Espanola Island
I could never get tire of watching the sea lions that live here on Española Island; they really have a good time here in the Galápagos. Today was an excellent day: in the morning we wandered through large colonies of Nazca and blue-footed boobies, and found ourselves practically stepping over the colourful marine iguanas found both along the shoreline and inland at this time of the year. These unique iguanas, the only sea-going lizards in the world, are right in the middle of their nesting season on this island, and we saw huge numbers of them digging holes in which to deposit the three or four eggs that they lay in the ground. This is quite a task, as on these volcanic islands soil soft enough to dig in is hard to find among the lava rocks.
Our trail led us to a beautiful cliff, where we sat awhile to gather our thoughts and impressions and to observe the seabirds flying about our heads and the spectacular show of a geological formation called the blow hole. This is actually an ancient lava tunnel that ended up in the ocean and has a hole in the top; when the waves hit and fill the tunnel with water the only way for it to escape is through this small hole. This creates a big plume of pulverized sea water that sometimes reaches over 30 feet in height. Spectacular though this morning’s show was, for some of us the real show was that of an unwitting marine iguana that passed too close to the blow hole and was sent flying several yards up into the air – this iguana flew pretty well but had a very bad landing! It could be considered natural selection in action.
Our afternoon was spent swimming, snorkelling and also riding the glass bottom boat, and my personal highlight here was seeing an octopus changing colour in no time at all, it was incredible! Later on we disembarked on the beach to rest or roam a little bit, surrounded by these magnificent creatures, the Galápagos sea lions.
I could never get tire of watching the sea lions that live here on Española Island; they really have a good time here in the Galápagos. Today was an excellent day: in the morning we wandered through large colonies of Nazca and blue-footed boobies, and found ourselves practically stepping over the colourful marine iguanas found both along the shoreline and inland at this time of the year. These unique iguanas, the only sea-going lizards in the world, are right in the middle of their nesting season on this island, and we saw huge numbers of them digging holes in which to deposit the three or four eggs that they lay in the ground. This is quite a task, as on these volcanic islands soil soft enough to dig in is hard to find among the lava rocks.
Our trail led us to a beautiful cliff, where we sat awhile to gather our thoughts and impressions and to observe the seabirds flying about our heads and the spectacular show of a geological formation called the blow hole. This is actually an ancient lava tunnel that ended up in the ocean and has a hole in the top; when the waves hit and fill the tunnel with water the only way for it to escape is through this small hole. This creates a big plume of pulverized sea water that sometimes reaches over 30 feet in height. Spectacular though this morning’s show was, for some of us the real show was that of an unwitting marine iguana that passed too close to the blow hole and was sent flying several yards up into the air – this iguana flew pretty well but had a very bad landing! It could be considered natural selection in action.
Our afternoon was spent swimming, snorkelling and also riding the glass bottom boat, and my personal highlight here was seeing an octopus changing colour in no time at all, it was incredible! Later on we disembarked on the beach to rest or roam a little bit, surrounded by these magnificent creatures, the Galápagos sea lions.
