.... penguins at the equator ... who knew? .....

 our zodiac boat took us from the narel, towards the beach ... we were dropped in a cove and told to swim around the point to the next beach .... and look, someone saw a shark right there, go take a peep at it first .... so we swam ... some of us saw the shark ... some of us (julia) gave the shark a very wide berth .... we had two waterproof cameras, we took pictures of the volcanic bottom of the ocean ... and lots of fish ... no one got a pic of the shark ... or the sealion .... but we did get lots of penguin pics ....

drew was the first to make it to the rock where the penguins were standing ... when we first got there, three penguins awaited us ... we only have pics of two though, and i'm not sure where that third one went ... 

 in the pic below, you can see sophie, in her life jacket, swimming near the penguins ... i was really proud of how well she did with snorkeling ...

 the galapagos penguin is the only penguin that lives north of the equator ... we were actually just south of the equator with these .... the penguins have large groups on other islands .... isabela in particular .... small groups appear on a couple of the other islands, like this one ... but it's never a sure bet that you'll see them .... we felt awfully lucky that we did!

 this picture above is me with all three kids ... thanks andy for taking the pictures! ..... even though drew is swimming, not looking .... right then i said to them... REMEMBER this minute ... this moment ... how happy and exciting and crazy this is to be here with each other and with penguins .... THIS is why we go on trips ....

 galapagos penguins are only about 15 inches tall ... and five pounds ... my dog is five pounds ... and really the same size too .... if she were sitting there next to them, she'd be the same height ... maybe a bit shorter ....

 we really hung out near that rock for a long time ... enjoying the penguins ... they weren't entirely oblivious to us, but they certainly didn't seem to care that we were there sometimes you could tell they were watching us .... we tried to be not too loud and not too sudden with our movements .... i have trouble not being loud ... especially when i'm excited ... i was excited ....

 i'm only showing you about a tenth of our penguin pics ... i love the ones where my kids just look so happy .... and you can tell they are chatting with each other .... i remember one of the conversations was about the photo drew needed us to take of him so that he could use it as his facebook profile photo ... sophie and i discussed their flipper feet ... 

hooray for penguins ...
hooray for the galapagos islands!

.... shark!!! ...

my children had never snorkeled prior to our galapagos trip .... not real snorkeling ... i think some of them might have tried on friends' masks and snorkels at a swimming pool ... or walking into the surf at the beach ... but they'd never done real snorkeling ... where you aren't near the shore ... where you can't put your feet down on the bottom .... where there is abundant wild life, ocean life, to admire, watch, swim with ... or be scared of!

so ... after our walk to the top of bartholome, a shoooing of sealions off the dock, a zodiac ride back to the boat, and a quick change into swimsuits (the boys claimed the girls just weren't quick enough), and our boat zipped around the island to an inlet .... my family collected our masks and snorkels that the nice folks at the safari camp had set us up with .... we left most of our stuff on the boat, but had a bag of towels and water and sunscreen .... and we had our two waterproof cameras ... we hopped into the zodiac for our boatride ashore .... and we'd teach the kids about snorkeling at the shore then head out to the good stuff ....

we saw the sandy beach ... and we did not go there ... what?

sweet alejandro, our guide said, the best way to see the most underwater life is for him to drop us HERE and for us to swim around the point towards the beach .... ok then .... quick plan change ... make sure there's no hair breaking the seal of your mask ... hold your mask when you get in the water ... breathe normally .... swim don't sink .... stay together .... julia and sophie looked a bit sticken ... whadaya mean we jump in here ... we all had a moment where we just sat there looking at each other .... the dutch woman jumped in .... someone else jumped in ... and there sat five becks .... alejandro volunteered that he'd get our bags to the beach .... and there we sat ... we decided sophie should wear a life jacket ... she was wearing one anyway in the panga ....well then, julia decided she got to wear one too ... let's go ... all in  ...

RIGHT THEN when we were all ready to jump off the zodiac, a man about 15 feet away from us said SHARK, SHARK .... and alejandro said, HURRY, get in the water, go see the shark ....

hurry, get in the water, go see the shark .... that's just not a normal sentence, huh? again, my girls had that stricken look .... and there was some gentle nudging (no one pushed you, honey) and we were all in the water .... drew and i swam towards the shark ... julia swam away from the shark .... and andy (really truly the perfect dad)  helped sophie get situated and breathing through her snorkel .... sophie saw the shark .... and if you ask julia, did you see the shark, she'll tell you that she quite intentionally did NOT see the shark ....

so we snorkeled ... the kids figured it out easily ....

the water was cold, thought not too cold ... refreshing cold .... the water was actually VERY buoyant ... we asked later and the water is very mineral rich ... and very, very salty ... making us more floaty .... making the snorkeling, even without flotation assistance, quite easy ....

tomorrow's blog ... what we saw on that first snorkel .....

...climbing up ....

at this point in my travel journal, the family is visiting bartholome, a tee-tinsy island on the coast of santiago in the galapagos.... bartholome was the name of a sailor on darwin's beagle trip ... he was a pal of darwin's 

...so, after arriving to our sealion greeter at the dock on bartholome, we started climbing and walking ...

 the galapagos park services had build a woodedn walkway and stairs to the top of the island .... they did it to keep the land untrounced by humans ... but the land was mostly rocky ... actually, it looked like mars ... so there didn't seem to be too much that humans could mess up ... nonetheless, it appears the humans are good direction followers and stay on the path ....

this pic below is of our boat ...

 and here's a pic of the boardwalk .... complete with a lava lizard .....

it was very long ... very high ... lots of steps ..... and the sun was high and hot ... i think it maybe felt hotter because there was not greenery ... just lava rock and ash rock soaking up the heat ....

you can tell from the pics above and below that bartholome is quite arid ... super dry .... mars red ... moon gray .... the landscapes were other worldy really .... 

 bartholome is a "young island" ... there was eruption as recently (i think) as two hundred years ago ... darwin evidently walked on it when it was quite new ....

 when we got to the top of the volcano peak that is bartholome, we were greeted by a hawk hovering above us .... alejandro told us to enjoy its beauty, that galapagos hawks aren't a common sight ....

 we were at the top of this island and the hawk just hovered over us, seemingly staying in one spot, as it glided against the wind .... he (or she) must have been there a good ten minutes gliding for us .... then? she was nice enough to land and pose for shots ....

.... it made alejandro especially happy that the hawk landed for us ... just on the railing of the walkway where we were standing ...

from the railing opposite the hawk, this was the view :

we were overlooking two small inlets where we were going to snorkle after lunch ... we were HOT so the prospect of swimming in cold water was a happy thought ....

 that's the five of us, not quite at the peak of bartholome, opposite where the hawk had landed ... he's maybe fifteen, 20 feet away from us now ....

here are drew and i .... right over drew's shoulder is "the pinnacle" ... a pointy rock ... it's something of symbol of the galapagos ... a very well known geological feature ... there used to be two such pointy rocks, but during the time that the U.S. military had a base in the galapagos, the other point was taken out on a practice bombing run ... it was obliterated for practice ...

here's a good pic to see how high we were .... the point you see is where the sealion greeter was ... where our panga let us ashore ....

if you study that picture above, you can make out the narrow path/boardwalk that we came up .... and at the lower left you see a part of a circle underwater?

well, that circle is this:

 can you tell what it is? an underwater caldera ... a bowl ... a bit of an imploded volcano .... i'm not clear on the difference between a caldera and a crater ... but this is evidently a caldera ... or so i was told ... 

when we walked back down, our sealion had moved over to make room for a pal ... they were not interested in moving or letting us pass ... they were a bit snarly when anyone came close ... oh my!! they sound a bit like dogs when annoyed with humans ....

 but eventually, alejandro's clapping and whistling made one jump in the water ... the other was a bit more stubborn ... she just sat there blocking our way and barking back at him ....

but eventually she moved ... and we went back to the boat for lunch ... and then an afternoon of snorkeling ... which i'll tell you about tomorrow ...

... sleeping with sealions ....

... our monday adventure in the galapagos started SO early ... 5.45 wake up ... 6 o'clock breakfast, 6.30 drive to the bus ... bus to the zodiac ... zodiac to the yate narel ... and a 2 and half hour boat ride to bartholome that was made perfect by an impromptu dolphin show ....

on my itinerary for the week, each expedition says whether it is a "dry landing" or a "wet landing" so you know if you can wear your hiking shoes, in our case, sneakers ... or if it was wet, our water proof sandals (keenes or tevas) .....on our itinerary, it says bartholome is a "dry landing" UNLESS the sealions won't get off the dock ... and then it might be a wet landing ... ha ... i read that and was amused from the luxury of my orange couch at home ....but when we got there, the truth of it appears, there is one very small rock dock and it would be nearly impossible to get where you want to go from a wet landing ... read: not safe ... too rocky, water rough .... and of course, the favorite spot for sealions is the smooth, cool, damp dock that is mostly out of the surf ...

when we arrived at bartholome, our boat anchored and half the group got on the panga to shuttle to shore ... sophie (always on the first launch) took me with her ....and there was a single sealion on the dock ... alejandro did the clapping and whistling that guides use to annoy sealions ... to no avail .. that sealion was sound asleep ... not a BUDGE ... someone on our boat asked if he might be dead ... to unload us at the dock arturo simply keeps the engine going at a low speed into the dock .. the dock keeps us stationary ... if the motor was off, we'd drift with the surf ... so, rev the engine, remove your life jackets and toss them to the bottom of the boat for the next batch, and hop out over the bow ... oh, and dodge the sealion ... not a movement from the sealion as 7 of us walked by .... arturo took the panga back to get the rest of the group ... our group got brave and started taking close ups of the sealion ... posing with it ... JUST DON"T TOUCH IT ... that's strictly forbidden ....

sophie got in on the bravery ...next to the immobile sealion ....

that's her napping with it above ...

and our family arrived ... you can see a guy doing down on the dock like sophie had been ... and you can see three more becks on the panga ... andy and julia are taking photos ... drew looks completely unimpressed .....

this picture gives you a better idea about the size of the dock ....and the steps leading down into the ocean ...

 and this picture, finally drew is giving the sealion a glance ... and sophie has decided to go for more close ups .... here's the pic she's taking:

right there at the dock of bartholome there was a sealion on the dock, sealions in the sea, bright orange lightfoot crabs, marine iguanas black on the black rocks, pelicans, and lava lizards ... all in the first steps onto the island ....

 from where we stood on the small cement dock of barholome, you could see our boat and one other ... and behind them, pinnacle rock ... a geological oddity ... a rocky point that we'd swim at later ...

 but first we had to climb to the top of bartholome ... that's tomorrow's blog post ....

dolphin day ...

there's a map of the galapagos islands.... isabela is biggest, but not the easiest to get too, and not the most populous ... santa cruz is more of the "main" island ... baltra, where the biggest airport is, is a tiny channel away from santa cruz ... i believe the islands at the top of the map, aren't meant to have anyone step foot on them ... folks who go there, are divers and stay in the ocean and on their boats for the most part ....

that's a close up map of santa cruz ...do you see santiago? it's big ... i don't believe it is inhabited .. not sure if has ever been .... it is made up of two overlapping volcanos .... so lots of the land is just old lava flows ... still just rock .... but right next to it? to the east ... do you see bartholome? it is a tiny island... that's where we went on our first boat ride ... it is the farthest we went from santa cruz ...

 the boat ride out to bartholome was awesome ... we mostly sat on the bow of the boat ... enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, the distant islands, and conversation with our guide, alejandro ...

here's a pic of sophie at the bow of the boat ... straight ahead is daphne major ... one of the islands i read about before i traveled ... one group of scientists live there ... no one else is meant to go there ... and that is home port for them while they are studying the darwin finches on the next island over, daphne minor ...

 alejandro was explaining the islands that we could see in the distance ... telling us about what lived on each ... many of them he's never been on because no one goes on them ... they are being preserved ....
he told us that sometimes they see dolphins ... not usually though ... and moments later? dolphins!.... he pointed at the sea in the distance and we could see dolphins ... they seemed to be racing to us .. in fact, they were! ...

when the dolphins first got to the boat, sophie and i were the only ones in my family up at the bow ... she and i waddle walked all the way to the bow ... alejandro REALLY wanted us to sit down ... be careful!! ... but we both stood there kind of leaning over a bit to hold the low railing ... and right then, a dolphin jumped out of the water ... and HIGHER than sophie's head ... if we'd had our wits about us we could have reached out and touched it ... or at least taken an extraordinary photo ... instead? we squealed!! we laughed... we shouted ... really, we just squealed ... it was amazing...

 ... our squealing brought others to the bow .. including the rest of our family .... we had a ten minute dolphin show .... with dolphins jumping and gliding and swimming as they seemed to be drafting with our boat ....

 at one point there were four dolphins, packed like sardines, side to side, drafting on my side of the bow ... the kids said there were four more on their side ... so eight dolphins lined up and leading the way to bartholome ....

 we've seen loads of dolphins in hiltion head .. in florida ... but somehow this was different ... more private .. more remote ... more just for us ....

 i think that's santiago island out in front of the kids in that pic... from a distance, bartholome looks attached ... but there's a small channel separating bartholome from santiago ...

tomorrows blog? bartholome ... that one island has three or four or five days of blog worthiness ...