Galapagos - Adventures of an English “Marine Aquarist”!

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You are there with my wife's niece. Small world.

Yes small world. What on the same boat Cachalote explorer ? What was her first name ?

I’m not there now but I was there from around 15th May
 

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The fish are staring at me with hungry eyes.
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I do not know the details. I believe she is there now. I saw a picture of her with a tortoise on Jill's Facebook.
Not my child. I am hesitant to post any details. I couldn't find the pic on Facebook or I would have posted it.

The turtle was as big as her. I am sure it is a very special trip.
 
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So we continued our walk around the island of Chinese Hat for a while, the terrain is quiet rocky and basically volcanic rubble

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And guess who lives here with his mama who was off fishing for breakfast, aaaawwww......

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We continued to walk around Chinese Hat and the coast was wild with waves crashing onto the rocks, most if not all of which is volcanic

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And then we made our way back to the Cachalote Explorer. She was build in 1988 originally as a Canadian fishing vessel and ideal to handle the seas, although most of the time it was very calm in Galapagos, certainly in May when we were there.

She was completely refitted in 2018 and is now a first class motor yacht and ideal for exploration and quiet comfortable.

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We are still on the second day here and about to cruise to the next location
 
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So we then cruised for a short period until we arrived at Isla Rabida

This is a very small island with a high iron content in the rocks which gives them a very red colour. But first we met one of the main inhabitants....

The Blue Footed Bird (censors!)

These pictures were taken from about 2 metres away so no zoom lenses here. Infact when we arrived the little sweetheart fired a long jet of poop at us!! Lol

But first I laid back for a while

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So we then cruised for a short period until we arrived at Isla Rabida

This is a very small island with a high iron content in the rocks which gives them a very red colour. But first we met one of the main inhabitants....

The Blue Footed Bird (censors!)

These pictures were taken from about 2 metres away so no zoom lenses here. Infact when we arrived the little sweetheart fired a long jet of poop at us!! Lol

But first I laid back for a while

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The blue footed *****! Idk if that is sponsored but it's the correct spelling for that specie ;)

Edit: blue footed boo.bie :D
 
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After having jet propelled poo fired at us from the local bird, we continued around Isla Rabida to our landing zone and you can clearly see the colour of the rocks and sand due to the high iron content.

The pictures of the pelicans were taken from around 2 metres, and they simply weren’t bothered by us at all.

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And then we started our walk of the island......

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We continued our walk around the island, Isla Rabida, the boat was moored just off shore

You can see in the last picture a very good example of what the animals and birds were like with humans

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Our journey around Isla Rabida came to an end and we came across a pair of pink flamingos, which is unusual as most left the island a while ago

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And then there was an amazing moment, unfortunately I didn’t get it on camera.

If you picture the scene in the sunset, a sea lion was swimming right on the shore line hunting for fish, and he caught one, a rather large one. And then one of the pelicans decided it was his supper, so stole it off the sea lion. This fish was as big as the pelicans mouth and we thought no way can it swallow that. But down it went!!

The last sunset picture shows the pelican flying off in the distance, by the time I got the camera out! Lol

And what a magical place Isla Rabida was.....

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Loving this. :)
Thanks for taking the time to follow the adventure Simon, and all you other guys who are reading

This is just the start of the adventure, the best and animal pictures are to follow.
 
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Great stories and pictures! Thanks for sharing your vacation with us.
Your more than welcome and thanks for reading about it, it was a bit of an adventure!
 
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The alert for this thread is my favorite. Thanks for sharing it lets me live vicariously thru your trip thru your pics and descriptions
Your more than welcome and thanks for taking the time to share the adventure with me. It also makes it more interesting for me as well, and any questions please ask or if anyone wants additional pictures I have ‘alot’. I’m being selective at the moment
 
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We woke up early on 17th May 2019 to the island of Isabela

Isabela is the largest island In Galapagos and is the shape of a sea horse, the equator runs through it as well.

It’s also the only place in the world were you find penguins in their natural habitat in the northern hemisphere

We will soon see all sorts of wild life, and volcanoes, as we venture around Isabela over the next few days.

To start the day there was a visit to tortoise hatchery, but to be honest I couldn’t be bothered with this short trip, having already seen giant tortoise, and my view was also rather more appealing

So for the next few hours I just absorbed my surroundings on the most comfortable sun lounger

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Bye......

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The view was simply stunning

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Around lunchtime 17th May 2019 we started our journey to the Sierra Negra Volcano.

We met a few of the locals first who, well, were a little sleepy.....

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Sierra Negra is one of the most active volcanoes in Galapagos and located on Isabela island

It last erupted 26th June 2018 so is still very active and when we arrived at the summit your could see steam and larva flows in the distance. Fortunately we were on the opposite side.

The base of the volcano is around 100m deep and the lava flows you can see were from the eruption in 2005

When we arrived at the summit the view was breathtaking

If you look into the distance on the middle right of the first picture, you can see the lava flows glowing amongst the steam

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The volcano was simply huge

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