Amazingly we are allowed to sleep in today! No activities scheduled until the late late hour of 8am today. I successfully slept through the anchor chain again -- I think my brain has started to normalize the sound.
Today was a comparably speaking less active day: we began with a zodiac ride (wet landing again) to Urbina Bay for a nature walk. But the real highlight was the ride out there -- we found ourselves in a ridiculously large pod of bottlenose dolphins. (Dolphin Bay is not a real name, I'm just calling it that because there were so many dolphins). These guys were jumping up, chasing each other, huge splashes, it was amazing. Here's Yeye's best shot. I'm going to tell myself he made some color filtering adjustments...because my photos were nowhere near this level of brilliant blue!
Though nowhere near as pretty, here are some videos I took to try and capture the volume of activity going on:
After watching the dolphins for a good while (honestly I could have stayed another hour), we landed on Urbina Bay for the nature hike. We were expecting to view iguanas but instead quickly happened upon some small tortoises. I'm pretty sure this turtle stayed in the exact same position for hours.
The only change was when someone got a little close and it tucked its head inside a bit.
Check out the slow chew...reminds me of the Zootopia sloths. 😆
This was the last item left on Ian's Galapagos wish list. Well...also whale sharks but those are out of season, so this was the last one on his reasonably possible list.
Here is our leader for the afternoon walk - Salvador. He specializes in snorkeling too and has been doing this for so long that he really seems to know everything about the plants and animals in the Galapagos. (He's showing us a discarded tortoise shell).
There were a few iguanas too.
Also some nice flowers:
Today's lunch was particularly colorful so I figured it deserves a photo spot in today's blog. The Ecuadorean specialty on the left there was my favorite (a pork/beef kebab like thing on pita with vegetables).
After some energy- refreshing naps, we set off on our pre-dinner excursion: zodiac wildlife cruise along Volcan Ecuador. Nainai got the primo spotting seat this time:
Unfortunately there wasn't a ton of wildlife to be seen (or maybe we've just gotten more demanding because the "common" stuff isn't exciting anymore...). Here's a cool shot from inside a cave created by constant wave erosion. Baba, Nainai and I had decided to skip the afternoon snorkeling in favor of catching a few more zzzs but Yeye went and said underwater this cave is amazing because there are dozens and dozens of turtles all around.
We did catch a few but presumably it was much better via underwater. Here's my best sighting:
More blue-footed boobies were spotted...I'm going to start short-handing to BFBs.
Though I will say the cliff wall that we were cruising along was pretty cool looking.
Okay - ONE more BFB shot.
Here's a shot of the cave from the outside. Such cool colors, eh?
After we got back onboard, there was a ship party in celebration of passing over the equatorial line. Great background scenery for the occasion!
Screenshot of the monumental moment:
The officers all joined us for a congo line party.
We were rewarded with "I crossed the Equator" pins.
Closing it out today with a photo of tonight's dessert -- I was very impressed with the cherry-blossom-esque design with jelly/sauce.
And I'm told this is now officially the middle of the cruise - vacation half over! *Tear* Tomorrow is our "return to quasi-civilization" day -- will hopefully finally have some reliable wifi/phone service!
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