about the land, the ocean, the sky, the people and the future. I feel like I am part of this story. Stories are everywhere...

It was a struggle to get my wetsuit on. When I finally got it on, I had to change again on the Zodiac because I put it on backwards! Wetsuit Fail!

Snorkeling Success! But my cousin Isabel and I had an amazing time snorkeling.

So many sea lions! They swam right up to me! Sooo cool!

The sea lions are quite playful underwater. Even though I had a camera and I took lots of photos, at one point I decided against it (the camera) because for some weird reason, I just wanted to be with them and not to have anything between us. Playful Friends

We saw lots of iguanas…

…and Albatrosses, Frigate Birds, Nazca Boobies, Blue footed Boobies, Red Footed Boobies, and gulls.

We went to the tortoise breeding center and saw different types of tortoises and their babies! Some looked unreal, like they were right out of Jurassic Park! I met tortoises today that ranged from 1 to 125 years old. I met tortoises who met Charles Darwin!

Wild Dome Back Tortoise Dome Back Tortoises at the breeding center

We spotted a total of 30 land iguanas!

A small penguin, about the size of cat swam up to me out of nowhere. So I swam with him for awhile…. I swam with a penguin!

And he pooped! He swam right along beside me then dove into a stream of bubbles. The way he flapped his wings in water was very cute – until he pooped right in my face!

I saw four white tipped reef sharks. They were about 8 to 9 feet long. But I wasn’t scared; they were kind of beautiful. I was much more worried about the cold. Sharks were right under me!

I met a local girl named Emily who was a certified diver. She taught me how to swim upside down, which was quite possibly the best thing ever! She showed me how to pop my ears as I went down. It was great until we had a run in with a shark in a cave! Thank goodness he was sleeping.

Now we are on a new island with a big crater called Darwin’s Bay. Here, I hiked to see Nazca Boobies, Red Footed Boobies, Frigate birds and gulls nesting everywhere! Darwin’s Bay

Best summer ever! Dreams, big dreams have been made real this past week. I am so glad to have been part of experiencing this extraordinary place. It makes me realize there are worlds beyond my own.