Too overcast for a dawn photo, so here’s the coffee, tea, and water station. That’s an urn of fine organic Ecuadoran coffee on the right, with a Euro coffee machine that makes latte machiatos, cappuccinos, and the like. Cold and hot water to the far right.

First off-ship activity: land on that beach to the left, walk into the interior, turn to the left and walk to cliffs on the other side, return.

This is the rock on the “right” end of the beach. Looks like funky sandstone, right? It’s compressed volcanic ash deposits from many different eruptions, if I have it right.

Red-footed booby condo. At least five families/nests here. Males build a nest then advertize it to the lady-birds. Location and nest quality are everything to the ladies, in that order. This is a safe tree in an excellent location.

Very red, those feet. Beak is a light blue.

Endemic locust.

Eastern-most point on Galápagos archipelago: Punta Pitt.

Blooming succulent, possibly common carpet weed.

Fighting male lava lizards. This is not territorial, it’s just to fight. They run in a circle, then use their tails to thwack the other guy. The male on the left has an advantage in this, as he has all his tail, and the opponent has a shortened tail.

This is Kicker Rock. It’s darned famous. Our captain circled it. Since it was mid-afternoon there were only a few birds, but several hours later, many would return from fishing expeditions, we were told.

Kicker Rock is actually two rocks. Those slabs of white on the sides: guano. Not mineralization or geologic formation. Next, we did a snorkeling expedition from the pangas. Lots of fish species and many sea lions. Very large sea urchin sand dollars. Fabulous snorkeling.

Pelican. Isla Lobos.

Candelabra cactus, with ever-present guano-ed rocks.

San Cristóbal vegetation.

Our cabin door and two windows, view toward stern.

Almost sunset. Remember this is the equator. Year-round, sunrise and sunset are at 6 am and 6 pm, or pretty darned close. No change. And the light changes fast.

This entry was posted in faunal, floral, outdoors on Friday, 15 July 2022 at 10:22 pm.
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