Saturday morning

Internet was back long enough to publish Thursday's posts, but it's down again now. Will tee up a few more entries.

Today, wake up was 6:00am so we could visit the Island of Santa Cruz all day. I received service on my cell phone very briefly, but it's been down the remainder of the day. I'm getting really used to being out of touch!

While we've had cloud cover most days, today it rained lightly all morning. We first visited a cave carved by lava from a volcano. Then we went to an area where giant turtles live.

Friday afternoon walk

After lunch and some relaxing time, we leave on the small boats to visit Isabella island and search for land tortoises in the wild.

We found some and also saw a number of (very large) colorful land iguanas and darling hermit crabs.

I'm told we may have Internet access again sometime tomorrow.

Friday morning snorkel

When we returned from the boat ride/hike this morning, we quickly got into swimsuits and grabbed our snorkel stuff.

For the first time, we had quite a bit of direct sun, and it helped us view the glorious underwater landscape. Water was warmer than where we were yesterday, and we saw some wonderful things: sea lion, penguins, sea turtles, beautiful fish.

Underwater camera performed beautifully. So many amazing photos, will look forward to uploading highlights on Picassa when possible later. Internet still down, so preparing posts offline. Hard to choose only a few shots for this blog.

Is it Friday?

Monday is a dim memory now. Margaux declared yesterday at lunch that all the trouble we went to in order to get here was worth it--nice to hear!

When we leave our boat, we disembark on smallish pontoon-type boats. This morning we went on a boat ride along the shore and saw flightless birds (cormorants) building a nest and feeding their young. Also saw penguins (so cute!), sea turtles, sea lions and marine iguanas.

It is pleasantly warm here, but cloud cover keeps it from being too hot. After exploring the shoreline from the water, we stopped on an island and hiked up Darwin's volcano. Saw lots of
birds.

Note: noticed overuse of the word "nice" in previous post, and a typo. Takes too long to publish each post, so I'll resist my urge to edit.

Thursday afternoon hike

Went to the youngest of the Galapagos islands this afternoon where hordes of marine iguanas hang out. I feared this might be slightly creepy, but we're used to iguanas now and it was cool.

Also saw sea turtles, finches, lizards, sea lions and crabs. Much of the hike was on lava from a 2009 volcanic eruption.

Notable: a young sea lion on shore who had survived a shark attack. Didn't take pictures of that disturbing sight, but our guide said he'd seen worse cases survive. We sure hope the little guy makes it.

Nice pacing on this trip. Meeting each evening where we hear about options for the next day and sign up for certain activities.

Up at 7:00am daily due to intercom rise and shine. Then breakfast at 7:30am and morning activity at 8:16am. Lunch, with a little down time then afternoon activity. Nice dinner each night.

D and I didn't wear watches today, feeling very relaxed.

Internet is down. Satellite issue--not sure when or if it will come back. Preparing posts for whenever we can publish. Not possible to check email. Kind of nice!

Girls went to hot tub on boat deck after dinner. Nice that they can do that on our own.

Looking forward to tomorrow's excursions.

Underwater thursday

No Internet access at this time, so I'm preparing this for publishing when possible.

Here's highlights of what we saw while snorkeling this morning:

Snorkeling Thursday

Very impressive organization on this ship. We signed up in groups for either a boat tour, wimpy snorkel, or advanced snorkel experience. I would have selected the wimpy snorkel, but bravely went along with advanced snorkeling to stay with my tribe.

We all received mesh bags with our cabin number and a letter, then got whatever gear we needed. We were placed into groups according to our selected activity and language.

The water was advertised as 69 degrees F, so everyone used wet suits.

At the beginning of our excursion, we rode along the coast of an island and saw sea lions, sea turtles, penguins, crabs, and other birds. We went into a cave and could hear sea lions making wild monster sounds--hard to describe! At last, we hopped into the cool water and began snorkeling.

I prefer getting into cool water very slowly, one inch at a time. But, that wasn't an option today and it only took about 4 minutes for me to feel warm in my wet suit.

The twins took turns with the under water camera. After an hour, the camera froze. Back in the boat, everyone else with an under water camera reported their cameras were frozen too. Hopefully, after a nice rinse off and dry out, we'll be able to use that camera again.

This afternoon a hike through a dense gathering of iguanas is promised.