If you’re keeping up, Day 8 of our Ecuador trip is really Day 3 of the Galapagos cruise. Three and eight are two of my favorite numbers. So it makes a wonderful kind of sense that I would have my first Booby sighting on Day 8/3 (I know, the days are getting confusing, but I must continue how I have begun). (What, you don’t really expect me to go back and re-title all my previous Galapagos posts, do you? That would be disrespectful to Quito). (For shame!)
For those who think I’m talking about anything other than birds, for shame. I’m speaking of the Blue-Footed Booby, of course!. Picture forthcoming! But first…(I’m a Capricorn, I have to go in order).
On Day 3 of the cruise, we remained on Isabela Island. Our first stop was Moreno Point, which is located southwest of Elizabeth Bay. We had what is called a Dry Landing.
In the Galapagos, there are basically two types of landings—dry and wet. A dry landing means you are unlikely to get your feet wet, unless you fall off the panga before the landing. So usually you would wear hiking runners or light hiking boots, or hiking sandals. A wet landing means your feet WILL get wet. In this case, you will be advised to wear hiking sandals that like the water, water shoes, or even flip-flops, depending on how dexterous you are and where exactly you are landing.
Moreno Point is beautiful. We hiked on lava and saw sea turtles and pink flamingos in small lagoons. Words can not do Moreno Point justice, so I’ll tell the story with pictures.
I was on the panga in the background. That’s how I was able to take this picture. Because I had already landed, clever soul that I am.
The crew on the Cormorant is excellent about helping people on and off the pangas. At first, with eight people crammed into one panga, and then you add on the panga driver and then maybe also the guide, if he happened to be in your boat, we had 8-10 people on one panga. The first few panga rides, I hung on to my husband and/or the hand grips for dear life. By the end of the two weeks, I was extremely comfortable on the pangas.
Travel Tip! Walking on lava is hot work. It also takes some getting used to for those of us who don’t have the greatest balance. When your guide tells you to wear lots of sunblock and bring a lot of water to drink (at least one bottle per person), make sure you do just that. Plus, don’t be like me and wear a baseball cap during your Galapagos cruise. My neck got burned even though I put sunblock on it. Within a couple of days, I was saving the ball cap to contain the Mysterious Black Lichen while snorkeling and then wearing my Panama hat (bought in Otalavo…I think…or maybe Quito) for our land excursions. The Panama hat offers far greater protection than a silly little baseball cap. I don’t care how cute you look in the cap! Trust me, you look cuter in the Panama hat.
Seriously, wear something that protects the back of your neck.
Regarding the water bottles, when you board the catamaran you are given a water bottle each and are expected to refill it from a cooler in the dining room. At the end of the week, we got new water bottles. This is an ecological manoeuvre so each passenger isn’t consuming 5 plastic bottles per day. Some people like to bring their own water bottles, but we didn’t.
So you walk along the lava and explore all sorts of stuff. One of our first sightings was…
Isn’t it cute? Honestly, I adore the Galapagos sea turtles. I think I almost like snorkeling with sea turtles better than I do sea lions, and sea lions are a blast to snorkel amongst, so that’s saying something.
There’s just something about the sea turtle… They’re so graceful, and they don’t give a rip that you’re around. Need I say it again? I adore them.
An example of the lava landscape:
I loved the huge cracks in the landscape, even though I was convinced I would fall into one. I found this hike fairly difficult, because I really had to watch my step and my husband was always taking my hand and helping me over the most dangerous parts. On later hikes, I made use of the walking sticks that the boat provides. If you want one, though, you have to take it into the panga with you. And once you take it with you, you have it for the entire hike. After a couple of hikes with a walking stick, I decided they got in the way of my cameras. Plus, I was becoming more adept at walking on lava. Eventually, I could hopscotch right along! (Sort of).
After ooohing and ahhing over the flamingos, we returned back over the lava, into the pangas, and onto the boat again. It was time for our first snorkel. For me, it was my first time snorkeling ever. Our guide, Harry, was super comfortable in the water (he became a Dive Master at something like 20) and was great to snorkel with. If someone was really freaked out, he’d snorkel with them. However, all other three members of the Pack of Four had snorkeled several times in their lives, so I just held on to my husband’s hand for the first 2 or 3 snorkels until I got the hang of it.
SIL trying to freaking me out before my first snorkel:
We are wearing the wet suits provided by the Cormorant (hey, look, you can see the walking sticks in the basket by the fire extinguisher). (Look, up top you can also see the life jackets we would wear aboard the pangas).
We are standing in an area known as the Muster Station. Behind me, you can see what looks like a little wooden structure. This is one of two units for holding any pairs of shoes or sandals you intend to wear off the boat. You can not wear a pair of shoes or sandals inside the boat once you have worn them OFF the boat. This is so you don’t traipse stuff from the Islands back onto the boat. So if you don’t like going barefeet inside the boat all day, bring another pair of shoes or sandals.
The Cormorant supplies wet suits, flippers, masks and snorkels, and they are all in great shape. However, you can bring your own if you wish. Once you have chosen a set of flippers, mask, snorkel and wet suit, it is placed in a mesh duffel that carries your room number on it. You have the same set of snorkel gear your entire time on the boat.
Travel Tip! If you choose to bring along your own snorkel mask, test it out underwater BEFORE packing it in bubble wrap and flying it all the way to Ecuador. Because if you think you can fix the leaks in your mask on the boat, buddy, you are soooooooo wrrrrrrrrrong.
Travel Tip! If you don’t have an underwater camera, seriously consider investing in one for the cruise. I didn’t have one, but BIL did. So all the underwater photos I will show you from now on are photo credit: BIL.
Note: BIL didn’t actually take all the underwater photos on our cruise. This is where a guide like Harry comes in very handy. He would take the camera of anyone who wished and dive down and snap the most amazing pictures for us. Like this seahorse:
Isn’t that amazing?
I must confess, I could barely make out the seahorse through my mask, which was constantly fogging up. This being my first snorkel, I wasn’t yet an expert at not floundering in the water. I was forever getting sea water into my eyes and then the mask would fog up. Eventually, the other passengers took pity on me and taught me a thing or two. I did see parts of the seahorse, but nothing like the detail in the picture above. For that, I would have needed to dive underwater, and no matter how much I came to love snorkeling, I never once had the urge to hold my breath and dive underwater. I know myself. I would have breathed at the wrong moment and inhaled two lungs of sea water.
After our snorkel, we moved to Elizabeth Bay, where we enjoyed a panga ride in a mangrove forest, which is super cool and unique to the Galapagos. We did another panga ride the following day, and that is where I took most of my pictures. But, on the Elizabeth Bay panga ride, we glimpsed our first Blue-Footed Boobies! We did not see them again for a few days. At first I feared I would never see them again. Little did we know that we were in for Booby heaven before the first week was over. But, for now…my first boobies!
See the cute blue feet? We won’t speak of why the rock is white, however. I am sure you can draw your own conclusions. Except, hmmm, the Booby on the left looks like it has feet the same color as the rock. This must mean that what is on the rock is also on the Booby’s feet, because you can see the blue legs. Young Boobies…deposit on their feet. I can no longer remember why. To keep them cool? As camouflage for predators that love blue feet? So people won’t take their pictures?
Give me an educated guess! (Or uneducated, as the case may be).
The problem is, this Booby doesn’t look like a youngster. So, my keen powers of observation, and memory, and going back and studying the larger JPEG of this picture tell me that…the Booby’s blue feet are hidden by a little dip in the rock!
You can still go ahead and guess why baby Boobies poop on their feet. Super creative guesses might even inspire me to ask one of the Pack of Four for the answer.