Galapagos Adventure: Monday 20 Feb 2012.

Spent the night anchored in the calm and peaceful bay, lovely sunsets. Weighed anchor at 6am and motored to Fernandina Island. This island has the largest colony of marine iguanas, the last volcanic activity was in April 2009 and it is one of the most active islands with the coast rising 3-10cm per year. We saw a huge colony of marine iguanas digging out and fighting over nesting holes. A Galapagos hawk flew over hunting and the iguanas all scattered – one running over m y foot! The females were fat with between 1-5 eggs, the males were in a bachelor group sunning themselves. The snorkelling was different – the water was very clear but VERY shallow with algae-covered rocks just below my belly and little room to use my flippers. In the afternoon we had a 2hr “navigation” back to Isabela Island – to Black Turtle Beach (black rocks, green turtles!) at Vicente Roca Point. We could not land but went on a panga ride at 2pm into the cave where we saw a sea lion resting on a ledge about 12ft above the water, with no apparent means of getting up there! Also saw an octopus climbing the wall inside the cave and blue boobies nesting on the ledges outside. Snorkelling from the panga I saw a a huge green turtle within touching distance but did not stay in for long as we were getting stung with jelly fish. On our flight from Quito-Miami Jan and I sat next to a Canadian Zoologist and tour guide(Chris) who had been on the M/S Baluga with Darwin a couple of times, and he told us of an incident at the cave by Black Turtle Beach: He had been snorkelling with his 14-year-old son and dived down to take a photo of a pelican from underwater. Looking up he could no longer see the pelican but was then hit very hard on the leg by an unknown creature. He surfaced and called the panga to get everyone out of the water. He was last to board, making sure all his clients were safely on board first. His son, who had witnessed the incident from the surface, through his snorkelling mask, told h is Dad that he had been hit by a big shark. Darwin went down and searched the area from underwater and reported seeing a large Galapagos shark in the cave. Darwin’s theory was that the shark had seen reflection off Chris’s underwater camera and had attacked assuming he was a fish but breaking off its attack when it realised Chris was not a fish and too big for it to swallow whole!! He did however take the skin off Chris’s shin with his rough hide. We crossed the equator again and had a celebratory cocktail of amaretto and orange juice in the bridge as the GPS showed 00:00. Arrived in Puerto Egas at 11pm doing 11 nots