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American Spirit II - Day 50; Swimming with Sea Turtles & Penguins; Saturday, February 22, 2014



I woke up at 4:00 AM and headed down to the aft section of the main deck, where the restaurant is, to type up Day 49's log. At 5:59 AM we reached our destination and dropped anchor. We were anchored in front of a giant L-shaped cliff face called Vicente Roca Point, part of Isabella Island.

Breakfast was at 7:00 AM and consisted of ham, toast, fruit and yogurt.

We took a ride in the panga's (dinghies)to look, primarily, at the birds on the cliff face. We saw Frigates, Blue Footed Boobies,Brown Pelicans, Galapagos Penguins and Flightless Cormorants. The Frigate bird, also called the 'man of war bird' because of its piratical nature, is unusual in that the female is larger than the male. Its 'piratical nature' has to do with its method of catching fish. Besides scooping fish off of the surface of the water or picking up baby turtles from a beach, it also grabs the tail feathers of other birds who have caught fish, and shakes them and holds on until the bird drops the fish it had just caught. It then catches this dropped fish in midair. The Blue Footed Booby has blue feet, and it exhibits clown like behavior during courtship. The Brown Pelican is the same pelican that we have in Florida. The Galapagos Penguins are 1 1/2 feet tall, and are the only penguins that inhabit the northern hemisphere (barely north of the equator). It is the only penguin to breed entirely in the tropics. There are currently thought to be only a few thousand in existence. The Flightless Cormorant is like its Florida counterpart except that it can't fly. Its wings are too short. We also saw numerous Galapagos Green Turtles swimming under water and poking their heads above water to breath. The largest of these we saw were about 4 - 5 feet in diameter.

After the panga ride, we went back to our ship and changed cloths to go snorkeling. Even though the water was warm (78 degrees), most of the passengers wore wet suits in the water. While snorkeling we saw hundreds of Galapagos Green Turtles under the water, either drifting in the surge near the cliff face, or laying on the bottom in shallow water. At one time Janet and I were hovering in the surge zone with 20 other turtles floating around us. As the surge would go in and out, the turtles and us moved in and out. We had to constantly maneuver to keep from running into one of these turtles. We also swam with the turtles that were moving around. They move very gracefully thru the water, using their forward limbs primarily for propulsion. I got a lot of video using the Hero camera.

Once back on the boat we had lunch and the boat was moved to a different location. At 2:00 PM we were back in the water in an area where Marine Iguana's were in abundance. Before getting in the water, we could see numerous heads of these creatures poking out of the water, and others sunning themselves on land. The Marine Iguana is the only sea-going lizard in the world. There are 7 different sub species in the Galapagos, with the seven species differing in size and color. The ones we saw today were black and grey, and some were as large as small dogs. We observed many swimming in the water, and two diving down to the bottom to eat algae on the rocks. One that we followed stayed down 8 minutes feeding. It was like watching a prehistoric animal move thru the water. While hading back to the boat in the panga, we observed a number of Blue Footed Boobies (20?) on a rock just off shore.

From 3:40 PM to just before dinner, we ventured onto land where we came upon hundreds or even thousands of Marine Iguana's sunning themselves on the rocks. They made a hissing sound as they expelled brine thru their nostrils. We walked around nesting areas of iguana's; and even came upon some 'juvenile centers' where many young iguana's were located. It was quite common for these iguana's to lay on each other. They also faced the sun to reduce their exposure to it and lower their temperatures. Amongst these iguana's were some sea lions; and we also came upon another sea lion nursery where the pups were playing is the shallow water. These nurseries always have an adult supervising the pups. Like we saw on Friday, we came upon the skeleton of another whale. Not sure what species it was, though.

The main course for dinner was fish, along with rice and asparagus, with cut up pineapple for dessert.

Due to the excessive snorkeling and hiking today, after dinner most passengers went to bed early.

Brian Fox





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