Lava Gull on board ship
This afternoon it is trail followed by beach time and our last chance to snorkel, which we're just about getting confident with. While lounging about on the boat the afternoon sightseeing began when a lava gull perched nearby...
Lava Gull on board ship
Darwin Bay, being a beach is a wet landing, and having arrived we ignored the historic graffiti and waited for the rest of the party to arrive.
While waiting we were able to make up the full set of boobies with the red-footed white version sat among the bushes.
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White Red-footed booby at bottom
Brown Red-footed booby at top
We moved on to another area with a very surreal scene of colonies of frigate birds and boobies.
Further along the trail we then encountered the classic frigatebird pose, and one which we weren't sure if we would see... ...displaying to attract a mate.
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This was quite a nice finish to the trails and we feel that we've probably seen everything that we were hoping to see and, likely as not, a good deal more. Things were not quite over yet as along the beach where we were about to swim, we were still treated to other nice birds and things such as the swallow tailed gull, marine iguanas even a nice long shot of the Galapagos Explorer II in the bay.
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Red-billed tropic bird in flight
Having seen things on land it was then time to have a little look underwater. Andrew was lucky enough to float over a few exotic fish (such as a moorish idol and angelfish), and also over a group of 3 or 4 white tipped reef sharks.
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Val contented herself with looking at the fish and playing with the sea-lions - one of which leaped out the water in front of her before dipping passed her, her expression was a cross between surprise and fear (or fear and surprise). During my swimming I managed to kick what I thought was a rock but judging from the marks on my foot it was probably a sea urchin (photo - not for the faint hearted).
For all that Val is not keen on swimming and was apprehensive about snorkelling she took a lot of persuading to get out of the water. As a result we got the last panga back to the boat.
Back at the boat the resident doctor removed the spines from my foot though even now, two weeks later, there is at least one left in there judging by the redness and pain.
After dinner there was a concert in the lounge - Latin American Serenade, and we missed it because we were up on deck watching the boat leave Genovesa and having a quick tour of the Southern stars given by one of the resident guides.
Had a last night in the bar, just to up the bar bill a bit, and stayed up to watch the GPS as we passed the equator, though it took several trips up top to monitor progress (GPS track).
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