Santiago and Rabida Islands
Puerto Egas Beach
Our first excursion of the trip was a long walk with an optional swim/snorkel. We went to breakfast at the Seaside Restaurant with usual fare of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, although Janie did see an omelette and waffle station she would take advantage of later in the week. We got our assigned tender number and accompanied Manuel to our first wet landing at Puerto Egas, a sheltered landing site at the southern end of James Bay on the northwestern coast of Santiago. We had chosen the longer excursion from Egas Port to the "Salt Mine Volcano". This hike was just under two miles and would take usto the rim of a salt mine crater. This "mine" is actually a small volcanic cone that is filled with a salt water lagoon that dries up in the dry season. At several points in the 20th century individuals or companies attempted to mine salt from it, but without commercial success. The name of the landing site comes from the owner of the last company to try salt mining there, Hector Egas.
The landing was not bad, although the water was cold and there was no good place to change out of our water shoes into our hiking shoes. We saw our first real wildlife of the trip, a large Galapagos Sea Lion just hanging out on the beach, oblivious to all of us. As the next tender arrived, another sea lion came right up to it and was nudging at the pontoon.
Long Walk
We left our sea lion friend alone and began our hike. At first it was an exercise in bird watching and identification of local plant life. We saw a Galapagos Hawk perched high in a tree and Manuel explained the Palo Santo (Holy Stick) trees we saw along the path. These trees turn green around Christmas time and are used as incense as well as insect repellent by Ecuadorians. We saw our first small bird, the Galapagos flycatcher, which is not one of the Darwin finches, and a Galapagos dove.
Finally we came across some non-avian wildlife as a land iguana was sitting off to the side of the trail, just minding its business amongst some prickly pear cactus trees. Then it was back to birds, with the sighting of a smooth-billed ani, which was okay.
As we reached the rocks above the shore, we ran into the second kind of sea lion on the islands, the fur seal, which is not a seal at all, but a sea lion. We also saw a collection of Sally Lightfoot crabs, rumored to have been named after a Caribbean dancer for the way they can move in any direction using their 12 legs. Our first question was whether they were delicious and Manuel said there was not a lot of meat on them but if you had enough, locals used to make a great stew using them. We caught a glimpse of a green sea turtle swimming in the grotto as we walked on. Manuel showed us a shedded skin from a Sally Lightfoot crab and let us pose with it on our heads. Then we found ourselves surrounded by land iguanas, so much so that Manuel had to tell us to be careful to avoid stepping on them as they blended in with the walking path.
We saw our first small brown finch as we continued the hike along with a male yellow warbler and a sanderling.
Snorkeling
Eventually we arrived back at the beach where Janie was going to try her hand at snorkeling. She changed into her wetsuit and was psyching herself up for the cold water when we were interrupted by a sea lion turf war. A young male sea lion had ventured onto the beach and caught the attention of the beach master who was off in the water. The master began honking loudly and came up out of the water, causing the younger male to beat a hasty retreat right past where we were standing. A few more honks from the master and the other sea lion headed back down the beach.
Janie attempted snorkeling for awhile while J. R. watched from the shore, The naturalists were trying to fill a tender so he headed back to the ship just as Janie gave up. She said the water was really cold and murky and she could not see anything. Others echoed that sentiment when we discussed it later in the day.
Rabida Island
Lunch was served in the Seaside Restaurant with an Ecuadorian menu. We skipped the enrichment presentation on bird identification in favor of relaxing in our room with a glass of champagne before our afternoon excursion.
We boarded the tender at 3:45 for a wet landing at Rabida Island with a long walk planned. Janie decided to skip snorkeling this afternoon. She learned the afternoon snorkel would have been better as it was warmer and the water was clearer along the reef.
Rabida Island is a small, steeply-sloped island with red-sand shores and has one of the highest concentrations of volcanic features in the Galápagos. The iron-rich lava deposits give the sands their rich red color. We walked along the red sand beach to a lake surrounded by mangroves and saltbush where we were able to see the Galapagos flamingos. The flamingo population had dwindled significantly after the last El Nino but our naturalist was happy to see that the numbers were not increasing again. We continued our long hike, seeing more boobies and small iguanas.
Night on the Flora
Upon return to the ship, we changed and went down to the Discovery Lounge for the wine and cheese gathering. We each had a glass of wine and they provided us a nice cheese plate to snack on during the "Life at Sea" Q&A with Lauren, the hotel director, the executive chef, and Manuel, the senior naturalist. Then came the nightly excursion briefing and signup for the next day's excursions. We had dinner in the Seaside Restaurant and were seated next to a couple from Tennessee who had traveled all over the world. We spent most of dinner talking about places we had each visited and discussing where we wanted to go next. After dinner, we went up to deck 8 to look at the stars. We ran into Rusty and Sandy and then were joined by the Captain himself who explained some of the stars in the Southern sky, which were unique to us.
