Dragon Hill & Chinese Hat
It is early in the morning and we are getting ready for a new exploration. This time the visit site will be Dragon Hill, home of an appreciable population of land iguanas. Every one of us is eager to get closer contact with this ancient dragon-like reptile. Even though some of us were not fans of the hot weather conditions, we made this visit with all the enthusiasm that is needed to lead us to another new place to discover. We were lucky to find some of these amazing land iguanas and a juvenile one too, as well as some coastal birds.
As soon as everyone returned to the ship, they got ready for another underwater experience, the deep water snorkeling at Guy Fawkes, one of the most beautiful places for snorkeling and diving. This site is an upwelling zone, plentiful with life. Because of that, it is also a preferred spot for researchers. We saw a colorful wall with many macro-invertebrate organisms like sea urchins, sponges, tunicates, hydroideans, bryozoans, solitary corals, branched corals, reef building corals and black corals as well as tiny nudibranchs, anemones, reef fishes and sharks, among others. The sudden presence of some jellyfishes made us leave the water, but with a memorable experience of this beautiful place.
After the snorkeling, a delicious lunch was waiting for us and after a short break we got ready once again for another water adventure in “Sombrero Chino” meaning Chinese Hat. In this time we saw many small fishes that demonstrate a territorial behavior. The Yellow tail damselfish take care of their algae gardens and take away all the intruders. Another fish that attracted the interest of the snorkelers because of their vivid colors was the Blue chin parrotfish, a coral eater. Close to them we found the site where a white tip reef shark was resting – a big one!!! And not much farther were a juvenile of sea lion and some penguins making a delightful snorkeling experience for the snorkelers.
We ended this day with a panga-ride visit the shoreline of “Sombrero Chino” to have a last chance to see the penguins and sea lions and the last overview of this enchanted landscape.
