Ecuador Adventure #3, Española Island, Galapagos Islands

On Sunday we flew the 600 mile distance across the Pacific ocean from Quito to Baltra Island, Galapagos, where we boarded Celebrity’s Xpedition, a 300 foot long ship with an occupancy of 100 passengers. This is our home for the week. We started touring the islands by circling Daphne Island, and then cruising over to Espanola Island on Monday, where we took a zodiac, a motorized raft that transports 14 passengers, to a remote beach for a walk in the morning. We observed sea lions and a variety of birds and were impressed about how unimpressed the animals were with humans, virtually ignoring us. After returning to the ship for lunch, we circled back to the island for a more difficult hike across a rocky trail to observe more birds, including a “group” of albatrosses. Pinky and I trekked relatively slowly so as not to run into trouble with the difficult terrain. Needless to say, I’ve been taking a myriad of pictures, so many on just the first day. Tuesday was another day of exploration, this time on Floreana Island, with excursions in the morning and afternoon, separated by a lunch break on ship. The afternoon was highlighted by our observing blue footed boobys repeatedly diving from high in the sky into the water to catch fish.