[Jules]

Tuesday 9th October

This was the first day that we got a lie in and we did land visits to north and south plaza with some snorkelling. The object of the snorkelling was to try to see Marine iguanas underwater. AS it turned out it was an overcast day and the iguanas were not all basked up and ready to go!

At the first snorkelling site it was very swelly, and hard to keep your self from being smashed onto the rocks. We didn’t see much to be honest.

So we returned to the panga and the driver dropped us at a different point. This was calmer and there were lots of sea lions on the rocks. We were warned to keep away from the three large males who would prefer you not to invade their territory.

I took Phil’s Sea and Sea camera in as the video mode on it is quite good and we were rewarded with some excellent sea lion action. You can see how playful they are by how they are playing tag with this piece of lettuce.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/julia.c...

The snorkelling was followed by lunch and land visits. Seeing marine Iguanas and sea lions again but also seeing land iguana one of which decided to stalk Fiona





We also saw birds of various kinds (you can tell I am not a twitcher can’t you?)



Later we watched a young sea lions pup searching for it’s mother teat, we cheered when it found it and it gave you a strong sense of the similarity between creatures.

On Tuesday afternoon the national park had allocated us Gorden’s rock as a dive site where we had planned two dives. It was really cold and the viz was crap (5m). The rock formations were interesting as it was lots of little bubbles in the rock but to be honest I was freezing and I couldn’t really concentrate on anything other than your teeth chattering. As we were about to call it a day we saw a ray and a sea lion but compared to the dives we had experienced earlier this felt a bit rubbish really.

The group ha the option of a second dive or a second snorkel but the maojority voted for hot showers and kit rinsing.

The diving part of our trip was over.
To be further continued


Wednesday 10/10/07

We went for a long walk on San Christobel in search of Giant Tortoises in the wild. I don’t know what I was expecting in terms of size. They were big though, and quite sleepy.

One went for a little walk whilst a few of us watched it.


The terrain was interesting and we heard and Saw mocking birds too.


There’s a problem here in that Goats and other mammal introduced by man put pressure on the environment and thus may affect the long term survival of the tortoises. Many people will know that when the Galapagos islands were first discovered there were loads of tortoises and they were plundered by just about everyone as a good source of meat for long voyages. Basically the ships filled their holds with them and they stayed edible for many months with no water or food.



After the long walk we went to civilisation… the main town in San Christobel where we purchased t- shirts and drank beer in bar (obviously just to do our bit for the local economy)

After retiring to Deep blue for dinner and watching the guides videos we returned to land by Rib to visit a local bar . And had the most bizarre game of pool ever. I should say at this point that firstly I am rubbish at Pool and secondly it makes it difficult when people are manhandling parts of your body.
Gary nabbed the best seat in the place


and the rest of us had a few polite beers.



Pic shows Kev, Jamesy and Ricardo (Rick to his mates)

We only went out for a couple but somehow that turned in many and some of us were a bit the worse for wear when we eventually returned to the boat.



Pic shows Lou, Kathy, Luis the dive guide, Kev, Jason, James, Rick