Start of our Galapagos Cruise on Nemo II

 

Sunday May 26 th.
After a leisurely breakfast at Red Mangrove, with the sea lions lounging on the lounges and the pelicans doing their morning ablutions in the next bay, we headed north across Santa Cruz Island, to catch the ferry across the Itabaca canal to Baltra Island to meet up with our cruise group. (My sixth trip to the canal!)

 Jenny was anxiously awaiting our arrival. It was lovely to see her again and exchange family news.

While waiting on the wharf for our panga (zodiac), I found some sea anemones on the rocks and Drew paced out the length of a wind turbine blade awaiting installation (30 metres). Finally were on board the Nemo II, a lovely catamaran with two jibs and a mainsail. It had six double cabins for passengers plus crew of Captain Antonia, first mate, engineer, steward/barman Ernesto, cook, panga driver and our naturalist guide, Diego. There was a saloon midship, dining area on the covered aft deck and seating on the cabin top. The wheel was on the open deck but the chart table was in the saloon. We had one of the two ‘matrimonial’ cabins with a double bed under a porthole (that let water in during rougher weather), a small desk, cupboard and ensuite bathroom with a hand-held shower over the toilet! The other four cabins with twin bunks were down a ladder, tucked into each of the pontoons but on top of the engines.

heading out to Nemo II in the panga, Jenny in the bow.

There were 12 passengers from around the globe. We shared our meals with Holly and David, both entomologists (dean and lecturer) at South Dakota University, Jenny and her cabin-mate, Patricia, a California engineer and sea lion rescuer in her spare time. The other table was for the younger set, half of whom spoke German: Oliver and Patricia, Reimo and Charlotte, all from Austria, and Scott (earthquake modeller and potter) and Suzanne, (neurologist, knitter and dyer) from California. We were an eclectic bunch who had lots of hard questions for our guide, Diego, but he always had an answer (his knowledge on all aspects of the Islands was prodigious).

After a general briefing, while the crew loaded on many crates of fresh food, we motored (navigated) to North Seymour Island. 

Like Baltra, North Seymour is a flat lava plate remnant from islands even older than Santa Cruz.  Birds flying everywhere, dominated by magnificent frigate birds we had not seen since Papua New Guinea.

Our first ‘activity’ for the trip was our first deep water snorkelling, jumping in off the panga, which motored behind us to pick up those who had had enough. The ship provided fins, mask and snorkels but we had to hire the wetsuits. Drew counted nine species of fish, including an eel I spotted slithering through the rocks. Others saw a shark and turtle.

 

Our next activity for the first day was a 'dry' landing from the panga onto North Seymour island, and a walk on a trail around the island. We were amazed at how tame all the birds were.

Male blue footed boobies were preparing their nests and performing their dance, or feeding chicks right beside or even on path, so we had to detour around them.
Look at those beautiful feet!

 

 

 

Frigate birds were wheeling right overhead, trying to steal the meals off the boobies and tropic birds (called 'kleptoparasitism'), or sitting on their nests in the trees.








 

There were a few fluffy white frigate chicks, females with white throats but lots of males with deflated throats and a couple with red balloons, vying for attention of the females.

 The vegetation was very dry, deciduous small trees and occasional cactus. One cactus had a tunnel nest with five eggs in it, probably of the cactus finch.

 

 

 

 

 

Further on, we came across some very large yellow land iguanas feeding on dead leaves; he is almost 2 metres long so to be respected as he ambled past our feet.

 

 

Some sea lions returned from fishing to waddle over the rocks to join others sun-baking on the sand.

 

Just before returning to the panga landing we had to detour around a large sea lion lying right across the path that Jenny almost walked into.

 

Can you spot it among the rocks?

 


This is what was called a dry landing, straight onto the rocks! Nemo is anchored in the distance

The first day of our cruise was very packed, with amazing views of animals close up!  We wondered what else there was to see for the rest of the week?

 

After a fine dinner, we headed south for the five hour motor to Puerto Ayoro on Santa Cruz island (where we had spent the last two days). Near Gordon Rocks some people saw rays leaping over the waves. It was quite a rough trip until in the shelter of the Puerto.