Writing today from my boat which is currently moored off Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos.
Internet slow and expensive so will have to keep short out of necessity - a real shame as I have a lot to say!
Soon after landing at Baltra airport I knew this was going to be pretty special. Just waiting for the dinghies to take us out to our boat, I saw several sea lions, a marine iguana and a grey heron. Not bad for starters!
Having settled in on board, we then went out for a trip on to the dry land and have seen some pretty astonishing stuff. I kinda wish I'd taken Tania's advice and bought the expensive camera but instead I am looking at everything through my binoculars and trying really hard to take excellent mental photographs! Unfortunately they will be harder to share with the rest of you...
The first thing we saw were some more majestic marine iguanas just wandering around and basking in the sun. They are huge and very dark (camouflaging against the lava) and have to sunbathe in order to bring their body temperatures back up after swimming in the sea. The males are slightly larger and apparently they have seven females on the go at the same time!
The Sally Lightfoot crabs on the other hand stand out strongly against the rocks. They are a bright orangey red and I can't get over how many of them there are.
The land iguanas were harder to spot hiding in the undergrowth but we still managed to find three including a fully-grown male catching the last rays before bedtime.
But my favourite spot so far is a pair of flamingos just feeding in a salt water pond. Our naturalist says we were very lucky to see them and I couldn't get over how startling pink they are! Of course, you'll have to take my word for that as they will be tiny specks in the distance in my photos!
We also saw lots of other bird life including Darwin's finches and some Galapagos Mockingbirds. The unique thing about these Mockingbirds is that they don't mock. Having migrated here around 3.5 million years ago there wasn't really anything for them to mimic so the gene needed for that particular skill has slowly disappeared from the species.
Missing Jon but lots of nice people on the boat so will hopefully make some friends!
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