Española Island
Today we woke up and we were just arriving to some of the oldest Galápagos Islands: Española or Hood. The skies were clear and the breeze felt good and promised us another day full of beauty. As we approached Punta Suarez on the Zodiacs we were greeted by playful sea lions that were swimming around as we were landing. And as soon as we hit land we were stroked by the beauty of the Sally light foot crabs and their bright red shells as well as stunning marine iguanas that looked so brightly colored that it fell like somebody had come earlier and painted them on top of their black skin with red and green.
We also loved all the sea lion pups that were playing in small ponds along the beach, while their mothers were away feeding. Some of them were really small, maybe just a couple of weeks old and there was also a newborn that must have been just a few hours old since we noticed a bloody spot on the beach as well as the placenta. That pup was happy and healthy nursing off his mum, always a very special sighting.
As we finally moved away from the beach areas, we started walking along some picturesque cliffs full of birds: hundreds of Nazca boobies in pairs nesting right on the edge, a few swallow-tailed gulls and blue footed boobies as well as tropic birds flying above us. It is just amazing to see such quantities of wildlife everywhere around us.
We ended the walk in the Albatross colony where we could see a few odd adults still on the island while the chicks that are now about 6 months old are just about ready to start the greatest voyage of their life as they will be leaving the island in a couple of weeks and will spend 4 to 5 years at sea before returning here when they are fully grown up adults and ready to mate.
In the afternoon we had a very different visit and a close encounter with different kinds of wildlife since we started out with some snorkeling along the shores of Gardner islet were we found a great array of colorful fishes as well as sea lions that kept following us and playing around every one of us. After about an hour in the water we headed back to the ship to get changed and then landed on an amazingly long white sand beach that was bathed by turquoise waters and full of sea lions. A great way to end a day in paradise!
