March 25, 2022 - Afternoon
We had one final snorkeling adventure planned on the afternoon of our last full day in the Galapagos Islands off Espumilla Beach on Santiago Island. This last snorkeling trip was, in my opinion, the best of the many snorkeling opportunities we had. I wish we'd had a better underwater camera, but these posters at least illustrate the wide variety of fish in the Galapagos ocean.
These pictures Bob took with his old underwater camera show just a fraction of what we saw.
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| King Angelfish |
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| Blue-barred parrotfish |
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| Pacific creolefish |
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| Starry grouper |
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| Eastern striped grouper |
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| Mexican hogfish |
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| Mexican hotfish |
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| Razor surgeonfish |
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| Galapagos sea lion (and me, floating above) |
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| Whitetip reef shark |
In my journal I note that I saw sea turtles, six or seven sea lions, a few sharks, penguins, and hundreds of fish.
When we were done snorkeling, we did a wet landing at James Bay and walked around on mostly rocky lava terrain. It was pouring rain, but I had a plastic rain poncho, and Bob had his $3 umbrella purchased on the way to Mindo. That was enough to keep my cell phone dry. Besides, we were already wet from snorkeling, so who cared?
Bob didn't want to risk getting his expensive camera wet, so all we had was my cell phone when we saw this yellow-crowned night heron posing for photos.
Rock-ringed coves provided a bit of refuge for sea lions . . .
. . . and penguins.
Of course, there were also marine iguanas and beautiful red crabs sprinkled liberally about.
After we got back to the ship and dried off, it was time for our final dinner on board. The crew came out for a toast.
Our final delicious--and beautiful--dinner of salad and a mix of seafood and pork . . .
. . . finished off with apple streusel and chocolate mousse.
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This was our best snorkeling, by far. The walk was nice, but would have been far nicer without the deluge. The food on the ship was almost universally good, they really tried hard and usually succeeded.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this blog
ReplyDeleteThe presence of these marine mammals has been documented there for centuries, and the experience of a Sea Lion Snorkel Tour is one that you won't soon forget if you get the chance. The one-of-a-kind characteristics of these animals make swimming with sea lions a memorable experience for people of all ages, which makes these tours ideal for including in a trip with your family.