Floreana and Santa Maria
Trip Start
Aug 22, 2006
1
18
94
Trip End
Ongoing
Galapagos islands,
Ecuador
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Flamingoes are pink because of a pigment that shrimp have in them. When the flamingoes each the shrimps, they have a lot of the pigment and so they go pink too. Apparently, there are flamingoes in Bolivia and Africa that are white, because they eat insects as there arenīt enough shrimp so they supplement their diet. Now, Iīd like to see a white flamingo, to see which one I prefer. The pink ones are nice
Flamingo having a scratch
. We saw a little more than we expected - it turns out flamingoes are quite extrovert here. They paraded up and down in front of us and later indulged in a little mid-day copulation. Julie, a wildlife photographer was impressed. Every day, she carries huge amounts of equipment around with her: tripod, massive zoom, expensive camera and lens bag. She has some truly amazing photos to show for it and must be a good deal stronger than she was before as weīve gone up and down mountains, cliffs and beaches so far.After the flamingo display (!) we went ray spotting - we walked along the surf, watching stingrays glide around in the surf. We discussed Steve Irwin, the TV presenter who got killed by a stingray. Estaban, our new guide loves nature and carefully explained that Steve had got it coming... stingrays glide along the bottom of the sea and cover themselves in sand. Mantra rays, a very different animal, jump out of the sea and swim in the middle of the ocean. But Stingrays donīt like swimming in the middle of the ocean as they feel vulnerable. Steve had provoked a stingray to swim mid-ocean and the ray thought, enough of this! And stung him in the breastbone. Unfortuantely for Steve, the stingrayīs sting pierced his breastbone and poisoned him directly in the heart. He didnīt have a chance. I was with the ray, he was playing silly buggers, although it would have been much nicer if heīd lived to learn from the tale
Flamingoes from above
.Later, we went snorkling in the open sea. The waves were quite strong and Clare and some of the others came out because they felt afraid. I decided to stick with Estaban and snorkel closely by him in case we saw any dangerous animals. We saw a layer of fish on the bottom of the ocean and when Estaban dived down, they parted like a woman in the presence of a drunken womaniser. There were thousands of fish there, they covered the floor of the ocean like a blanket. We saw a turtle, and lots of interesting fish. We had hoped to see a shark and although there was one, I didnīt see it.
Later that day, we went swimming around the boat for a bit of a laugh. A girl called Karen that comes from Birmingham but who lives in Dublin with her Irish boyfriend Mark, dived head first from the top deck of the boat. Inspired by her, I walked up. Then thought, what am I doing?!!! She said sheīd jump with me, and after five minutes, I counted to three and leapt. She didnīt jump with me! But I didnīt mind, I still did the jump. It was about ten metres high. Julie doesnīt miss a shot and this was no exception! She has a picture of me mid air that sheīs going to send me.
We went on board another island, Santa Maria after lunch and looked at the landscape from a high viewpoint
Galapagos Flamingo in the morning sunshine
. Apparently, an English woman called the Baroness had moved to the island to build a five star hotel. She didnīt get very far - every time a crew came by to trade tomatoes for rum or other goods she would eye a man she liked and sleep with him. Afterwards, she would hire an assissin to kill him. It happened five times before she īdisappeared.ī The other family, the Watkins are still living in the island and are fine.We had a dinghy ride and saw penguins and white-tipped coral reef sharks. The sharks were about a metre long and I enjoyed looking at them - they are very very quite and like shallow water. I thought to myself that from now on, Iīm taking much more care at the seasides - so far Iīve seen stingrays and sharks less than 1 metre into the sea.
We went into a large lava cave which was good for a laugh, although as it was pitch black and we only had torches we didnīt see much. This was a couple of minutes away from the oldest post office in the Glapagos, first established in 1793. When you see it, you understand - its a ricketty think out in the open sand, with a barrel. Inside the keg are postcards. Traditionally, people write a postcard and when they are there, they take another one to deliver. You canīt just wack a stamp on them, you need to do it personally. There were all nationalities there, but as Iīm travelling I dídnīt feel I could take one. I forgot mine to put in, but it was a nice memory just coming here.
The rest of the day we spent sunbathing and chatting. I have been writing more of the detective novel Iīve meant to start for a while now, who knows, in a years time I could come back with a book.
