Woofie as we fly away from the Galapagos

More sea lions playing. The pelicans and some sea lions wait at the fish station for free hand outs!

Some popular T-shirts!!

Islands that we past as we traveled.

The sea lions playing near the pier.

Baby sea lion nursing. Mama appears to have four nipples. The babies make big slurping sounds!

Ginny and one of the babies.

OK. so I have not figured out how to properly label these photos. I will get help from Linda on Monday, and get some additional pics posted... and properly labeled, I hope!! The plan is to get a photo album put together... so hopefully, some of you can see that!

If you can, plan a trip to the Galapagos Islands. It is a treasure worth seeing!!

Friday in the Galapagos

Ecuador Galapagos Friday April 1, 2011 We got up early this am to take pictures of the sea lions before catching the 7am ferry back to Santa Cruz. We were totally entertained again by the sea lions. We had a very pleasant and fast taxi ride back to the island. We stayed in town and had a nice breakfast before heading back to the house. Cleaned up and went back into town for the last minute shopping. I think it was even hotter than it has been… and it has been hot (and HUMID!!)! It will be nice to get back to the cool, wet weather! One last dinner together, back to do our final packing and finish these blogs. Definitely need to plan another trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands!! Hasta luego!

Thursday in San Cristobal

Michael and Midene Some underwater shots, fish and sea anenomes.

Approach to the beach

Ginny by the fountain on San Cristobal Island, the sea lion is enjoying the fountain, also!

Sea lion sleeping inside the slide at the children's pool!

The bench says "Conserve what is ours". Seems appropriate!

One of the National Geographic ships!!

Thursday in the Galapagos

Ecuador Galapagos Thursday, March 31, 2011

Ginny and I had a leisurely breakfast this am then headed down to the tourist office to get our tickets to San Cristobal. We had a fast taxi boat ride in a very comfortable boat. We had hoped that Midene would be there to meet us, but it was not to be. So we got directions to the hotel and started off that way.

We were totally distracted by the dozens and dozens of sea lions everywhere! They were all over the stairs, piers, benches and sidewalks. There is even a shallow pool area with tube slides for kids and the sea lions come up and go through the slides!! They were very funny to watch. As we were strolling along, Midene found us!! They had checked on the ferry schedule and were told there was only a 2pm boat, so they figured we would not come over. They just happened to be having lunch and she saw us! Yay!!

We sat down and had lunch with them. I had a wonderful bowl of chopped fruit with yoghurt ($2) and a grilled ham and cheese ($2). Then I saw fried plantains and cheese (also $2) and had to order that! I thought each item would be rather small… not! It was quite the meal. Any two would have been enough… but I managed.

We got checked into our hotel and grabbed snorkel gear and headed off to La Loberia. It is a pretty beach where you can often swim with the sea lions… and we did!! We snorkeled for over an hour, two sea lions were with us. There were also lots more fish than I have seen in other areas. There were waves and rocks, so I had to just be very aware as I was swimming, but it was the BEST snorkeling I have done on this trip! We were hoping to also see some sea turtles, but we never did.

After cleaning up, we went to the interpretive center. It is very nicely done. Michael got up on the super neat stage that is there and he did some “Texas Monologues” that were very funny. We had some good laughs.

We spent the next hour (or two!) just watching the sea lions as they came in for the night, covering the local beaches. They were so entertaining to watch! We were making up dialogues of their conversations. Too funny.

It was finally well after dark and we went for dinner. We stayed and talked for quite awhile. Midene and Michael are a fun couple. We exchanged email addresses. I hope we can keep in touch in some way. They expect to be on their cruise for another 6 or 7 years. I may have to join face book just so I can keep up with their adventures!

We finally let them go back to their boat and Ginny and I went back to our hotel. Ahhhh, air conditioning! We managed to sleep better, even had to use our blankets! This was such a fun day.

My advice to future travelers is to stay on San Cristobal for 3-4 days. Do lots of snorkeling (and SCUBA diving, if qualified). There were several hikes I would have liked to go on. There is not the diversity of animals here as there is on some of the other islands, but it was definitely my favorite day of the trip. I am going to check to see if there are houses for rent (like Pablo’s house) for a trip in the future. I am also looking forward to chatting with Carol about her cruise.

Maybe the next trip will need to be a 4 day cruise and 3-4 days on San Cristobal… something to think about!!

Wednesday in the Galapagos

The baby iguanas really blend into the lava rock! Adult tortoise.

There are baby iguanas on the lava rocks.

The sea lion we were snorkling with!

The water taxi for the shallow lagoon. A blue footed booby.

Wednesday in the Galapagos

Ecuador Galapagos BlogSpot Wednesday March 30, 2011

Blue and Ginny wanted to stay around the house today, we are all pretty fried by the sun. I wanted to go on another day tour, so I ate a quick breakfast and zipped down to town to see if I could catch a trip to Isabella Island. Colleen decided to join me and we got on a trip that was leaving in 20 minutes!

This trip was about 2 1/2 hours on another boat taxi. Our guide was a young man named Javier. He spoke excellent English, but tended to tell a lot of info in Spanish, then very little in English. This tour ended up being much more hurried, and less relaxing. But we still had a good time.

The marina at the Island is very shallow, so once we docked, we loaded onto small taxi boats to tour the area. We saw some penguins and boobies. Then we went over to a lava rock area and took a short walk to see the “iguana kindergarten” and some sharks! The juvenile iguanas live in the lava rocks here where they can find food in the holes and hide from danger.

The “white tipped sharks” hang out in this channel. These reef sharks feed mainly at night, in total darkness. The eat reef fish which they detect using electromagnetic pulses. Unlike most other sharks, the white tip sharks sleep during the day, living on the ocean floor, alongside rocks or in caves. Luckily, we were able to see many of them cruising through the area where we could see them. We also got to see some sea turtles in the distance.

We did a short snorkel swim. There was a sea lion with us. They are sure funny characters! I got one good photo of him and two that were not good (one of his neck and one of his tail end) but I did not erase the bad photos because it still shows that I was in the water with him!. The pretty little cove is called La Calera. We went back to the mainland to board the taxi bus and went to a restaurant for lunch. We had a nice chicken soup and bread, then fish, rice and salad. This time I knew it was fish (though I did take a taste—very “fishy”) and gave that to Colleen. She enjoyed it immensely. Then we had some time to enjoy another beach.

I went for a short swim then went to the lava rocks to get more baby iguana pictures. From a distance I could see little round protrusions on the tops of the lava rock…I thought they were the heads of the baby iguanas (but was sure I was being fooled) but they really were iguanas! Hundreds (thousands?) of them! There is a protected nesting area in the grasses close by, but the youngsters spend most of their time on the rocks. I got some really good photos. (Thanks again, Gary, the camera is awesome!).

Colleen and I bought some ice cream then off to the next stop. We got to see some wild flamingos in their lagoon. They were a long distance away, but it was neat to see them in the wild. (I grew up seeing them as the first exhibit at the San Diego Zoo!). The last stop was a tortoise breeding facility. Got to see all different ages, sizes and varieties of the Galapagos tortoises. We even saw some youngsters (about 5 years old) play fighting! They bite at each other then pull their heads into their shells and bash shells! Rather comical to watch.

Then it was time for the long boat ride back to Santa Cruz Island. I was sure ready for a shower and change of clothes!

Our tentative plan with Midene and Michael was to catch the 7am boat taxi to San Cristobal and they would meet us at 9am (yep, another two hour boat ride!) and we would spend the day with them. Well, I caught up with my tour agent and there is only normally ONE boat taxi each day… at 2pm!!! The only return is at 7am! BUT then next day they were having a special taxi at 10am. Round trip ticket $50. Hmmmmm, so we would have to stay the night, (where??, but he gave us a hotel name and another $25 per person) and there was no way to get in touch with Midene. Ho Hum, what to do. I was willing to go by myself, but was not too thrilled to be there alone if I was not able to catch up with Midene. Ginny was game to go along. So we decided to bite the bullet and head out in the am. Heck, just another adventure!!
After cleaning up, we had another nice dinner then back home to pack for our little over nighter.

Tuesday in the Galapagos

Sunset as we head back to Santa Cruz Island

The sea turtle swam straight towards me, then under me!

The beach where we went snorkling.

The cave early settlers lived in. Walking through the rock formations.

The tortoises are not "humping", the one on the bottom was in the way of the other one. The top one figured it was easier to go over than around! One of the larger island taxi's

Blue, Stacy and Colleen at Floreana Island