We had spent a busy day on Santa Cruz Island visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station, exploring Puerto Ayora, then heading to Rancho el Manzanillo in the highlands to see wild tortoises.
We ate dinner while anchored in Academy Bay off of Puerto Ayora. As usual we had our choice of seafood, meat or vegetarian. I didn't usually take pictures of the meals, all of which were fantastic, but I was particularly impressed by the size of the shrimp in what was billed as shrimp scampi.
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| Shrimp scampi |
I fix shrimp scampi at home, but it doesn't look anything like this. Every time I looked at these shrimp, I kept thinking of Paul Hogan in one of the 1980's commercials for Australia tourism saying in his Australian accent, "I'll slip another shrimp on the barbie for you."
We weighed anchor about 10:30 pm and headed almost due south. Our destination for today was Floreana Island, the southern most island in the archipelago.
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| Combined gps tracks for the entire trip. Floreana Island is the southern most island. The track for today is the aqua colored track, |
Onslow Islet. First up after breakfast was a panga exploration of the shoreline in and around Onslow Islet, a tiny island off the northern coast of Floreana Island.
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| Northern shore of Floreana Island with the aqua gps track of today's adventures, Onslow Islet, Post Office Bay, and Champion Islet. |
It soon became obvious that we were winding our way through an obstacle course of lava outcroppings. A variety of birds and animals were taking advantage of these various rocks jutting above the water to catch some early morning sun. I think we were four pangas spaced closely together since this was a very small space. We wove in, out, and around the lava outcroppings.
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| Blue-footed boobies and a camouflaged marine iguana on the lava rocks next to Onslow Islet |
Despite this big influx of people, the various critters seemed not to be concerned and totally ignored us.
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| Sea lion and some blue-footed boobies |
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| This sea lion has an itch |
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| Yet another blue-footed booby |
We saw multiple blue-footed boobies that were happy to pose for us. And to think that before we arrived in Galapagos I was afraid I would not see any at all.
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| Pelican |
We made our way into a little cove formed by the shape of the islet. Just like the smaller outcroppings we had been circling, the island was made up of blocks of lava, I am not sure, but presume this is more pillow lava like we saw at North Seymour Island, hunks or pillows of rock formed when magma is extruded underwater.
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| Galapagos prickly pear sitting at the very edge of the island |
On shore there were lots of Galapagos prickly pear cacti. I am not sure what prickly pear subspecies it is, but it is clearly one of the ones with higher branches. From a distance they almost look like normal trees. Their trunks (if that is the correct term) seem massive. I don't know if it is unique to this subspecies, but one of the guides made the point that it is unusual to have cactus so close to water.
It was about this time when everyone started to notice several sizeable groups of penguins in the water.
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| Multiple penguins in the water just below the surface, one of several such groups that appeared here all at once. |
Some of the penguins came right up to the pangas.
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| A penguin right next to us |
I was genuinely surprised to see them, because I thought they all lived in the cooler waters to the west of Fernandina. According to Wikipedia most of them do live there, but a small population is known to live on the north and west coast of Floreana, i.e. where we are today.
Moving along, we could see a sandy beach on the small peninsula of Floreana Island that juts out towards Onslow Islet.
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| Beach with some sea lions at the water's edge. The dark areas in the water are more lava rock just below the surface. The water is low enough that some are sticking out above the water on the left. I am not sure, but I think the tide was out. This beach may not exist at higher tides. |
We were weaving around the outcroppings, but the aerial picture below shows we were only seeing a tiny fraction of the rock. The water is so clear the lava formations below the water are readily visible.
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| Aerial photo of location of morning panga ride near Onslow Islet showing lots and lots of lava rock below the water as well as above. Onslow Islet is the dumbbell shaped island near the top. The small peninsula at the lower right is part of Floreana Island. |
Just offshore of the beach was a small cluster of mangroves.
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| Mangrove trees |
As we got closer and circled around, we could see a few orange Sally Lightfoot Crabs in among the roots. Although we couldn't get a good picture, a sea lion had crawled up into the branches (probably at high tide) and appeared sound asleep in his secure little hiding spot.
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| A Sally Lightfoot Crab at the base of the mangroves |
There was even a lava heron down under the trees intently waiting for a fish to go by.
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| Lava heron under the mangroves. Check out those mangrove roots! |
Post Office Bay. We had seen a surprisingly wide range of interesting things on this adventure, but the day was young and we were just getting started. Once past the mangroves, we proceeded further southwest along the coast and into world famous Post Office Bay. There we did a wet landing onto the green sandy beach That is the subject of the next post.
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