Isabela & Fernandina
At first light, even before the scheduled optional early morning wake-up call, First Officer Fernando began to see small pods of common dolphins around the ship. I made my optional call 10 minutes earlier than planned and within minutes sleepy guests popped out on deck. We “oohhhed” and “aahhhed” as the eastern sky blushed pinkish orange and the fiery sun slowly rose. For the next hour we passed hundreds of leaping common dolphins. The sun flashed off their cream colored flanks and they sailed two and three body lengths into the air. We spied a whale spout! They were Bryde’s whales and we saw three of them. Bryde’s are mid-size baleen whales that are often hard to follow with a ship and are found world-wide around the tropics. They reach a maximum of 58 feet and feed on schooling fish. Needless to say, we were delighted with this spectacular, pre-breakfast show!
No sooner had we crossed the equator line with a blast of the ship’s horn, than Captain Carlos came over the PA and married a couple who had surprised us all and gotten engaged the previous day! We cheered and applauded and wished them well. We soon dropped anchor at the base of the dramatic cliffs of Punta Vicente Roca. All our guests boarded our fleet of Zodiacs for a cruise along the shore.
We have had amazing weather this week; it continued for us today. The ocean was so calm that storm petrels pattered along on the surface of the water beside our Zodiacs feeding on miniscule tidbits. Sea turtles surfaced to breathe and the visibility was so good that we could see several of them sleeping on the sandy bottom. Penguins flitted among schools of tiny fish and a cormorant investigated the rope work on the side of one Zodiac. Other flightless cormorants were drying their puny wings on a rocky beach. Blue-footed boobies and noddy terns were perched along the cliffs.
We spotted a flock of birds off shore and motored out to see who was feeding on whom. Through the deep blue we could see a couple 5 foot long dorado fish darting away. Then we spied the large triangular fin of a mola mola, a large pelagic sunfish. We found several molas and our Video Chronicler Jeff slipped over board to attempt to film them. One Zodiac of guests saw a large manta ray!
The fabulous outings continued: next we went snorkeling. We swam among feeding and sleeping sea turtles, and watched zipping penguins, swirling sea lions and schools of hundreds and thousands of fish of all sizes, shapes and colors. I saw a large shark, someone else spotted a couple of sting rays, and everyone had an unforgettable experience.
After a delicious lunch and equally delicious and well earned siesta, we boarded the Zodiacs and disembarked on the rough lava at Punta Espinoza, Fernandina, which is the youngest island of the Galápagos archipelago. With the huge shield volcano that makes up this island as an impressive back drop, we strolled among hundreds of marine iguanas, watched a baby sea lion juggling a dry leaf, observed Sally Lightfoot crabs eating a sea lion placenta, and waded through a tide pool that was the result of the amazingly high tide.
We retuned to the ship as the sun set and we jumped from the bridge deck and cooled off in the mirror calm sea. What a full and fabulous day!
