North Seymour Island 2/26

Sea Lion pup checking us out

Land Iguana. This guy was about 4 feet long , much larger than the marine iguanas we had seen on Isabella

This is a male Frigate bird. The male puffs out his bright red neck pouch to attract a mate. They only do this during mating season. I think they look like Dizzy Gillespie blowing a flugelhorn!

We went by bus from Puerto Ayora to the North side of Santa Cruz Island where we boarded a yacht for transport to North Seymour Island. The entire of North Seymour is a Ecuadorian Nature Park - carefully regulated to allow only a set few people to visit each day. Each group of 10 people has a naturalist guide to explain everything that they see on their visit. This was truly an amazing experience. The island is teeming with wildlife. We were able to walk up very close to some of the birds who were totally oblivious of our being so close to them. We saw Blue footed boobies, Frigate birds (both the minor species as well as the Magnificent Frigate). There were other species of birds too many to mention. We also observed land iguanas which were quite colorfull as well as quite large. Once again, they walked up to you or were laying in the shade and they didn't seem to care at all if you got right next to them!

After making a circuit of the permissible walking trails we did some snorkeling which was amazing. They took us some distance from the dock where we landed and we then drifted with the current back to where the boat had gone to await our return. We were in the water for about an hour and the water was crystal clear. We saw some Ecuadorian sharks, barracuda, thousands of tropical fish in large schools. A few manta rays swam by and the guides dove down and grabbed some puffer fish and lobsters to show us.

The highlight of the whole day was the sea lions and seals. This was what I had been waiting for. They swam right up to where we were swimming and spun around us and under us. They seemed either slightly curious or didn't seem to care about our being there. One seal swam right up to me and was looking me in the eye from about 1 foot. Pretty cool I must say. It is impossible to stay anywhere near them when they swim away. They were incredibly agile in the water!

When we returned to the boat were we transported to the North side of Santa Cruz Island where we landed on shore for another nature walk. There was a hot water lagoon where we saw a flock of flamingos. The water was real warm - maybe 100 degrees or so. The flamingos seemed to like it as well as several marine iguanas we saw swimming in the lagoon. It's still strange to see them in the water as I never thought of them being swimmers.

Back to the boat where we returned to our starting point - back on the bus and eventually back to the hotel for another nice dinner.