This weekend we did something different……..we did a day trip on Saturday rather than Sunday :). Our destination was Plaza Sur, a very small island off the E. corner of Santa Cruz. A 45 minute drive from Puerto Ayora to the Baltra ferry took us up through the rain clouds of the Highlands but once over the height of land, we had clear skies for the rest of our trip as the photos will attest.
The boat ride to Plaza Sur takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. As we were heading into the prevailing wind the ride was a little bumpy but not enough to make any of the 16 passengers uncomfortable. The return trip was much smoother. On arrival we transferred to shore via an inflatable dinghy and immediately saw that the rocky shoreline was occupied by a group of sea lions comprised of basking mothers and pups and the constant offshore patrol of the male beachmaster/harem owner. Slowly cruising back and forth, raising his head from the water, he gave short gutteral barks (ark, ark, ark) to continually announce to one and all that this was his turf.
In the immediate area we saw many land iguanas that advanced through our crowd to feed on pieces of cactus that our guide chipped off a fallen Opuntia. (He is not supposed to do that but he wanted us to see what they eat.)
Our walk took us through large patches of sesuvium, a ground cover which is red in the dry season and green in the rainy season. It turns red to protect itself from the sun in the absence of water. When it is green and blooming, its flowers are a further source of food for the land iguanas.
There is a drop off cliff on the other side of the island and this is where we saw nesting swallow tailed gulls or night gulls as they are also called. They rest all day and range out over the ocean for many miles at night hunting for food. The basking sea lions were there too, as were wheeling flocks of petrels who spend the day on the ocean, then return to their nests in the rocky highland where they are safe from maurading frigate birds.
Near the end of our trip, our captain pulled into a protected bay for some snorkeling where we saw schools of fish, a galapagos shark, frigate birds resting on shore and ghostly palo santo trees on the cliffs above.
Here are a few more photos from the day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sataylor/sets/72157625005340691/
This Thursday we are off to Argentina for two weeks and will be posting from there. Ciao until then.