After a night at anchor just between the two Plaza Islands it was time for a 6am shore excursion. Here we got to see land iguanas. This guy was posing just for us.
As were these guys.
They eat the Opuntia cactus.
There were also the swallow tail gulls. This one was a young teenager. Still asking his parents for food. But old enough to be out walking around on his own. Sounds about right for a teenager 😉
We did see one lone marine iguana enjoying the view.
He was high up on the cliff looking out. Maybe his buddies ditched him.
There were tons of Galápagos sea lions relaxing on the beach. One waving hello.
And quite a few young ones too. Some were still nursing from Mom. The babies make a bleat, like a goat or a sheep, to tell mom they are hungry. Mom will only nurse her own baby, and can recognize them by sound and smell.
The sea lions like to look up at us, pose then flop back down to sleep. Guess we are not that interesting.
These guys are 100-400 pounds, much smaller than the Stellar Sea Lions we see around home. They don't stink like ours do either.
After the 2.5 walk around the island it was time head back to the boat for breakfast.
Selfie time first though.
After breakfast it was a 3 hour cruise (thankfully, not the Gilligan's Island 3 hour tour!) south to Santa Fe Island where we had lunch. Then another snorkel with lots of sea lions. They are so much fun to swim with.
We have lots of video too but that will have to wait till we get home. Bandwidth is too limited here.
I got too close to the alpha male. He told me to back off a bit. I did 😉
We saw eagle rays, lots of turtles and even a sea snake. After about an hour and good long swim we headed back to the boat for a rest. Not a long one though. 4pm and it was time for a wet landing for more sea lions, land iguanas, and a trail into the heart of the island to a forest of giant cactus and palo santo trees.
We were greeted by dozens of sleeping sea lions who woke up to see who was joining them.
Alpha male blocking some of our group.
Young pups were both waiting for Mom and others nursing.
Oh my what brown teeth you have! Time to see a dentist.
Then it was off to hike the trail. Land iguana time. These ones are red eyed vs the brown eyed from this morning.
Even they have caught the trend for duck lips.
We even got to see some babies.
100+ year old Opuntia
Younger Opuntia
Insides of the dead ones. They are very fibrous and when alive, full of water.
Our rides to and from shore.
Our waiter/steward is named Dennis. He is a little like Basil from Faulty Towers. Nice, well meaning, hard working but not very effective. He obviously doesn't drink coffee. He fills the beans in the basket first thing in the morning then proceeds to overfill the reservoir. If that wasn't funny enough he constantly adds more water. The pot is always overflowing and you can't pour a cup without making a total mess. Which he has to clean up. He's always saying sorry. We feel for him. He wants to make sure there is always a full pot so we never run out. But the coffee gets weaker and weaker as the meal goes on! If he were to just read the instructions…. entertainment for us at least.