After visiting Cerro Dragon (Dragon Hill), having dinner, and our evening briefing we had a wonderful night’s sleep. Our stop the next morning was to be Punta Espinoza (Espinosa Point), on Fernandina Island, the western most and youngest island in the Galapagos. Doing a bit of reading, I realized that Punta Espinoza is the only one visitor area, and the island is uninhabited, which for some reason piqued my interest.
Upon waking and heading to grab a morning coffee, I saw Fernandina Island……
It looked quite lovely.
After a light breakfast…..
We boarded the pangas and did a dry landing on Punta Espinoza.
As we landed on the lava rock…the usual Marine Iguanas were there to greet us.
As I’ve mentioned before, because humans cannot approach the wildlife in the Galapagos, many of the creatures have minimal fear of us. And so, we get to observe, some sometimes “interesting” behaviors…..
Like this Lava Lizard, who seems to be helping this Marine Iguana as a “look out”.
Or these two “best pals”……
Though along with the charming vignettes; there were those scenes of “real” life…..
There’s an active volcano on Fernandina Island (more on that in my next Galapagos post)…..and it’s an interesting walk on the old lava flows. Something that harkened back to our wonderful trips to the Big Island and Volcanoes National Park.
It was interesting to see the plant life that was actually starting to grow on the flows.
Fabrizio, one of the Naturalists, was quick to point out the Flightless Cormorants, which can only be found in the Galapagos, and only on two islands; Fernandina Island and Isabella Island.
They are among the largest of the species and the only that have lost the ability to fly. I actually love their “T pose” which they strike to dry off their feathers.
It was a fun walk…..
And then we were brought to an amazing site on the lava rocks……
Yes, an honest to goodness whale skeleton.
This was supposedly the exact spot where the whale washed ashore and has never been moved!
It was an awesome way to end our walk on Punta Espinoza!
We boarded the pangas and headed back to the Evolve. Lest you think the morning was over….well, it was not!
Next up was some deep water snorkeling. We’d done some snorkeling the day before, but it was nothing like this. It was amazing watching the Marine Iguanas and Sea Turtles in their habitat.
Not paying us any mind…..just going on with their daily life!
You get a totally different view of things from below…..
Man, it was quite a morning! I was kinda disappointed to have to reboard and have lunch!
But was quite happy to note that we still had the afternoon and evening ahead of us. And it was going to be quite the afternoon!