After returning to the Punta Pitt area from our dolphin adventure, it was too late to do the hike that was originally planned. Since we had a bit of time, the pangas motored us around the island shoreline. We got a nice picture of our boat, along with another much smaller boat that we saw at many of our stops after this. Here, you can see the size difference.
This is what that boat looked like …
This island had very pretty formations and colors. The orange-ish rock was a nice contrast to the teal green water.
Neat, there was a lava tube cave up here. There are also a couple of young sea lions up on these rocks. You’ll probably have a difficult time spotting them!
A few pelicans were also hanging out in the area.
However, most of the landscape was full of Swallow Tailed Gulls. These are the only nocturnal gulls in the world. They hunt for squid and small fish at night.
The cliffs with their layers really looked interesting.
Along the water, there were marine iguanas clinging to the rock face. You can see how far up they climbed – the waves left the rocks at the bottom wet.
This is a great video to showing how our dinghy was moving up and down a LOT. I’m not sure how I got this video to be so stable on the horizon while I was moving so much! Our big boat also rocked a lot – we were very relieved we wore scopolamine patches and used Dramamine to prevent motion sickness. That’s Jeff in front on this video.
Time to head back to the boat for lunch! This time, we remembered to take a picture of the menus for the day. Here was the lunch menu…
We both chose the same thing – the BBQ pork rib option.
First, the yummy veggie starter…
There was also the shared beet salad for the table…wow, it was so pretty with the red color!
Finally, the pork entrée…
After lunch, the boat moved around to the southwest part of the island. It had been overcast while we were out with the dolphins, but the clouds slowly started to dissipate.
We navigate around Kicker Rock. The names of this rock are confusing to me! The Spanish name is Léon Dormido, which means “sleeping lion”, because they thought this formation looks like a male lion sleeping. The English name is Kicker Rock, because they thought it looked like a boot. Hmmm… I didn’t see either of those in the shapes as we passed – judge for yourself with the pictures below…
Nope, I don’t see a boot or a lion there! 😉 Then, as we passed around it…
Still no boot or lion to my eyes. Finally, this is a great view from the other angle…
It is a stunning formation. But, I still don’t see a lion or boot… LOL! 😎
While we were navigating, a LOT of sailboats appeared far out on the horizon. It seems there was a sailing event. As we got closer, we could make out a few of the boats more clearly.
This boat got fairly close to us, and we could see all the sailors lined up on this side to add their counterweight as the boat was heeling way over.
We took a break this afternoon, so nothing to show you until dinner. Here was the menu we chose from…
The Japanese soup was delicious, as well as our shared salad.
Jeff had the beef option…
While I had the vegetarian Quinoa dish – it was delicious!
Finally, here is the coffee panna cotta dessert…
The two chefs, Marco and Luis, always made the meals so pretty!
So ends another day in the Galápagos!