Galápagos

We spent nine days in Las Islas Galápagos and it was amazing. Words really cannot describe all we saw and did. We went to nine different islands and a couple of islets and saw almost all of the animals that are there at this time. It was surprisingly cold (really windy) and the water was freezing (20 degrees C, think California water). We spent seven days on a sailboat and two days on the main island, Santa Cruz. The animals are not at all afraid of people and we could walk right up to them and they would either ignore us or just look at us. Baby sea lions would come up to us and try to touch us. We saw many different types of birds including frigates with their red pouches puffed up, blue footed boobies doing mating dances, baby albatrosses that are super fat and fluffy, giant pelicans, and so many others. Many of the birds had eggs and babies and they didn´t even blink an eye as we walked right up to them. It was awesome! We did a lot of snorkeling (Shannon had to wear two wetsuits and was still freezing) and got to swim with sea lions! They are so playful and would swim so close to us they almost touched us. They imitated our movements and did flips and jumps. Kevin really enjoyed this and spent extra time swimming with them (until the guide made him get out because a large male was swiftly approaching). The sea lions liked Kevin so much that they followed him out of the water wanting to play more! We also saw tons of green sea turtles (the highlight was when a sea lion swam behind one pushing it around), lots of white-tipped reef sharks (and Shannon didn´t even freak out), starfish, penguins, many types of rays, and even some bombs that the U.S. army left behind. We saw all the different types of island habitats ranging from lava to forest to desert. It was the dry season so many of the islands looked dead as the trees and plants were dormant. It never rained on us so we had good luck! We also went to the highlands and saw the giant Galapagos tortoises. They are so big and gentle. They just eat, sleep, and lay in pools of water. We even saw some dolphins that followed our boat putting on a fabulous show complete with jumps and flips. Our last day we spent scuba diving at Gordon Rocks, the premier place to see hammerhead sharks. We were not supposed to go there as Shannon is terrified of sharks and did not want to swim with hammerheads but we had some trouble with the law and plans changed. Apparently there are only three diving agencies in Galapagos that have licenses to dive, they got these licenses by taking a course, the last of which was offered in 2002. The other agencies have business permits and usually there is no problem but sometimes the park authorities decide that only the three agencies with licenses can go out. This just happened to be one of those days. We left at 5:00 AM to try to avoid problems but got stopped at the park checkpoint and were told that we could not go and had to go back. We spent about three hours trying to get around this and finally took a bus which was not checked. The rangers were not smart and let the car with all the equipment through so we just met them at the boat and headed out. We had to go to a different location though. It was an amazing two dives! The visibility was pretty good and we saw tons of fish including huge schools of barracuda, mullets, yellow fin tuna, and of course hammerheads among other things. Shannon was so scared to see the sharks that she cried but after the first time was not quite as scared and even swam towards them (keeping plenty of other people in between her and the sharks of course). Kevin was really excited to see hammerheads and glad that he got to see lots of them. It was definitely a great experience and very different than any of the other dives we had done. All in all, it was an awesome trip and the highlight of our travels so far! Now off to see our friends Dan and Emily who were in Peace Corps with us and now live in Ecuador.