Espanola Island
One never knows what to expect in the Galápagos Islands. Today we landed on Espanola sure of finding sea lions, curious mockingbirds and the most colorful marine iguanas. But the island had reserved for us much more than that! The iguanas were swimming and diving, because we were lucky enough to be there during low tide, the precise time when iguanas feed on algae.
One of our guests asked yesterday if we still had a chance to find albatrosses. We were very sorry to say that by the end of December they leave Espanola to go far at sea, hundreds of miles away from the Galápagos. By December the chicks can fly, the waters are warm, and albatrosses move to the open sea to feed, until conditions are fine again to come back to Espanola and nest. But to our surprise again, we found a couple of adult albatrosses flying around, letting us be delighted and amazed by their huge wingspan and their ability to glide forever. We also found the most beautiful American oystercatcher chick, only a few days old. We had seen the nest for several weeks, we had seen the parents incubating the egg, and today, there was a baby enjoying its first days of sunlight.
Then we saw a big splash in the water. We looked with binoculars and discovered that it was a pod of more than a hundred bottle-nose dolphins. We embarked in the Zodiacs and off we went to enjoy the company of acrobatic and playful marine mammals that bow rode the pangas for a long while.
In the afternoon we enjoyed swimming, snorkeling, glass bottom boating and kayaking around the different rocks and islets of Gardner bay. The sky turned red, just like the beak of the American Oystercatcher, as a promise of an amazing evening in the company of our new friends on board Polaris, and as the assurance of a day tomorrow full of surprising adventures.
One never knows what to expect in the Galápagos Islands. Today we landed on Espanola sure of finding sea lions, curious mockingbirds and the most colorful marine iguanas. But the island had reserved for us much more than that! The iguanas were swimming and diving, because we were lucky enough to be there during low tide, the precise time when iguanas feed on algae.
One of our guests asked yesterday if we still had a chance to find albatrosses. We were very sorry to say that by the end of December they leave Espanola to go far at sea, hundreds of miles away from the Galápagos. By December the chicks can fly, the waters are warm, and albatrosses move to the open sea to feed, until conditions are fine again to come back to Espanola and nest. But to our surprise again, we found a couple of adult albatrosses flying around, letting us be delighted and amazed by their huge wingspan and their ability to glide forever. We also found the most beautiful American oystercatcher chick, only a few days old. We had seen the nest for several weeks, we had seen the parents incubating the egg, and today, there was a baby enjoying its first days of sunlight.
Then we saw a big splash in the water. We looked with binoculars and discovered that it was a pod of more than a hundred bottle-nose dolphins. We embarked in the Zodiacs and off we went to enjoy the company of acrobatic and playful marine mammals that bow rode the pangas for a long while.
In the afternoon we enjoyed swimming, snorkeling, glass bottom boating and kayaking around the different rocks and islets of Gardner bay. The sky turned red, just like the beak of the American Oystercatcher, as a promise of an amazing evening in the company of our new friends on board Polaris, and as the assurance of a day tomorrow full of surprising adventures.
