Santa Fé and Plazos

Today it was wet and windy when we woke up. It was like we had woken up in the middle of a cloud and as we walked around Santa Fé it drizzled. For the first time, we needed to use our raincoats. We saw sealions and some Santa Fé iguanas.

03 Jumping off the top deck of the boat

There was a sealion with some rope tied around its neck. It lay there, looking ill. I asked Esteban if he´d report it - actually, later he and some of the crew went back with a kitchen knife and a towl and cut the rope, releasing it. It almost looked as if it had been tied on, which was sickening - we hoped it had been a net. Esteban had told me I could come along and watch, but changed his mind at the last minute and told me to have breakfast and we would go afterwards. By the time I had gulped down breakfast, he´d already been, cut the rope and returned. I was disappointed, as I´d really wanted to watch, but I could understand why he had decided not to let me come along. I could have got bitten, or in the way somehow and strictly speaking, they shouldn´t have done that themselves they should have reported it and waited for the official rangers to do it (by which time it might have died). I pretended nothing had happened - the important thing is that the sealion had been rescued.

04 Snorkling around the boat

We went snorkling afterwards in a very cold cove and the crew member let me drive the panga! It was hysterical - it was a little like a motorbike´s startup, where you turned a bar for speed and moved the stick left and right for direction. Captain Emma decided to go full blast and sprayed everyone with water from the stern! Esteban doesn´t like the cold and sat on the floor of the boat with his hands over his chest, even when the crew member took control again... which he had to do, as I nearly crashed us into the main boat! It was great fun!

When we snorkled, we saw something that looked like a stripy snake but which was more likely to be an eel, we were told later. A sealion lazed on the bottom of the ocean and a stingray looked up at us. It was massive and although we swam directly over it, it was a relief to go past it. It was cold and there wasn´t much to see, so we came out and had a warm shower. Then we sat down and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - the new version with Johnny Depp. Mark and I were the only ones awake and reminisced about the old one versus the new one - it was one of his favourite films.

05 On the boat

In the afternoon, we tried to land on southern Plazos, but had a job as it just so happened that the sealion bulls are particularly agressive on this island. And its made worse by the fact that they each only have about five meters of shoreline each, as its so small and there are so many bulls. Normally, bulls have about 15-20 meters. The park´s designated landing area happened to fall bang on the border of two very large, very agressive bulls patches. The first chore was to move the two females napping on the bottom step of the man-made landing. This Esteban achieved without too much problem: they moved off, barking indignantly. The next problem was a large bull to the left of the steps that I think Esteban was worried that would bite us. Esteban shouted, and flapped a life jacket at it... it would retreat a little, then think, ´who am I to move? He should move,´ and then start running towards Esteban, who would jump back in the boat and ask the panga driver to move backwards. Then, he´d try it again. Every so often the bull would swim off... only to return later. At this point, Esteban would try scaring the massive bull at the top of the walkway off - it was a Barry White roar and the passengers watching all this, including me, would go ´oohhhhhh!´ and Esteban got out of the way smartish. ´The bulls are very fast and can break bones, so I am not going to try to be Superman,´ Estaban laughed. This went on for 40 minutes - then a break happened! Esteban decided that the Barry White bull was happy staying put and wouldn´t bite people if they walked on the rocks around him, as long as they didn´t get too close. So he got us to dart over the rocks when the first bull was swimming, around the second one, to land. Poor Julie has a bad knee and found it hard - especially as the first bull suddenly returned as she was halfway navigating down from the platform to the shore rocks. Canadian Julie and I had decided to help by shouting and clapping on the other side of the rocks, trying to distract the first bull. ´We´re standing on your rocks! Come and get us! Come on!´ At one point we realised we were clapping along to the song ´If you´re happy and you know it, Clap your hands´ and so gave the bulls a rendition. They totally ignored us, but the other half of our tour, avidly watching us with binoculars from the ship as they waited for the panga to return, thought it was hysterical - they could hear us clearly across the water, despite being 50 meters away or so.

06 On the Panga, Black Turtle Cove

Eventually, we all got safely on land and began our tour of Plazos. Funnily enough, Esteban, thinking, tried one more time to move the Barry White bull, shouting, clapping and brandishing the brighly coloured life-jacket but this time from the land. Straight away the bull moved - he barked an apology and clumsily shuffled into the sea. Its all about the direction you try in.

We saw lots of land iguanas eating vegetation, and climbing trees. We saw some more noctural, Swallow-tailed Gulls and saw a chick.

We went to a cliff and saw a couple of tired sealions lying there - they had separated themselves away from the pack to die. There was a sealion skeleton to the right of them - this was like a cemetery. It was sad to see the young, live sealions there when you understood what was happening.

Me, Karen, Claire and Mark

We walked back to the beginning and had no problems now the platform was clear of sealions. Another boat had arrived in our bay and we were glad to go.

When we got on board, we ticked off the animals we had seen on our trip with Esteban and had some goodbye drinks with the crew. It was a nice night and we all drank beer and chatted. Julie had put together a short slideshow of her photos, mainly to show us why she lugged so much equipment around! They were fantastic. She had included the shot of me jumping out of the boat and it was funny. She said she´d send it, so I´ll put it on the website when it comes through.

Tree climbing Santa Fé Iguanas