February 1st, 2006

NORTH SEYMORE
This morning was a relatively late start – 7:00 breakfast – and then a walk on the island. There were, of course, sea lions at the landing, cute as ever! From there we walked around the island for about an hour and a half, mostly looking at the birds. Blue footed Boobies were dancing and whistling/honking and then ignoring each other. And lots and lots of Frigate Birds. It is in the midst of the 400 days of mating season, and then there will be two years off. As a result, there were many nests with fluffy chicks and quite a few white-headed juveniles. There were also showy males. When they were posing, their red ballooned chests could be seen from a great distance. When they weren’t showing off, they simply had red waddles of the uninflated skin. The iguanas on this island are decendants of ones that were saved from U.S. bomb testing on Baltra.

BALTRA
After a quick sail, we arrived in Baltra to send off the 5 people who were leaving and wait for the new passengers. In the mean time, Janine, Rob, Erica, and I asked to go to shore to buy bear because, as Rob put it yesterday “there’s an emergency on the boat – we’re out of beer!” We ended up having to stay on the island until 12:00, which meant sitting on the beach and getting a little sunburned. But the water was a great temperature.

BACAS
This afternoon, after we got five new passengers, we did a wet landing on Bacas to “look for flamingos.” Turned out there were 2 on the island – in separate ponds. But there were loads of turtles’ nests. Unfortunately, I knew a bit more about sea turtle’s nesting and navigation than John did, but he got most of it right and nothing blatantly wrong, just missed a few things. However, it was neat to see the nest immediately after seeing two pairs of mating turtle on the sail to Bacas. After that there was time on the beach. We all tried snorkeling, but mostly only briefly, as the water was quite cloudy. But Erica, Janine, and I just swam for a bit since the water was the warmest it’s been yet. Back on the boat we sailed for a rocky 3 hours before dinner, then chatted with the new passengers for a bit before most people headed to an early bed.