Espanola Island
The visiting site of Punta Suarez at Espanola Island is really the jewel of the crown of the Galápagos archipelago. The month of July particularly offers a great array of marvelous and spectacular natural displays of many animals in breeding processes that astonished and marveled us all today.
We had a lot of different attractions as we started. This early morning walk was a real delight for all of us. As soon as we disembarked we saw a sally light foot crab foaming up and getting ready to molt, it was such a great shot! Red marine iguanas, big and colorful lava lizards, finches and mocking birds fixed a wonderful welcome committee at our first steps on this island.
As we advanced on the bouldery trail, we got to the place where, year after year, the Galápagos hawks build a nest; an adult hawk was feeding two tiny newly hatched chicks with a baby marine iguana freshly hunted from the nearby rockeries. Galápagos hawks have a polyandric social arrangement and the females are the dominant ones; the males help them find food for the offspring.
The afternoon at Gardner Bay was full of action. We had great fun snorkeling, kayaking and sharing the beautiful white sandy beach with hundreds of sea lions. The younger puppies were still nursing while the dominant male was barking all around protecting their territory and the young males were practicing wrestling along the beach.
Our visit to Espanola Island was certainly a fabulous day in the enchanted archipelago.
