Cruising through the Galapagos Islands, . . .
Antoine, our wonderful host at the Colonial House Hostel in Quito worked really hard to organize a tour with Gap Adventures on the Queen Beatrice catamaran. We sailed for 3 nights and toured for 4 days throughout some of the south islands of the Galapagos. It was wonderful!!
Day 1 riding on a dingy through the mangrove trees into a lagoon to see white tipped reef sharks, green sea turtles, eagle rays, blue herons and brown pelicans. And that was just from the surface!
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| white tipped reef sharks |
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| brown pelican |
We snorkeled every day, got to swim with green sea turtles, sea lions and see a trillion fish and 1 diamond head ray.
Our time on land was just as wonderful! We saw blue footed boobies, Nazca boobies, albatross, sea lions (all with their babies), marine iguanas, lizards, saddle back and dome back giant tortoises, Galapagos doves, magpies and all sorts of finches.
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| albatross with chick in foreground & blue footed boobie with chick in background |
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| a curious baby sea lion approaches a red marine iguana |
Another favourite activity on the trip was swimming in a lava tunnel!
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| we made it right to the end of the tunnel! |
Love the blue feeted boobies
ReplyDeletenot sure about that tunnel tho
Chloe, you didn't go thru did you???
NO WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!! YOU GOT TO SWIM WITH SEA TURTLES GAHHHH! At the aquarium we have black-tipped reef sharks. A guy the other day was telling me how he went diving off the coast of Australia with white-tipped reef sharks.
ReplyDeletePretend you were Darwin on your adventures there? I'm a little jealous. Makes me feel all anthropology and biology all at once! Looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments,...
ReplyDeleteChuck: We didn`t have to go through the tunnel, just into it. The water went through to the ocean but the space wasn`t big enough for us.
Tegan: The sea turtles were so tranquille - felt very calming swimming above them. We`ll have to look into swimming with the white-tipped reef sharks when we get to Australia (if we`re feeling brave!)
Alexie - I didn`t realize that Darwin was only on the islands for a short time. Long enough to observe the finches obviously but, not having studied him, assumed he had lived there for years,... All very fabulous and interesting!!