I had never heard of a caldera until we got here Saturday morning. But that’s where we were: a large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses. And the water that fills it here on Genovesa Island is called Charles Darwin Bay.

Genovesa is a very small island in the north of the archipelago, and the furthest distance we’ve traveled. Last night about 8:40pm we crossed the equator for the first time. This just gives you context of where we are relative to the rest. Below is larger…

and shows the shape of the island. We spent the entire day in the bay where on prior days we’d always moved on to another spot at lunchtime.

While we still wanted to have a more laid back day, we did get up in time to do the 6:15am kayak excursion. They only had so many kayaks, so you had to sign up for them, and they asked you not to go if you’d gone already. The prior trips had always had empty spots so for this last trip they’d opened it up to anyone whether you’d gone before or not, so Friday night I’d made sure we were first on the list. And we were the only “new” ones to come out.

We just kayaked around the bay, staying close to the cliffs on the right side. We didn’t see too much but it was relaxing. Requisite selfie below.

We got back to the ship and breakfast was at 7:30am. At 8:30am we went back out again. Here’s Ash at the board where we have to tell them we’ve left the boat and came back. Each cabin has a little peg next to it for however many occupants are in it. If, once all excursions are supposed to be back (there are often multiple things happening at once) and not all pegs are to the left, you will get paged to make sure you’re actually there. This is especially true after the morning excursions since we typically move somewhere else at lunchtime, and they don’t want to leave anyone behind.

This time we went to the beach for a wildlife walk. It was a short walk but we spent over an hour there, there was so much to see. It was a wet landing, as shown above. We had 4 Zodiacs out for this one, I think nearly everyone participated.

Jonathan, the Expedition Leader, told us there would be a lot of birds today and he was right. This video is my attempt to capture a bit of that in the sky above us.

What made this was unique was the different kinds of birds we’d see, how up close we got, and how many of them had chicks. And that they didn’t seem to care we were there, which anymore wasn’t all that unique. I’d posted a photo of this guy with the red around the eyes the other day, but didn’t know what it was: the Galapagos seagull. Endemic to this area, they are the only seagulls that feed at night. See the closeup below.

And a little later we encountered one with her chick.

A red-footed booby with her chick, identifiable by the blue beak. Here’s a little video of these two with Omar talking in the background. It’s amazing how different they look at birth – white feathers instead of brown, black beak instead of blue. Omar said it would take a year for the colors to change.

Another red-footed booby, above and blow, this one with white and black feathers.

The above photo shows how close we were to these birds, the white one sitting on an egg. Below, a closer shot from the front angle.

The white is a Nazca booby, and the black are frigatebirds.

Here are more frigatebirds; we saw them a lot today. That front one is male, the red pouch essentially being a mating call. Darwin called them the condors of the coean because they have exceptionally large wingspans, the largest wingspan-to-body–weight ratio of any bird in the world. They are also famous for stealing food from other birds.

A quick photo of Ash.

I almost stepped on this sea lion!

I was fascinated by the scenery at the beach line, with all the different colors of water and the ships in the background.

This is Omar. I don’t think I’ve seen him or his brother, Ramiro, wear shoes while out, only on the ship (when in required uniform, say for dinner). Doesn’t matter how flat or rocky it is, including the lava field which was very hot.

This sea lion is OUT. I haven’t a clip of a baby trying to wake this momma but haven’t been able to upload it. Sadly, videos have been a challenge on this trip (and I don’t know why!).

The colors of the water are just stunning. Here’s another video to try to capture the beauty of this place. Glad this one worked!

We got back to the ship around 10:30. We visited with some other passengers for a bit, then Ash went to the cabin to nap and/or watch TV, I came up here to the observation deck to take advantage of being outside. I love the air here. Below was my view.

Lunch was at 12:30, and it had an Ecuadorian theme. Note the bowl in the middle there with banana chips, popcorn, and chose corn nut things we like.

This salad was simple and incredible.

Ash had more salad with fish for his main. I had suckling pig, hominy, potato croquette.

This dessert was a tres leches cake, a fig, a shortbread cookie sandwich with coconut and caramel inside. Before lunch we’d had our “departure lecture” on all the things that needed to happen yesterday to get ready to leave, and how today would flow. Which is a little complicated but will leave that for tomorrow’s blog. So we spent some time doing that stuff until it was time to go out again at 3:45pm.

We went to Prince Philip’s Steps at the southeast end of the island, and area named after his visit here in the 70’s.

You got a nice view of the entire caldera from there.

More frigatebirds, that top one giving you an idea of the wingspan mentioned earlier.

This is a Nazca booby, the 3rd in this family of seabirds. This particular breed always lays two eggs, 5 days apart from each other. If the first one is doing well by the time the 2nd one is born, the parents ignore the second one and it eventually dies. It’s just an extra in case for some reason the first one doesn’t make it, but they don’t have enough resources to raise two chicks at one time.

What’s everyone looking at? A short-eared owl, this one in the shadows of a ravine. We ended up seeing 3 on this walk but they were so far away, well camouflaged then sitting in shade on top of that, made it very difficult to get a good photo of them.

The view from the top of the steps. Probably the steepest climb we did the whole trip, but it was pretty flat after that.

Our last sunset on the ship.

Ramiro put together a slideshow of everyone’s favorite photos, which he’d collected during that afternoon period mentioned above. I submitted 5 and they were all included.

Dinner started with a carrot and ginger soup. A little too much ginger for our tastes but otherwise good.

Ash had the fish on a Cesar salad. I had beef and Enrique threw a few scallops on the side. That rice and corn dish was amazing.

This was a puff pastry with a chocolate filling, whipped cream, nuts and caramel on top. Pretty tasty.

The tour ends today. We leave the ship after breakfast, have one more excursion, and then head to the airport. Will cover all that tomorrow.