Our first night aboard was a bit of a struggle. A noisy engine and a rock and roll cruise en-route to Espanola made it tough. Thanks to Jenn we brought AND used earplugs; as for the rocking, it just took a few hours to get use to it. No seasickness and by midnight or so we were asleep.
Awoke at 7 (even Bonnie), breakfast and then on to the island to be greeted by colonies of sea lions and iguanas. Learned plenty about them from Emillio, our guide, but just watching them move around and totally ignore us was mesmerizing As we set out on our hike the watchword was "don't step on the iguana". The smaller land ones were sometimes hard to see and the larger marine ones just seemed to appear on a rock from nowhere. Beautiful colors; especially the males. It was a reasonable hike to see a boobie colony, blue and nazca but no red in this area. Eventually we ended up by a blowhole where we saw more iguana's on the tall rocks and in the water, then back to the beach. Along the way we saw a Galapagos hawk. The hike was definitely a little stressful, between the humidity and walking on rocks we were ready for the ice tea when we arrived back at the boat.
After a nice lunch with a fellow pilot and his girlfriend (Michael & Donna) we relaxed and then headed for some beach and snorkel at Gardener Bay. When we arrived we found a beach full of sea lions! They were spread along the entire beach, 100's of them just soaking up rays and snoozing the afternoon away. Snorkeling was good, but we had to head pretty far out to some rocks, to have clearer water where we saw some yellow razor tail fish (and others). Ended the afternoon with some time joining the sea lions for a snooze and then a BBQ dinner on the top deck was nice with a great view and a nice breeze while the sun settled behind Espanola island.
A little star gazing on the deck rounded out our first full day. Tomorrow promises to be another great day with 3 snorkel opportunities, a visit to the post office and more animals, including sea turtles, we hope. Hopefully a little less rock'n'roll will make for a better sleep tonight.
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