Thursday, March 10, 2011

Isabella, Galapagos March 2011

These shots are from our 3 days on Isabella. They are in no particular order.

The rock channel at Los Tintereras. Often, Galapagos sharks will gather in this calm water channel and folks can look down on dozens of them. But they all disappeared 2 weeks before we got there, some think in search of cooler waters.


Karen in the lava field below Sierra Negra. This was as far as I hiked that day. You can see the Pacific Ocean waaaayyyy off in the distance.

More iguanas lined up. They all face the sun in a row.
That's a frigate bird on the sign, the ones with the red throat sacs that they blow up during mating season.

A view from the hiking trail on Sierra Negra--the Pacific coast in the distance.

A school of large fish while snorkeling near Los Tintereras.


Sea lions playing near the dock. One sea lion pup had the marks of a shark bite on his side. Don't know how he survived.






Sea lions take us sunning spots on the local boats.






A sting ray in the sand channel. He's about 8' below me.






Hand feeding a yellow finch at our lunch stop on the Sierra Negra volcano hike.






The Pink Iguana Bar. There were iguanas crawling all over above the bar.






Sierra Negra volcano crater, the 2nd largest in the world, 10km x 7km. Its HUGE. The most recent flow from 2005 is near the top of the pic, the darker black.











Up close pelican. "I'm not moving for you!"






Local boats at port Vilamil on Isabella






Zoom in on those whiskers! He had a coupla females he was swimming with.






Ripples in the rock on the walk near Sierra Negra






Sierra Negra crater--that's a long ways down.











Some lucky folks got to ride I guess. Of course, since the first half of the day was a climbing hike, they may be for rescue when the heart gives out. I found some mushrooms in a pile of their dung (magic?). I surely would've liked to have riddent up to the volcano, but Jason won't have anything to do with horses.





A female iguana up close






Iguanas lined up like soldiers on the beach






Karen sitting by the edge of Sierra Negra.






Iguana orgy?






More iguanas lined up on the beach ready for assault.






Sea turtle, one of my favorite shots! The battery died and came back to life for just a few seconds to capture this green turtle shot.






Flamingos in a salt pond. It was going to be a public waterworks plant, but the project was stopped when the flamingos took up residence. There are so few places to see them these days.






I thought this coral looked like a giant set of molars.






A dried iguana egg. They nest in holes in the ground and the eggs dry up and blow away.






A collapsed lava bubble with ferns starting to grow.










A view of another cinder cone in the lava field around Sierra Negra. What a barren landscape it provides until something starts to grow. Here, cactus seems to be the first up.





Iguana close up at the bench where we waited for the snorkel boat.







A blue footed booby. Zoom and you'll see. We had some swimming by the boat, but you can't see their feet when they are sitting on the water or flying.






A big iguana who didn't skitter away.






Jason standing on the rim of the Sierra Negra crater.

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