This is for Thursday, May 30. Our first outing started early, so we went down for coffee at 5:45am.

And caught a beautiful sunrise. This was 5:56am.

We meet in the lobby for all of our outings, and they had coffee and fruit ready for us.

Off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, the one with the most people on it (although we haven’t seen any of that) are two tiny islands called North Plaza and South Plaza. This morning, we were headed to South Plaza.

I’ve shown these cacti before but this morning we got the story about why they grow they way they grow. In a word, tortoises. The giant tortoises here got to be the size they are because this cactus was so plentiful. Over the years, the cacti evolved to grow higher so they tortoises couldn’t reach them so easily.

A yellow land iguana on a rock in the lower third of the photo in case you can’t see him. But I like how he blends into the landscape which is why I included so much in it.

This guy just hanging out in the middle of the path. And unfazed by us.

Another one under that huge cactus tree completely unfazed by the tourists taking photos.

Here’s a closeup of this guy. They get their yellow color from eating the flowers of the cactus.

These cages hold baby cacti that were planted by conservationists. They normally don’t interfere with the ecology, but this was but this was a correction of something they’d done decades ago before they knew better. They actually planted more cactus thinking they were helping the iguanas, but then the iguanas did so well that they overran the island and completely ate all of the cactus from this part of it. So now they are attempting to correct that by caging the cactus. They will be in these cages for about 50 years, which is how long it will take for them to get to a size that will help ensure survival. They were planted in 2000, so this project is called Project 2050.

A family of sea lions.

Showing some of the terrain we walked. It was a pretty mild hike, this was about the biggest drop there was. See the shipped circled in the background.

This photo doesn’t really capture how red these guys eyes are.

We got back to the ship and had breakfast around 8:15. That egg at the bottom on the tortilla is huevos rancheros.

Ash was still very tired so he took a nap in the room, and I went up to the observation deck. There was a warm breeze that was so comforting, this was the most relaxed I’d been in a while. Ash joined me at 10:30 for some yoga on the opposite side of this deck. The leader, Julianna, was very good, and put together a great class for this audience – mostly people 60’s and above, some who had never done yoga before. Having not done any yoga since we left, and I usually go at least twice a week, it felt amazing.

By 11:30am the skies had cleared a bit, and the water turned this incredible blue.

Ramiro did this class on photography which was incredibly helpful, especially showing us settings on our phones that none of us knew were there. All of the naturalists are pretty much photographers as well and are constantly sending photos back to the scientific community. Evolution continues and they still discover new stuff.

We got a nice table in the corner of the patio for lunch (and sat in the same place for dinner).

Pumpkin soup with roasted corn, so completely delicious. This trip has turned me into a pumpkin soup fan.

Ash had the broccoli soufflé.

I had roast chicken. This meal all game from Galapaguenians – the folks who live here and produce locally.

A passion fruit mousse with chocolate cookies that were so good Ash asked for more.

This is Omar, Ramiro’s brother, who gave an entertaining presentation after lunch about the human history of the islands, going back thousands of years. They are 3rd generation natural history scientists. One of the reasons that the islands weren’t all that inhabited by people is there are no land animals for food, it rains 6 months a year, and the soil isn’t great for farming. So although both Spain and England had claims here since the late 1500’s, nothing ever really took hold, and the Islands have been free since 1822. Something I knew but he reminded me of: the first airport built here was by the US military in 1942 as another base in the Pacific. Since the war never got to South America it wasn’t used much and after the war was turned over the to Ecuador government.

After this was the next snorkeling outing. Ash stayed in the cabin, and I went out. Just the name of the outing freaked me out: deep water snorkeling. Which just means your feet won’t touch bottom.

I let everyone get out of the Zodiac before me. Adriana, the naturalist with us, stayed with me and helped me get into the water. First time with flippers, etc. I stayed for about 20 minutes at the most. Again, so focused on the process of breathing and relaxing it was hard to enjoy. Someone started screaming – through the mouthpiece of the mask so it sounded like they were drowning – and it freaked me out a bit (turns out it was just excitement over a sea lion) and I got tired and went back to the Zodiac.

But the water was beautiful and I enjoyed watching everyone else enjoy it. Below, a school of eagle spotted rays.

We headed back to the ship about 3:45pm, and left again for a hiking excursion about 4:30pm. This time Ash joined.

As we were approaching the beach for a wet landing, we came across blue-footed boobies – known for, well, blue feet as hopefully you can see, and they’re webbed feet at that. They are known for diving to catch fish, which you can see some of in this video.

And a video of couple of sea lions who greeted us on the beach.

Looking back at the bay where we landed for the hike. This was also where the previous snorkeling happened.

The snorkeling and afternoon hike occurred on and around Sante Fe island, a tiny one off of Santa Cruz but further away than where we were in the morning.

Ramiro was our naturalist again. I’m kinda fascinated with getting photos with our boat in them somewhere.

Another well-hidden iguana. Unless we come across something really spectacular, this might be my last iguana pic. They are everywhere and I think you’ve seen enough! This is where we learned that they get their yellow color from the cacti flower.

Pretty grasshopper – mostly black with some red on his back and green and yellow markings.

Ash balancing himself on a rock on the beach. He’d sort of accidentally used my walking sticks on the morning hike when I’d asked him to hold them while I was getting a photo and then forgot he had them. Now I think he likes them, he got his own (which you can borrow here) when he got on the Zodiac for this hike, which they kept promising would be very rocky. And it was.

We ended up on different beach than we’d started on, and there was a whole colony of sea lions there, above and below.

We were in the lounge again at 6:30pm for our daily briefing, and Jorge, the bartender, made us virgin pina coladas.

Dinner was a BBQ buffet on the patio. A spicy cole slaw which I really enjoyed, a very fresh avocado and tomato salad, pork ribs, tuna, Italian sausage, and grilled vegetables.

A flan for dessert. That egg looking thing is cake, not ice cream.

This ship has an “open bridge policy” which means you can just walk on in any time you want. The entrance is very close to our room since we are at the front of the ship.

Ash wanted the whole “top of the world” experience and, much to my surprise, they were happy to oblige, above and below.

I was amused at how small the steering wheel was.

A photo of a blue footed booby in our hallway.

And that, my friends, was our day. It was very full but lots of fun. We are planning to be much more relaxed today. This is vacation, right?