1. 06-03-2017 Dive, Dive, Dive. Aooooga Aoooga
Dive, Dive, Dive. Aooooga Aoooga. On the second day, at Bahia Sante Fe, things really took off or rather went under. There were two dives planned; an easy one and a challenge one. We started out along the shore and wandered along following David, our guide, towards some rocks. I cannot figure out the shutter on my cheapo underwater camera and instead of fiddling with it I say to myself, "Technology failure again. BS. I'll deal with it later.” There were multitudes of colorful fish in the water! It was not some techno- graphic. (In my landlocked life I have grown suspicious of all the media-modified images I see every day. Yes, that is a beautiful fish, but didn’t they tweak the green a little bit too much?) The water is warm and my wetsuit is so buoyant that it's difficult to lift my head above water to see where I am in relation to the other divers. They are a school of shiny domes with strange colorful branches dipping in the waves nearby. I quickly learn to roll over on my back to see above the surface but this presents me with the problem of keeping the snorkel above water. So many things to keep in mind while gaping at schools of black bodied, yellow finned, fish. They drift together as if they are rolling across the submerged rocks in a ball of crystal clear gelatin. Then, not 2 feet from my face, a fish straight out of Finding Nemo. 2 feet long and fat as a pig, yet standard fish shape and all kinds of variations on my favorite colors; purple and turquoise and blue. A cartoon fish. A Japanese carp-kite fish. I make strangled noises of joy that sound really weird in the snorkel by my ear. That makes me laugh which also sounds weird. I wonder if I can drown from laughing. I stop laughing and I follow the gorgeous fish. It eats some coral, snaps at something small I can’t see, and pokes around a deep green-black crevice. I wish there was someone next to me to share this fish with. I look for the school of human heads and they have moved off. I swim after them. I am really hoping we get to do more snorkeling on the trip. It was a Blue Lipped Parrotfish.

2. I accepted the challenge swim and followed our school through a gap in the breakwater into open sea. More fish. I was so fascinated that I lost track of the school of humans again but when I looked up Eric, the panga driver, was nearby, keeping an eye on me. I got leg cramps trying to catch up with the group. I gave up and hailed the panga. Eric suggested that I hang onto the ladder and stay in the water and he’d drive the boat slowly along. This worked, the cramps went away, and I launched myself off the panga to give it another try. More leg cramps. They were kind of scary so I gave up and climbed into the panga while still wishing I could be in the water again. Oddly I was not at all cold. I am used to sitting in wet, cold misery on the river but there the air was so warm and humid that the wind-chill is negligible.
As soon as I saw my first Blue Lipped Parrot fish and I understood that snorkeling was planned for every day, I happily surrendered any interest in kayaking. There was only one day when the kayak would have been perfect and that was on the last day when we took a panga ride through a mangrove swamp (in Spanish they call them Mangles, not Mangroves). In the mangrove mangle the water was so still and quiet a kayak would have been perfect.
I could insert underwater pictures from the Internet but that would be cheating. My experience with the cheapo underwater camera is not helpful. This was the best shot I got. Words will have to do.

3.
Sea Lions, Every day, Everywhere
David told us that the way to find a Sea Lion colony was by smell. Yes. It's true. They stink.
My first Sea Lion sighting: On the first full day of the cruise we stopped at Sante Fe Island. I wrote earlier about snorkeling there, but before we went into the water (or maybe after - things are getting blurry by now) we took a short break on one of the beaches. David was telling us something about the Sea Lions that were scattered around. Or maybe he was telling us about the curious Mocking Birds or just pointing out something interesting. While David had my full attention, someone warned me, "Kit, look behind you!" A curious, young Sea Lion, about the size of a Labrador Retriever (minus legs), had silently humped over the sand to my leg and was on the verge of sniffing my calf. Startled, I jumped out of the way. Startled, he humped back the way he had come.
My favorite Sea Lion sighting was on Isla Plaza Sur, later the same day.
This was considered a "dry landing." The pangas dropped us off on a stone jetty about 4 feet wide that jutted into the bay. In the distance the pretty Beluga was at anchor. The jetty was next to a small rocky cove full of young male Sea Lions. It was impossible to tell how many there were in the cove but it seemed to be alive with leaping, spinning, hyperactive Sea Lions. It was recess on a Kindergarten playground. I filmed them for a few minutes. Then David pulled us away to see a nesting Swallow Tailed Gull and a crusty old Land Iguana. We walked up the slope of the island to the cliff on the seaward side of the island and watched a flock of Red Billed Tropicbirds sweeping back and forth above us. David said he never saw them behaving like this. It was good to know that his knowledge was expanding, too. We crept to the edge of the cliff, peering down at the crashing waves far below. David led us to a spot where some grumpy bachelor Sea Lions lorded it over the world. We kept saying, "Why would they climb all the way up here?" They had climbed hundreds of feet, up a very steep gully from the sea, to sleep on the highest ledge on the island. The view was magnificent but I wonder what other benefits of that perch might be.
We were completing a circle that led back to the jetty. We followed a large Land Iguana. It was about the size and dimensions of a dachshund except that it had a very long and fat tail. It didn't seem to like us much. It avoided us by walking slowly down the middle of the path. It required picture taking. We finally arrived back at the jetty and those juvenile delinquent Sea Lions were still rough-housing in the cove. They didn't tire at all in the 2 hours we had been visiting the island. I’ve posted a video on my blog:

4. Bahia Santa Fe

5. Lava Lizards Bahia Sante Fe Not sure about the name of these lizards.
They were eating flies near the remains of a Sea Lion.

6. Bahia Sante Fe
Isla Plaza Sud

7. Every Island had its own variation on the Lava Lizard, Land Iguana, Prickly Pear and other critters and plants.

8. Swallow Tail Gull
Grumpy Land Iguana
Bachelor Sea Lion

9. Jonnie
I was fiddling with the new camera and messed up some settings and got this great picture. Someday it would be cool to be able to do such a thing on purpose.
Evening. Heading back to the dry landing at Plaza Sur,
where we were greeted by the juvie sea lions.

10.
Kicker Rocks – Leon Dormido
off San Cristobel Island
When I woke in the morning I looked out the porthole to see what kind of day it was going to be. Framed by the brass ring locking the porthole shut, was a large rock. The water was glassy. The light sharp and angling across the rock, turning its black and white stripes a pinky beige. Kicker Rock looks like Yosemite's El Capitan fell into the sea. From one angle it looks like a hi-top basketball shoe. The ocean breaks directly on its sole. There was no beach, nor rubble at the bottom of the cliffs. The walls were vertical and anything that fell off the top plunged straight into deep water. At the back, where the heel of the shoe would be, there is a gap between the Achilles tendon and the rest of the boot.
Several of our gang climbed into the pangas and went to the base of the rock where they planned to swim through the narrow and depthless crack in the rock in order to see hammerhead sharks. I took the day off. I sat on the top deck with a cup of coffee while the captain took the Beluga in a slow circle around the rock.
It is hard to give a sense of the scale of this rock. It’s huge. The pangas looked like tiny smudges at the base of the vertical face and I could only see them because I was looking through the 10x zoom on my camera. The pangas waited at the opening of the slot for the divers to pass through. As we circled, I saw another cave near the arch of the hypothetical shoe. It was a tunnel sliced straight through to the other side where a tiny patch of blue showed. I wondered what grows in that dark place. I thought of my daughter's boyfriend, a rock climber, who would be aching to break out his climbing gear and have a quick scramble to the top.
The divers did see the hammerheads and, for a couple of heart stopping moments, the hammerheads saw our divers.
David was emphatic that they are harmless; they are too small to be interested in humans; they have plenty of sea lions to eat and no taste for humans. Considering that every island had a sea lion colony with dozens, if not hundreds, of sea lions it is not hard to imagine the sharks are too fat to bother with us rubber-clad humans. David has only heard of one instance where a diver was injured by a hammerhead – 5-6 years ago a small one bit a diver. Nothing serious, just testing.

13. After Kicker Rock the Beluga cruised to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Christobel Is.
Like I said, Sea Lions everywhere, every day.

14. Centro de Crianza de Tortugas Terrestres
Tortoise Ranch
We took a bus from the Porto across San Christobel Island to a research station on the east side of San Christobel where they are attempting to raise various species of the Galapagos Tortoise for release into the wild.
The park ranger had put some succulent leaves on the ground near the entrance so that in a few moments there was a giant tortoise eagerly munching away for our entertainment. It was about the size of my clawfoot bathtub only shaped like a VW Beetle and dirty black-green instead of white. A cross breeding between Yoda without ears and an aging E.T.
It stuck its long neck out to grab at the food and mashed at it with his stubby mouth. It is hard to imagine that this clumsy critter could survive in the wild for 150 years. This one was estimated to be 80 years old, a youngster. While it mashed the leaves, David took a moment to fill us in on the mechanics of hatching tortoise eggs in captivity.

15. Then another tortoise comes running down the path to join the feast
Then another tortoise comes running down the path to join the feast. I know it's hard to imagine but try to picture a tortoise running. It looks like a woman in a long heavy dress holding it up so she can get some speed over muddy ground. The Giant Tortoise has legs much longer than you would expect and when it raises up on them it can clear its shell off the ground by 10 inches or so. It isn’t a fast run but it is a lot faster than you would think. You would have to trot to keep up. Maybe not trot. How about amble?

16. The Battle Of The Giant Tortoises.
The larger and older one got there first and it tries to put itself between the younger one and the food. A formidable blockade. The smaller one sneaks behind the older one and starts chomping eagerly at some leaves the older one is standing on. The older one drops what it is eating and turns on the smaller one. They face off. The younger one raises its 4 feet of snaky neck and head and hisses in the face of the other. The other responds by raising its head higher, 5 feet, and hissing back, food falling out of its mouth as it does so. Where do they keep all that neck?
This seems to settle the argument and the smaller one starts to run away. It bangs across a rock and makes a swift u-turn. It looks like it is gathering momentum to make a dash for the food. In slo-mo. It runs over to the older tortoise and again, behind its back, it snatches at a shred of leaf. They get into a shoving match and pretty soon the smaller one gives up. All the food is gone or mangled by their tussling anyway.

17. Middle aged and cranky at 60 to 80 years old.

18. A mere 10 years old
We took the trail around the park and saw more tortoises, some wandering around in the underbrush, others drinking from a pond set under the trees. All the babies were in protected boxes or large pens. The station supports these baby tortoise until they are 7-8 years old and about the size of a large dinner plate. This is a long view. Restoring the Galapagos Tortoises to their natural habitats is going to take a very long time. The babies won't be breeding until they are years old. It was hard to tell how successful this project was. One would hope there would be hundreds of tortoises filling the pens to overflowing but there only seems to be about twenty and that is a generous guess. Perhaps the extras were taking a siesta. The underbrush of the park did look like it had been chewed and spit out, so maybe they are more active at night when the tourists go away.

19.
Espanola Island – Gardner Bay
The skeleton of a whale is stretched out on the sand. We left the Sea Lioned beach and rock hopped into the bluffs on the cliff side of the island. The ground under the shrubs and bushes is padded with dried and curling orange and yellow leaves. The island is estivating.; dropping the unnecessary greenery at the beginning of the dry season. Some yellow flowers still cling to the shrubs. A camouflaged land Iguana shuffles in the leaves, illuminated by patchy sunlight.
Mocking Birds examine my sandals
Another variation on Lava Lizard
Marine Iguanas napping.
On land, they are always napping.

20. Espanola - Punta Suarez
Except when they are struggling through the surf to cling with their long claws to the rocky shore.
I am unable to tell if this is a Masked Booby or a Nazca Booby.
This Booby’s beak falls right in between bright orange of the Masked and the yellow of the Nazca.
So many incongruities

21. Rusty spied a Galapagos snake twined around one of the rocks of the path
Booby taking pictures of the tourists and tourists returning the favor.
Galapagos Hawk looking for an Iguana small enough to capture.

22. On a bluff looking over the sea there be Waved Albatross
On a bluff looking over the sea there be Waved Albatross! This is the only place in the world where these rare and beautiful birds breed and raise their young.
They are about the size of a domestic goose only slimmer, more graceful. There is some grey and black/brown on the body and wings but the head and shoulders are pure white. Some of them have a slight blush of orange or red on the top of their heads. Their eyes are black glass but they have a hooded brow that makes their eyes look almost human. The beak is long and orange-yellow with a little hook at the tip.
They live years and they mate for life. They spend most of the year at sea, far from land. They come to this singular island to meet up with their mate and raise one chick. They take turns sitting on the nest and then feeding at sea. When they swap positions, they greet each other.