Sunday, 26 August 2018
Galapagos Day 2
Our late morning expedition was to the beach at Gardner Bay for snorkeling and just generally enjoying the beach. Since we were snorkeling experience novices, we opted for the beach and some instruction on equipment and techniques. There was so much turbulence in the water near the beach that there wasn't that much to see. But we did enjoy the sea lions!
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| The beach was a mix of white sand and rocks. Beautiful. |
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| Sea lions definitely considered the beach their territory, and were not at all intimidated by humans. |
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| Life is good! |
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| Nursing pups make a loud sucking noise. |
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| A brown pelican was diving for fish in the incredibly turquoise waters. |
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| A mockingbird digging for food in the sand. |
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| Probably the saddest sight we saw: The mockingbird was picking food off a dying green sea turtle. The turtle made occasional attempts to move, but the shell was covered with barnacles and there was a noticeable head wound. |
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| After returning from a beach walk, and despite putting our gear all over our green beach towel, a sea lion decided that the towel was prime real estate. We had been warned that sea lions loved to occupy the ship's towels, but had been told that if we piled all our gear on top of the towel, the sea lions wouldn't bother with them. "Hah! Fooled you!" |
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| 300 lbs of sea lion is difficult to dislodge from the towel. The sea lion did not take this well. Photo credit: M. Tully. |
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| We were able to retrieve most of our gear, but the sea lion was tenacious. Photo credit: M. Tully. |
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| "My flippers are better than your flippers!" |
Shortly after this, the sea lion waddled off and we were able to recover our towel and flippers.
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