Galapagos Day 5 - Isabela Island

We started our fifth day in the Galapagos by boarding a water taxi at 7am. We rode for more than 2 hours on this little boat with all our luggage and several other people. As our boat pulled into the pier at Isabela Island we were surrounded by crystal clear blue waters and an absurd amount of wildlife! There were sea lions trying to drive boats (See picture), they are so funny how they really don’t care about humans, they just lay where ever they want! The contrast between how amazingly graceful they are underwater and how silly and clumsy they are on land is really shocking! Jeremy got some great footage of them losing their balance and flopping all around one of the boats. We saw penguins swimming all around. Penguins in the galapagos can swim on the surface of the water (like a duck) or dive and swim completely submerged! They are crazy fast underwater too! There were birds flying all around (frigate, pelicans, herons, boobies, and many more that we couldn’t identify). Did I mentioned this was all seen before we even docked the boat?

Then we took a short boat ride to a small grouping of islands right off Isabela called Tintoreras which are uninhabited by people or any invasive species. We walked around the island which was made up of jagged black lava rocks---it looked like another planet! Isabela and it’s neighboring islands are the youngest part of the archipelago. The islands were formed by underwater volcanos and the “land masses” continue to move with the tectonic plate below which means that the islands to the west are the youngest and the farther east you go, the older the islands are (and the more they are eroding!). 

After walking around the Tintoreras and seeing those bizarre marine iguanas again and we came to a small channel that is connected to the larger bay/open ocean by a small passage. This channel (only 1 ft of water in some parts) was filled with white tipped reef sharks! Remember how I mentioned that these were the only sharks that can “rest” and don’t need to be swimming to circulate water through their gills? Well they like to “rest” in warm water like the little channel. There were at least 30 of them! 

Then we hopped in the water (not in the channel with the sharks) and snorkeled for awhile. The water was COLD, but along came a sea lion who was having so much fun posing for us! We played with him for almost the entire snorkel time. The rule is to stay 6ft from all galapagos creatures but the sea lions have missed the memo. They come right up to you and of course in water they can move so much faster than you that they get to define the closeness rule! :)

After our snorkel, we rode along the Tintoreras from the water and saw a lot more birds, then we got back to the pier and took a short ride to see wild flamingos! Amazing that this island is home to both penguins AND flamingos! We stopped at a tortoise hatchery and saw “happy turtles” (Although if you ask me, the lady on the bottom doesn’t look incredibly pleased). 

We grabbed lunch and headed to our hotel. We are staying right on this beautiful natural beach with soft sand and sections of jagged black lava rocks. We took a nap to the sound of the waves and have been exploring Islabela this evening. Tomorrow we will hike Sierra Negra, one of the 5 active volcanos on this island. Thanks for checking in!