All right, they were hammerhead sharks. Nothing to worry about!
Ecuador Trip: Day 17
Galapagos Cruise: Day 12
Finally, my right eye isn’t feeling so dry from my touch-up laser eye surgery in mid-January that I can return to my Galapagos travel posts before, you know, an entire year passes since the trip.
Repeat after me: Cindy is not a procrastinator; her eyes just suck.
I last left our Galapagos holiday with a ditty about Pitt Point and Witch Hill. On the morning of Day 12 of our cruise, we had the opportunity to visit the Breeding Center “Galapaguera” Cerro Colorado on San Cristobal Island. This was a good visit, but also a bit of a sad one, because four members of our party were leaving and four new victims were coming on board. While we were always happy to have new victims, we had come to quite enjoy the company of the four that left and we look forward to possibly seeing the couple who went by the fake names of “Dick and Jane” sometime again in our lives (“Dick” and “Jane”, if you’re reading this, don’t you think it’s time you revealed your real identities?).
San Cristobal was easily the most populated harbor we visited. When we were on the back side of Isabela Island during Week 1, an entire day would pass without us seeing another boat. Not so with San Cristobal. Here’s a view looking back at the harbor after we had disembarked for our visit to see the Giant Tortoises:
If you look in the middle of the picture up above, waaaaaaaaay at the back, sitting on the horizon, I believe that’s our catamaran, The Cormorant. Or maybe it’s someone else’s catamaran, but I think it was ours. By the way, while we were docked in the harbor, apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie visited the Galapagos and got engaged. Please don’t rely on me for this late-breaking news. I’m sure it was reported elsewhere in the universe. They haven’t invited me to the wedding, though, which I think is rather gauche, considering I was practically at their sides when the engagement occurred. But whatever.
Now, being the clever photographer that I am, I turned around and captured a shot of San Cristobal itself. Isn’t it lovely?
At a later point during our cruise, we learned that our guide, Harry Jimenez, along with his wife, owns and runs a boutique hotel on San Cristobal called the Eco-Lodge. So if you’re looking to stay on San Cristobal during an island-hopping excursion, rather than being on a cruise for 1 or 2 weeks, check out Harry’s hotel and the great reviews it’s getting on Trip Advisor. He also runs 1-, 2- and 3-day trips/excursions with his boat, the Blue Attraction, from the hotel. Harry’s always up to something and always expanding his business. You can check out what he’s offering for excursions right now and bookmark his site for future use. I would totally recommend Harry as a guide. And he didn’t pay me to say that. No, “Dick and Jane” did. (Okay, I did it for free. I’m nice like that).
To give you an idea of the size of the Giant Tortoises at the Breeding Center on San Cristobal, here is one beside an anonymous gentleman who paid me to put his picture on the Internet. I won’t say how he paid me, because that’s just rude. (Okay, he bought me some tequila). (Beer won’t work in these cases):
Remember, you’re not supposed to touch the animals in the Galapagos. And if they try to touch you (as in they start to chase you, and believe me these guys can motor when they want to), then you’re supposed to get away, but don’t run too fast, instead do a sort of slo-mo rapid gait, because you don’t want to alarm them. In other words, pretend you’re a cartoon character with your legs whipping beneath you but you’re not really going that far, and you’ll be fine.
After our visit and after saying goodbye to “Dick and Jane,” we headed back to the Cormorant. We passed some sea lions along the way. This fellow below I’m pretty sure is one of those animatronic thingies they use at Disneyland. Because, while I thought this photo (featuring My Liege) was fun and unique, I have since discovered dozens of similar photos on the web. So either this sea lion wasn’t real (and was not harmed during the taking of this photo), or he comes from a very large family and they take turns lounging on the bench:
En route (via the pangas) back to The Cormorant, we encountered several of this fellow’s relatives, waiting their turn to swim in and sun on the bench. But in the meantime…
Our afternoon consisted of a fantastic snorkeling day at Kicker Rock. The water wasn’t super clear, but we did see Rays and Hammerhead sharks and several Tortuga (sea turtles), which I adore. Here is a view of Kicker Rock where we didn’t snorkel (just to give you perspective):
The Cormorant took us alllllll around Kicker Rock, and I got several beautiful shots. See the the pointy bit sticking up on the right? There’s a passage between that sticky-up rock and the rest of the island, and we snorkeled around the entire sticky-up rock. Here’s a photo from later in the evening that shows the splitting of the island. The pointy rock is now on the left:
Look at that happy guy! Because he’s married to me!
Kicker Rock is much taller than it appears in this photo. The picture at this Wikipedia link offers a better persective, but doesn’t feature My Liege.
By the way, if you visit that Wikipedia page and the one about San Cristobal Island, you’ll discover that San Cristobal is the easternmost island in the Galapagos, also goes by the name Chatham, and is one of the oldest islands, geologically speaking, in the Galapagos. There’s an airport on San Cristobal, which is how “Dick and Jane” managed to escape before we found out they were really Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 in disguise, and which is how our new victims, who joined us for the afternoon of snorkeling, came to be on-board.
Next stop: Espanola Island, which is truly a marvel, with all the lovely Waved Albatrosses that we were incredibly lucky to see. Because, you see, they only return to Espanola once a year, and we just happened to be there (read that as I was incredibly brilliant to ensure we were there) when they did.
