Hood Island
After a nice and smooth navigation, we arrived in the early hours of the day to Hood Island, the southern most part of the islands in the archipelago. We started our journey on Punta Suarez, which is a magical place full of different colonies of sea birds, sea lions, and colorful marine iguanas. We found along the trail lots of females such as the marine iguanas nesting, and some were fighting over the same nesting site. The island itself is covered with lava boulders and is very difficult for the iguanas to find a good nesting place. After laying their eggs, they will stay for some days close to the nest. During the time the females are guarding their nests, they don’t eat therefore many of them looked very thin.
Along the trail, we arrived to the place where Nazca boobies were nesting. Many immature Nazca boobies were waiting for their parents to arrive and some were fed with semi digested fish. This juvenile in particular showed very little concern about us and came to take a closer look at us.
We had a lot of fun observing blue footed boobies that were very busy looking for a mate or just performing their mating ritual. Many males were doing their “sky pointing” to some flying females. Others were successful and already had a mate while others laid some eggs.
For the afternoon, we went to the north eastern corner of Hood Island on to a wonderful place known as Gardner bay. Our afternoon was full of different options for every one.
Some of our guests went deep water snorkeling around “Tortuga Islet” (turtle rock) well known for the large schools of fish one finds there. Some of our guests wanted to snorkel from the shore in shallow waters and others went to the glass bottom boat. For those who just wanted to enjoy a walk this place was ideal as it has a wonderful long white sandy beach covered with Galápagos sea lions. There were also some guests who went on the kayaks and enjoyed going along the coast of Gardner bay.
We returned aboard for our evening recaps and shared all the wonderful and different experiences of the day.
After a nice and smooth navigation, we arrived in the early hours of the day to Hood Island, the southern most part of the islands in the archipelago. We started our journey on Punta Suarez, which is a magical place full of different colonies of sea birds, sea lions, and colorful marine iguanas. We found along the trail lots of females such as the marine iguanas nesting, and some were fighting over the same nesting site. The island itself is covered with lava boulders and is very difficult for the iguanas to find a good nesting place. After laying their eggs, they will stay for some days close to the nest. During the time the females are guarding their nests, they don’t eat therefore many of them looked very thin.
Along the trail, we arrived to the place where Nazca boobies were nesting. Many immature Nazca boobies were waiting for their parents to arrive and some were fed with semi digested fish. This juvenile in particular showed very little concern about us and came to take a closer look at us.
We had a lot of fun observing blue footed boobies that were very busy looking for a mate or just performing their mating ritual. Many males were doing their “sky pointing” to some flying females. Others were successful and already had a mate while others laid some eggs.
For the afternoon, we went to the north eastern corner of Hood Island on to a wonderful place known as Gardner bay. Our afternoon was full of different options for every one.
Some of our guests went deep water snorkeling around “Tortuga Islet” (turtle rock) well known for the large schools of fish one finds there. Some of our guests wanted to snorkel from the shore in shallow waters and others went to the glass bottom boat. For those who just wanted to enjoy a walk this place was ideal as it has a wonderful long white sandy beach covered with Galápagos sea lions. There were also some guests who went on the kayaks and enjoyed going along the coast of Gardner bay.
We returned aboard for our evening recaps and shared all the wonderful and different experiences of the day.
