January 29, Sunday – Galapagos, Ecuador – San Cristobal

We had breakfast this morning at the hotel with Jim and Phyllis…it was good to see old friends and familiar faces after being on the road for the last six weeks with just ourselves and tour guides for company.  Paul is feeling a bit better today so hopefully he is over the worst of the stomach bug. 

Then it was an early departure for the airport and the Galapagos with our landing in San Cristobal, one of the four inhabited islands of the archipelago.  The bus dropped us off at the pier where we all wandered around the bay front, the shops and the pier for a while.

The Galapagos is renown for it's wildlife and we didn't even need to leave the sidewalk to get our first wildlife viewing...there was wildlife everywhere.  

There were a lot of sea lions

including one floating on his back with his flippers in the air.

There were also a lot of sea lion pups nursing.  Some were almost as big as their mom.

We also saw:

marine iguanas

lots of Sally Lightfoot crabs

and brown pelicans.

We took Zodiac rafts out to our boat.  On the way we saw a rather derelict boat that had been commandeered by some sea lions.

We were on board the Islander by late morning for lunch, a briefing and then off on our first excursion.  Paul stayed on the boat (still feeling a bit under the weather) and Mary headed off for a walk up Frigate Hill with views of the island and the main bay.

And the bay where the HMS Beagle (Darwin’s ship) anchored. 

On the walk she saw:

many lava lizards

a yellow warbler

a Galapagos flycatcher

and San Cristobal Ground finches.

At the top of the hill there were lots of Magnificent Frigatebirds flying around.

The group was back on the ship by late afternoon and we all got settled in.  The boat has only 24 cabins, 38 guests (it holds 47 so we are not full) and 30 crew members.