July 4
We were very relieved to find two families with young kids on our bus this morning. This was a great sign. First we had an hour bus ride through Santa Cruz Island (from the main town at the south to the main port at the north) to the ferry dock. There we took a zodiac dingy out to our yacht, our home for the day.
It took an hour and 20 minutes to get to South Plaza Island. We saw a small group of spotted rays on the way as well as some playful sea wolves. Our guide Martime adamantly explained that the species here are NOT called sea lions, but sea wolves. They evolved similarly but without any recent relation. Sea wolves are unique to the Galápagos.
South Plaza Island is not very big, but was covered with interesting and colourful flora and fauna. When we disembarked, we saw a colony of female sea wolves lying in the sun, or splashing and playing with each other. We even saw one eat a crab. They were very cute. They were not frightened by us, in fact, they didn’t seem to pay any attention to us at all. As we left, we had to clap loudly to wake up two sleeping females so we could pass them and get into the dingy.
On the island we encountered large land iguanas lounging under Punta Cactii, small lava lizards scurrying across the rocks, marine iguanas on rocks near the water, and a multitude of interesting birds swooping around. The highlight was seeing our first Blue Footed Boobies.
The island is covered with igneous rock with the only vegetation being Punta cactii and interesting red succulent plants. We felt as if we were in an old Star Trek episode on some foreign planet, without the angry alien tossing a (styrofoam) boulder.
After encircling South Plaza Island, we got back on the boat for a fresh tuna lunch en route to our snorkelling destination. We are a bit spoiled having done most of our snorkelling in the Red Sea, but two exciting things of note happened on our snorkelling trip. First, I somehow dropped Teva’s underwater camera while trying to assist him with his mask. This was his new camera we bought him for his birthday last week. The amazing thing was that because it is bright blue, Aubrey spotted it 10 minutes later and Zev excitedly and capably dived the 15ft down to retrieve it. Birthday crisis averted. Teva deserves a lot of credit: he did not panic or get upset, but rather remained patient and calm the whole time it was missing.
The second interesting thing happened to Erez. He was snorkelling along, in the middle of a school of small fish close to the rocky cliff and looking down, when a huge brown pelican swooped down to get a snack, mere centimetres from Erez’s head. The pelican’s foot hit Erez’s hand as it entered the water and completely surprised Erez, who surfaced to figure what had just happened! Aubrey was about ten feet away, felt the commotion,and saw the pelican leave the water.
The boys enjoyed climbing all over the boat as we travelled back to the northern port. We then took the dingy and then the same bus back to the south.
We found a homemade birthday cake for Teva on our kitchen table! We sang and sampled before bed. Teva certainly ended the day full of fulfilled birthday wishes and very tired
We wandered through town and saw many sharks, a playful sea wolf, and a sea turtle at the water’s edge. We ate an authentic Ecuadorian meal (six different versions) with rice and sauces.
Tomorrow, Charles Darwin Station and Tortuga Bay.