Galapagos Day 2 - Birding Paradise

  Genovesa Island, Ecuador
Sunday, April 29, 2007

DAY TWO

We arrived at the island of Genovesa in the early hours of the morning - I know this as my bunk suddenly stopped shaking and the and the noise quietened down as the engine was turned off. The rocking didn't bother me at all - I felt quite soothed by it, but as my cabin was at the back of the boat we were both aware of the motor. Pat and I had resorted to earplugs and so dozed off anyway, Kevin and Brigitta hadn't managed either.

12 Sally light foot crab

But again I was pleased we were on this smaller boat and not one of the monsters - we'd encountered some of their passengers the previous day on North Seymour and they were awful. Very loud and shouting at the animals - their behaviour was so bad that at one stage both Isolde and I asked two particular elderly women to keep their voices down - they really should have known better. Thank goodness we had an understanding group with no one wanting to disturb the animals.

21 Red footed booby

We had fantastic breakfast with loads of different hot and cold dishes just before we attempted our first wet landing at Darwin Bay. Genovesa is quite a way from Baltra island and so it doesn't attract as many tourist boats. In fact Maria told us that many of the larger ones aren't permitted to come here.

19 Pelican visitor

We had a lovely morning walking very slowly and very quietly around - I think we took about three hours to walk just over 2kms! We spotted Red-footed Boobies (you've guessed it - they've got red feet...), Great and Magnificent Frigatebirds, cheeky Galapagos Mockingbirds, Sea Lions and Marine Iguanas. I'm sure I've forgotten other things we saw.

18 Lunch onboard

We had lunch on deck - with a juvenile Brown Pelican watching greedily from the dingy in case we dropped any scraps. We also saw our first Marine Turtle who saw alongside the boat.

28 Cute

In the afternoon, after a siesta, we made the short journey in the dingy to Prince Phillip Step's. When we got there we found some very big sleepy Sea Lions blocking our path so we had to clap our hands loudly to get them to move. They reluctantly leapt into the water.

20 Frigate bird

Genovesa is a bird of a bird paradise and so we spotted more Frigatebirds, nesting Galapagos Doves, Mockingbirds, Red-footed Boobies with their chicks, Storm Petrels, Red-billed Tropicbirds and a Short-eared Galapagos Owl. Maria was very excited by this - it was her first sighting of him in six months.