Day 9 - Saturday, March 18

North Seymour and Santa Cruz (Black Turtle Cove)

This morning, we visited the small island of North Seymour, just north of Baltra. This is an island formed by geological uplift, as opposed to volcanic action. The land is generally flat, but strewn with boulders.

The dry landing was pretty tricky due to high surf and big rocks – and sea lions sleeping on the landing area.

Our hike on this island was one long scramble over boulder fields, although we did walk along a beach where we saw marine iguana nests and big surf where sea lions like to play.

Not far from the landing site, we walked through one of the major nesting areas of the blue-footed booby. We enjoyed learning a few more dance steps from these comical creatures.

Heading inland, we walked through the largest colony of magnificent frigate birds in the Galapagos. We were surrounded by frigate birds, including overhead ...

The word ‘magnificent’ here is a noun, not an adjective, and is part of the species name, distinguishing them from the other species in the Galapagos, the great frigate bird. The magnificent frigate bird has a reddish tinge to its feathers, while the great frigate bird has a greenish color.

We observed nesting sites and watched the male frigate birds trying to attract females by displaying their bright red pouches.

On the final loopof the trail, we saw our first land iguanas in the wild. They are quite colorful – generally yellow, but with orange and red hues.

They are over 3 feet long and can weigh over 13 pounds. Their preferred food is the prickly pear cactus, and we saw several in areas where cactus was growing.

Back at the cliff’s edge, waiting for the panga to carry us back to the ship, we saw another large land iguana and nesting swallowtail gulls. One of the gulls was sitting on an egg – she graciously stood and posed for the tourists to take pictures.

After returning to the ship around 11:00am (for another snack), Fran went out with the snorkeling group in the cold water along the cliffs of North Seymour. This was by far the best snorkeling of the trip.

We saw seal lions up close and personal, as well as sharks, king angelfish, yellow fin surgeonfish, sardines, sergeant fish, sea bream, misty grouper, starfish, orange coral, and bump head parrotfish. Our guide, Whitman, went snorkeling with us and did a super job of pointing out new fish and interesting formations.

In the afternoon we cruised to our next stop, Black Turtle Cove (Caleta Tortuga Negra) on Santa Cruz Island. This site is located on the northern portion of the island. The National Park Service has seemed this site to be sensitive to the impact of tourists and allows only boats with a capacity of 16 or fewer passengers to visit.

The guides had to turn off the outboard motors and paddle the panga through the coves and inlets surrounded by mangrove trees. We observed three different species of mangrove trees: red, white and black. We saw some marine turtles and black-tipped sharks, and a few pelicans. It was a beautiful spot, but a bit of a letdown after the incredible wildlife viewing of the past few days.