Isla Bartolome

Today we went on an island-snorkel tour of a nearby island, Bartolome, which is one of the top 5 must sees. We woke up early to be picked up at 5am and make the 3 1/2 hr boat ride to the island. Then we hiked up the top of the island which had the terrain of Mars (and I later found out it was used in one of the older Star Wars movies and was quite excited...) - we saw some marine iguanas which are only found in the Galapagos, a bunch of lizards, crabs with blue bellys, pelicans, more blue footed boobies, and some excellent views of the island and the surrounding area. The view was amazing - you could see all of the volcanoes from the other islands, and there were a ton! It looked like a back drop. Then we went snorkeling right by Pinnacle Rock, one of the famous land forms of Galapagos. It wasn't as huge and impressive as the pictures made it look, but the marine life underneath def. was. The best thing I saw was a manta ray waving by (looked just like the teacher from finding Nemo). I also really liked seeing the penguins - yes, in the middle of tropical climate. They´re the only penguins in the world that live in warm water, and they were surprisingly small. I saw a school of 15 of them pass nearby underwater, saw a few jumping like little dolphins in and out of the water, and then I saw two up really really close on a rock. All the animals here let you get pretty close because humans don´t try to catch or hurt them so they trust us. I also saw some more sea lions in the water, and we hung out on the beach for a while watching some other ones chilling on the sand. When they´re on the sand they dry and turn yellow which was strange. They had a ton of little lizards climbing all over them and the big sea lion tried to get them away, and then they just gave up. But they were def. cute making their hawking sounds and waddling. While snorkeling I saw a bunch of cool fish too, swimming through a few schools. I don´t know any of the names, but there were so many. There were a lot more fish today than on the more private snorkel-only trip, but both tours had its own special aspects. Today´s waters were very calm and there were a lot of different colored fish and a lot more, but none of the seals were playful like the one yesterday (we only watched them from further away today) and we got to swim so close to a sea turtle too - both things I don´t think you can do in the big group we were with today in the popular snorkeling areas, so I´m glad we had the opportunity to do both different types of snorkeling experiences.

The boat we were on today was pretty cool too. It was kind of run down, but it showed us an example of what it would have been like to take a cruise of the Galapagos. It was a 55´ boat with small rooms that had bunk beds - titanic style in the least expensive rooms like Jack had except in wood - and then there was a little bathroom that again was run down. There was a kitchen and some tables, a downstairs, and then an upstairs with 4 lounge chairs, a covered area with space for 2 picnic tables and some bar stools around the area. It was pretty big and it was comfortable for the 16 tourists and crew, but I don´t know how comfy it would be for a 5 day cruise around Galapagos. I still feel like I´m on the waves now, because the boat was def. rocky. But I enjoyed the ride to and from the island because it gave it that summer feeling.