First, if you are following this blog note that I posted twice yesterday (Sunday). I hope to get this one out early Monday but it may be later. So you didn’t get two e-mails by mistake, there is another post.

Morning on Fernandina

In our previous daily episode (interrupted by those pesky questions and answers) we had finished the afternoon of day four. Day five found us exploring Fernandia Island in the morning and going back to Isabela Island in the afternoon but we had moved to Punta Vicente Roca. Here’s our Day Five schedule.

As you can see, in the morning we had a choice of a long or a short walk. I took the long one and Kathleen took the short one. My long one was excellent as we got to see more of the usual animals and I finally got some good shots of the Sally Lightfoot crabs as well as lots more pictures I like of the marine iguanas, sea lions and a Galapagos hawk. Today’s walk was all over some incredible lava with huge fissures as you can see from the pics.

Moving around on the lava could be dangerous. Our naturalist guides ROCKED at keeping us safe

Of course we got to see more marine iguanas

And more…but they are always interesting

Our guide pointing out a disintegrating skeletal remains that will soon become part of the soil.

A Galapagos Hawk

The lava formations were amazing

As was the cactus growing out of the lava with no water at all

Again, awesome lava and a bleak landscape.

This is a Sally Lightfoot Crab

They are very colorful. When they are young they are pretty much black but get more colorful as it gets older

Looking across the strait to a volcano

Back to some cute marine iguanas

I mean come on, these guys are cute, right?

OK, not this one

This one is going swimming

More Sally Lightfoot

See the differences in the colors

And we found this baby sea lion pup waiting for it’s Mom to come home from finding food.

Another of our marine iguana friends.

Afternoon cruising around Isabella

Our afternoon choices were fairly limited. Since we SURE would not be doing the “Deep Water Snorkel” we had a choice of a tender ride or a tender ride. We chose the tender ride 😜. We took the earlier of the two because they wanted to use the later ones for the people coming back from the snorkeling.

This one was very cool. Even though we are seeing some of the same animals, we are seeing totally different habitat and varying landscapes. This one included sightings of lava gulls, female frigate birds, more blue-footed boobys, sea lions and penguins again! YEAH! We also got to see some amazing geology. Here’s what we saw:

Our guide, Juan Carlos, points out all the stuff we miss

This is a Lava Gull. It’s hard to believe there are a lot more bird species we have not seen

These marine iguanas were way above us on a cliff. How they got there I have no clue

You can see how high in this shot

A pair of blue footed boobys

We have decided that this is a female frigate bird

As much as I wanted to get a photo of a male frigate bird, they were just not to be found. We were told some of the ones we saw might be males but since it was not their mating season, they did not have their big red pouches inflated.

Did you know that blue footed boobies can squirt poop for up to 8 feet. We tried to stay at least that far away.

This is a Galapagos seal pup or that’s what I have in my notes. Different than a sea lion but I can’t tell.

An underwater cave. That water color is has not been enhanced. It is just that color.

Another underwater cave

A marine iguana starting his climb

Another seal pup

Check out the lava fissure

Mama came home

As I write this, we are sitting in the airport in Quito waiting for our flight to Miami. Had to be awake at 2:50 to make this flight at 6:30. The airport is packed. It took us an hour to get through all the checks and we are in Business Class so we were quicker through check in. Then we had go through security (computers out, belts and watches off but you can keep your shoes on which is good since I have my boots on and they are a pain to lace)

It seems as if all the flights in and out of Quito are either very early in the morning or very late at night. Part of our group that was going to Houston left around midnight and others around 2:30 am. We did not hear of anyone who had a midday day flight so everyone was either up really early or still up really late. Looking at the departures boards it looks like very little departs Quito after about 9:00 am until late tonight. That is only a good thing in one way…unlike Miami airport where everything was closed prior to our 6:30 am flight down here, here everything is open. I told Kathleen with the schedules the airlines have in Quito, this is the only time they can sell anything. And when I say everything is open, I mean EVERYTHING! You can buy a Panama hat (which comes from Ecuador) at 30% off right in front of me 😜.