Bye bye Galapagos!

You are probably now sick of reading about our adventures in the Galapagos, but there was so much to see and it was truely the trip of a lifetime for us, so I had to tell about absolutely everything! Included in this were the wonderful people we were able to spend these 8 days with. We really enjoyed all of the wonderful company that we had and hope we are able to stay in touch with many of them. If you guys are reading, thanks for the company!

On our last day, when we got off the panga for the last time to walk to the bus, there was a cute little sea lion to say goodbye to us. He was blocking the path and didn't mind at all that we were all walking right by him. I thought this was a perfect image with which to leave this wonderful trip.

Sea lions, turtles, birds, fish - what a wonderful world!

Since I had the camera, I wasn't able to get any pictures of the sea lions with myself and the one of Scott with the sea lions is a very unfavorable position, so I'm including some pictures of others from our group to show how close these lovely creatures would get.

In one of the locations we snorkled (on the West Coast), there were many feeding marine iguanas on the bottom of the floor as well. This was in the same location where we saw them all laying out and spitting at us (desalinating) at other times of the day. It was very cool to see them underwater as well.

I was also fortunate enough to see birds diving under the water! This is the flightless cormorant that you saw earlier in the video. They would just dive down with their whole bodies under the water for hunting.

On one underwater outing, Scott came neck to neck with the big daddy - the huge sea lion that ruled the beach where we were snorking. We weren't supposed to get close to him because he is guarding the beach and all of the other sea lions, but he came right up close to Scott. We could hear him barking all day from the water and land and it wasn't a friendly bark that made you think - let's play!

Again, I'm not sure what this fish it, but it was so colorful. Among other fish that we saw but didn't get good photos of...
My favorite was the Giant Damselfish. We saw these all over and they had a light blue color with a dark blue outline. We also saw these in either Costa Rica or Panama. They are difficult to photo because they quickly swim under the coral. We also saw Yellowtail Scads, Black Striped Salemas, Camotillo (had huge bottom lips), Panamic Graylsays, Flag Cabrillas, Creole fish, Blue-chin Parrotfish, Cardinal fish, Porcupine fish, Yellow Puffers, Reef cornet (very long and skinny), Tunas, and many more!

To end with the underwater adventure, here's another great turtle (honu for Katie!).

More underwater adventures

Another bright and beautiful fish that we saw repeatedly was this King Angelfish. You could spot them from far away from their bright colors.

We saw a few sharks around, but one day I was a bit ahead of the pack and suddenly was swimming right next to this very large shark. This picture doesn't do it justice at all, but I have to say, I was a bit scared. As soon as I snapped the picture, I started swimming backwards as fast as possible. This is a white tipped reef shark.

This next one is one of Scott's favorite fish. I called it the army fish because of its pattern, but its real name is the Hieroglyphic Hawkfish. We only saw a couple of these because they blend in so well.

I'm honestly not sure what this next one is, but we got a pretty good shot, so I wanted to include it. Anyone else know?


Our favorite way to see our sea lion friends was underwater because here they were not shy at all. They were so sweet! They would come right up to us - even be nose to nose with me and start making those same playful kissing movements. At first, I thought they wanted to bite me and was a bit afraid, but then I realized they were justu playing and really liked to be around us. They followed us all over!

Underwater in the Galapagos

Really the best part of the Galapagos was when we went snorkeling, which was just about every day. Some days, even twice! The water was really cold because of the time of year, so I had to wear a wetsuit, but Scott was able to tough it out. The water is really warm there in our winter - it all just depends on which currents are there.

We saw many schools of fish there, including these Yellowtailed Surgeonfish. I am going on memory and some notes for these fish and the pictures don´t even begin to show the color that we could see, so hopefully I am correct on the names. :D

These guys have very large foreheads and we saw them in most of the places we went snorkeling. They are much larger than most of the fish and seem to travel around alone. I believe they are called the Streamer Hogfish.


This was another large school of fish and after that, a great big fish! Oh wait, that's just Scott.

We didn't see turtles for the first few days, but once we saw them, we just kept seeing them. You could get so close and they didn't seem to mind at all.


Some of the coral in places was absolutely beautiful with tons of colors. Here is just one example. We also saw many species of starfish, but this is just one example - the yellow one at the bottom. Okay, Alex... you didn't want to comment on birds - not your thing. But I know this is. Help me with all of the details I'm missing!

Bartolome Island

The last island we visited was Bartolome and perhaps one of the most photographed. I finally got a picture of the lava lizard with the red head. It fits the name!

Our guide Monica was sitting on the beach near to me and a sea lion came right up to her and tried to lay on her. Too cute!




Walking up to the higher spot on this island, it looked almost like we were walking on the moon. There were all sorts of volcanic rock here. Once we reached the top, the views were absolutely incredible. Not much else needs to be said - only seen.

Our tour guide Monica has a brother who also works as a tour guide, but on another boat. Interestingly enough, he came up to this peak with his group at the same time we were there! We all wanted him to take a group picture of us, so we loaded him and one of his group up with about 10 cameras. He was very nice to take it for all of us.

James Island

Our next stop was Puerto Egas on James Island. When we first arrived, we saw our favorite friends and one of them was perched on a comfy spot. I perched right up next to him and he proceeded to make friendly noises and kissing movements in my direction - to cute!

We found yet another type of bird on this island called the oyster catcher. We stopped and watched them while looking at the beautiful scenery and tide pools.

We met another friend who is very similar to the sea lion, but this is the fur seal. You can tell the difference because they have much thicker necks. They also have different ´feet´ and cannot walk as easily as the sea lions. Their fur looks much softer, but it was difficult to tell because they are also much more shy and wouldn't let us get close.



Over by the fur seals, there was beautifully formed land and we could see sea turtles swimming around in the water below. Beautiful island!

On the Beluga crossing the Equator

Here you can see a couple of the decks on the boat. I am resting on the sun deck in the first picture and some of the guys are enjoying the view out the front of the boat.




We had an afternoon sailing to relax on the boat and to have a celebration with the captain and other passengers while crossing the equator. You can see the screen where we counted down the degrees until we were right on the equator. We had snacks and drinks to celebrate. We crossed it again later that night, but most of us were sleeping that time.

And then finally, a beautiful sunset to watch.

Ferdandina Island

One of my favorite places was Punta Espinosa on Fernandina Island. You cannot even imagine the number of sea iguanas that are here. They go into the water to feed in the morning and then come out to the lava rock to warm up and desalinate. This video can hopefully show what an awesome display this is. There are hundreds of these iguanas just sitting there all over each other and every few seconds, you would hear another one 'spitting'. You had to be careful not to stand right in front of them, but they would let you if you wanted. In the Galapagos are the only marine iguanas on earth. The thing that makes these guys special is this ability to desalinate after being in the sea.




One of the other amazing creatures we were able to watch here was the flightless cormorant. This bird has over time by evolution gotten rid of the ability to fly. You can see the tiny wings here that they still dry out, but not to use them for flying. The first ones we saw were a couple. We saw the male swim into the ocean, dive under and come back up with nest material for his female. He walked up to her, placed it down and she looked at it and made some noises. He then went back intot he water to get another piece for the nest. I guess this one made her happy, because she started making more noises and sort of moved into a stance. He mounted her and we saw them mating - it was amazing, even though it only lasted about 3 seconds! After that, they both made noises and just stood there.

We happened upon another couple who were further along in their mating cycle. The mother was sitting on the nest with 3 eggs in it, 2 of which had hatched. The male still brought her pieces for the nest (they use their excrements along with this sea weed to make the nests). While we watched her from only feet away, we saw the baby bird moving his head up and crying for quite a while and then she put his mouth in hers and fed him. It was so incredible to watch! These are the types of things that you would only expect to see up close on the Discovery Channel, but here we were! We didn't catch a video of the mating or feeding, but Scott got a good one of the male bringing next material to the mother.



And of course our favorite old friend, who is also desalinating sortof here. He picks up a bunch in his mouth and keeps the food, but gets rid of the water like this.