Tag: sharks

Galapagos – Isabela island

The second half of our trip involved escaping Santa Cruz (& the island’s biggest city of Puerto Ayora) in favor of hanging on Isabela, the largest island with 5 active volcanoes but limited population & a tiny little sand-road capital town of Puerto Villamil. It seems many people visit the island on cruises but don’t stay overnight & those who do, only stay a night or 2. We fell in love with the place, enjoyed some insane day trips (snorkeling & an active crater volcano), snorkeled daily at the magical Concha de Perla, celebrated carnival & even had our own local go-to restaurant.

The sweet little town of Puerto Villamil
Our first snorkeling experience at Concha de Perla, a little lagoon-like atmosphere bordered by lava rocks, featuring these cool tunnel formations good for exploring & reached by walking through mangroves.
On our first snorkeling trip (for free, no guide needed, 15-min walk out of town from hostal, we saw 2 eagle rays, a playful penguin, marine iguanas swimming & lazing about, tons of cool fish & sea lions sleeping under the bench.
Lazy marine iguana

Playful penguin

https://youtu.be/10pfRMcl5Co

5hr hike to top of Sierra Negra, an active crater volcano


Malene, a cool ass chick from Denmark we met on the boat, hung with us for awhile on Isabela & for this incredible snorkeling trip to Las Tuneles which included a first stop at this dope place containing quite a surprise.
We dove down to a shark den filled with white tipped reef sharks. OMFG it was amazing!!!

Please take the time to watch this 10 second video of the shark den. Trust me, it’s worth it. 

https://youtu.be/i57FA33hzbY

School of golden rays

Seahorse hanging in the mangroves
The biggest sea turtles I’ve ever seen. And lots of them.

This one was as long as me & its head was as big as me. Yes that’s me.
Las Tuneles

We saw a couple massive eagle rays in a tunnel as well as the large white tipped shark below
Marbled ray
Blue-footed booby showing off. We were lucky enough to watch 2 blue-footed boonies perform their mating dance.

Relaxing at happy hour after an amazing day of snorkeling
We rented bikes & hiked uphill to a nice lookout point over Isabela
We were finally able to see flamingos. We had tried a couple other times to see them in their typical habitat but they were a no show.
Isabela’s carnival celebration started the Saturday before Ash Wednesday & continued for 4 days. Lots of body paint, spray cans full of foamy body paint, water balloons, loud music, salsa, drinks & food til the early morning hours.

On our second snorkeling trip to Concha de Perla, among several other types of marine life, we swam real close to penguins. For once, they weren’t darting every which way being their elusive selves. Rather, they were floating much like ducks in a group of 3 & floated right up next to us. K, G&I had our masks half out of the water silently watching when after about 3 minutes, G asks “What are those?”. Trying not to drown due to laughter, I quickly responded “they’re penguins!”. It was first & only time of trip where those little guys weren’t  zipping past us so it was real nice (& unusual) to get a real close look. 

On our last snorkeling outing to Concha de Perla on our last day on Isabela, K&I came upon the little dock after a tour group had just arrived. People everywhere. We both silently cursed as we assumed we wouldn’t have the same amazing experiences given all the people. Boy were we wrong. After about 15 minutes, a young male sea lion slid into the lagoon from the lava rocks in low tide & slipped in right under me. Of course we attempted to follow him but clearly he was pretty quick. We guessed right & followed him into the mangrove tunnels where not only did we find him, he proceeded to swim & play with us for the next 15-20mins. He’d come swimming quickly right at me, making this intense eye contact & then within 4-6 inches of my mask, he’d quickly dart away. He was doing spins & twirls & flips, swimming all around us, darting every which way. He was rolling on the sea floor, then tried to pick up shells & other debris before he blew a big bubble that came directly up towards me. I reached out my hand & popped it & he seemed to respond kindly as he proceeded to continue blowing multiple bubbles at us. He’d disappear for a minute & then we’d think the games were over & K&I would celebrate with high-fives, when all of a sudden, he’d appear out of nowhere to seemingly surprise us & the games would start all over again. It was the most amazing magical experience being so up close & personal to this little guy. We kept our space, respected his, let him take the lead, & weren’t frantically moving about sticking cameras in his face to get the best shot. Perhaps it’s ridiculous but I think he responded to that. Eventually it had to end. But by this time, we considered him a friend so we nicknamed him “Jugue”, short for “jugueton” which means “playful” in Spanish. I love Jugue. 

Galapagos – Cruise aboard Nemo III

The girls & I decided it was a must to get on a boat as part of our 1.5 week visit to the Galapagos in order to visit islands inaccessible via day trips from the main island of Santa Cruz. Because the cruises can be quite expensive & we wanted a nice boat with a limited number of passengers, we decided to roll the dice & wait to book a last minute deal for a reduced price given it was low season. Gina & I had success while basking in the sun in Montanita & booked us a cruise aboard the Nemo III, a gorgeous catamaran with a capacity of only 15 passengers, a phenomenal crew, amazing food & an informed, energetic naturalist guide Sara. What was out of our control were the fellow passengers but we were thankfully blessed with the best group of people who were fun, laid back, interesting, excited to explore & embracing of our goofiness… so much so, the group ended up endearingly calling us “the weirdos”. This was perhaps due to the fact that we were always overly excited to discuss, witness, document on video & laugh while rehashing later many fascinating yet normal parts of nature including mating rituals of various species, failed attempted mating rituals of giant tortoises, & odd bathroom behavior of land iguanas, penguins & golden rays. It’s all a part of nature so why not embrace it?




It’s not everyday you can read 0 degrees N/S on the compass. The equator is pretty dope.
We reached Darwin Bay in Genovesa to hike the Prince Phillip Steps to bird watch. Who knew I’d get so into birding?
The elusive red-footed booby. And yes, of course towns sell tees emblazoned with “I love boobies”. Keeping it klassy everywhere.
The less famous masked Nasca booby has boring grey feet but she was protecting her eggs which was pretty adorable.
The male magnificent frigatebird inflates its red sac & makes a loud noise to try to attract females in its mating ritual. Apparently female frigatebirds are drawn to the males with the biggest sacs. Interesting.
Deep water snorkeling in Darwin Bay
This is one of the maybe 40 big hammerhead sharks we saw snorkeling up close & personal. Within 5 minutes in the water, Captain Henry helped G&I find a pack of 12 hammerheads swimming awfully close. It only got better from there with a pack of 30+ manta & golden rays circling us so of course that means I have to dive deep to get as close as possible to the mantas. We saw a Galapagos shark, supposedly the most dangerous in these waters, yet minding its own business. And at the very end of the session, I spied a sea turtle & I swam off after him only to lose him but thankfully was met by another school of hammerheads. The entire experience was unreal. I’ve never seen so much action before involving large marine life, even diving. I’d just stay in one spot with my eyes trained on the deep blue watching for shadows that almost always turned into something really fantastic. It was K’s first true snorkeling experience & I told her it was all downhill from here.
There was no motivating this sleeping sea lion into coming to swim with us. Next time.
Kayaking off the Nemo during rest time

We woke up to this view between Santiago & Bartolome Islands after an overnight cruise from Genovesa.

Explored the lava flow fields on Santiago Island.


We snorkeled at Sullivan Bay in Santiago & saw sea turtles, penguins (quite elusive & darting all over while fishing), white tipped reef shark & sea lions (see below; quite curious & into close swim-bys).
My number 1 marine life I was dying to see was the giant manta ray. After snorkeling & right before lunch, I was alone on deck chatting with Pedro, the 2nd captain, when he abruptly pointed & yelled “orcas”. I ran to the bow to check it out while he ran aft to notify all the other passengers. They certainly looked a bit like orcas but only bc they were so big. But they were indeed giant manta rays with wing spans of 25-35ft. There was a school of them swimming with our boat. Word is that when they’re in a group, they are quite curious. So of course I was repeatedly asking, no begging, Diego, the first captain, if I could jump off our (moving) boat to swim with them. The answer was consistently no, accompanied by a knowing smirk, so while I didn’t get to swim with them, I did get a pretty incredible bird’s eye view. Love love love the Galapagos. It makes dreams come true.

Here’s a video of the giant manta ray (& our funny reactions)

https://youtu.be/G-mkbroR2Mc

A little post-lunch triangle dominoes with Owen & Griffin, 2 great kids & lucky nephews of Patty & Cameron.

We hiked on Santa Cruz Island at Dragon Hill with the goal of seeing land iguanas (we were very lucky seeing upwards of 15) as well as marine iguanas, lava lizards, & some quite interesting / revolting dragon poo porn (of course captured on video bc we’re weirdos but I’ll spare you the gritty details).

Marine iguanas
Land iguanas. These boys are big.
Nemo III group photo staged by a land iguana
To cool off from the hot hike, GK&I jumped from the front of the boat & swam under the boat through the 2 hulls. It reminded me of doing the same thing with Sara in Croatia. Gotta love catamarans.



Cameron’s driving!

Gina’s pretend driving!
Another rousing round of triangle dominoes with Owen!
Giant tortoise

We happened upon 2 giant tortoises mating. We knew bc the male was making a really loud sound. So we scrambled through the forest to find them, led all the way by our guide Sara who, by this point, had fully embraced our weirdness. These creatures tend to do everything real slow so thankfully we came upon them towards the end of the session. I waited with a few others to watch the dismount bc the male dwarfed the female in size. Only then did the real fun begin & we noticed the male tortoise had mounted the female backwards. We could see the female’s head, still hidden deeply in her shell with an imagined look of disgusted shame. There will be no baby tortoise as a result of that session. Kate, who works for the WWF, said it great by “no wonder they need the research center to help with breeding bc these males in the wild have no idea what they’re doing”. Hysterical. And again, video-documented of course.