It's that time of year again! It wasn't so noticeable last year, but this week, we've observed the copulation of green sea turtles in all of the seas of Galapagos. Today, we watched as two couples rolled around in the surf on Bartlomé Island. Always hanging around the amorous couple are one or two voyeurs, hoping to catch a piece of the action and take over the lucky male. They usually do take over, and the female may end up mating with a handful of males over a period of eight hours. Being on the bottom for the whole of this activity can make breathing, which increases rapidly during this time, rather difficult. Here, we can see the female catching one of her rare breaths.
At the end of her marathon, the female will need to come on shore and stay in the surf for several hours, gulping mouthfuls of air and getting her heartbeat back down to a reasonable rate. Later she'll lay clutches of up to a hundred ping-pong ball eggs, in three or four visits to shore in the season. The paternal genes of the embryos within will come from a number of sources, adding variety to the clutch that will hatch around the month of May. Research has shown that a female is capable of storing sperm for up to five years.
The rest of our day was highlighted by excellent visibility during both of the snorkel outings at Bartolomé and Santiago. We even saw sharks, penguins and a large octopus from the glass-bottom boat. Our final walk of the trip at Puerto Egas lured us, once again, to the sealion pups, who were playful and curious. And, in the final glorious hours of red sunlight, Kodak and Fuji stocks increased, as the last rolls of film were turned into masterpieces.
