Saturday Feb 15th
In the morning we landed on a beach and saw sea lions including teeny tiny ones. These still had fur and were learning to use their muscles by playing in little protected pools of water near the beach. Walter called these little areas “kindergartens”.
We hiked into a forest of Prickly Pear cactus. We saw our first land iguanas in the wild...they are lighter in color than those black marine iguanas. The species we saw here are the Santa Fe Iguanas which, as you may guess, can only be found on this island. As they evolved, they lost their ability to climb too so now they hang out at bottom of the big cacti waiting for the bright yellow flowers to drop! We watched this in action a few times...see flower...see flower fall...see iguanas run to flower...see iguana eat flower. Cool.
Later we snorkeled and kayaked in this beautiful cove area. The beach sand was made up of crushed coral and was so white in the sun...especially against the backdrop of the volcanic rock.
Back on the sailboat, we saw a school of flying fish around the time we started motoring away from Santa Fe to South Plaza.
In South Plaza, we took another short hike through another forest of cactus...this time Opuntia Cactus. We saw lots more land iguana (different species than the Santa Fe ones). We even saw one that was a hybrid of a land & marine iguanas. They are pretty rare. They are sterile. Other birds we saw were Noddy Gulls, frigates, pelicans, yellow warbler, finches, Nazca Boobies, Blue Footed Boobies, and Swallow Tail Gulls (aka Night Gull as it hunts at night with these special red eyes). We even saw a swallow tail gull chick!! It was pretty with its fluffy white & grey baby feathers.
As we started motoring away from South Plaza Island, we saw a bunch of frigate birds behind the sailboat. They followed the boat for a while diving into our wake snatching up tasty treats.
Oh! This super neat thing happened during dinner. The boat was anchored, it was dark, and there were some lights on (so we could see while we were eating) and three big pelicans perched on the panga boats that hang in the either side of the boat. The pelicans sat on the edge looking down into the water watching for the fish that are attracted to our lights. They repeatedly dove down into the water, grabbed fish, and then came back up to perch again. And poop. A lot. It was quite a show to close out the night.
Appreciate List
— Health! Getting on/off the boats isn't easy and some of the walking is rough...I appreciate being able to tackle these activities
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