We took a raft over to Espanola Island to walk with the Sea Lions and snorkel. Of course many of us who live on the west coast have seen Sea Lions but I don’t believe as close as you get to these guys. They are not afraid of us humans nor worried about our presence so as you walk among them they just go about their business…which is laying on the beach doing absolutely nothing! There were young ones only several days old right up to old aging males. What an experience!
We also saw many Pacific Sea Turtles and Marine Iguanas and again they are not afraid so you can get very close although the park rules are that you maintain at least 2 meters of separation at all time.
Snorkeling was a bust given the water was so churned up from the waves. Berniece did have a Sea Lion brush right up to her while she was swimming; what an experience! Just for the record the temperature is around 60F or 14C so we had wet suits to swim in. I now know that the only thing worse for me than wearing speedos is clearly a wet suit. In the movies the guys and gals look great in real life they are the most unflattering garment know to man, at least in my opinion!
11:30 back to the boat for yet another meal.
3:00 pm back in the boats and to shore on the opposite end of the Island. This time it was a 3 hour hike, apparently in the “difficult” category” (not really difficult at all), we were to see some “Boobies” and some “Albatross”. We did indeed see some Albatross and Boobies, the Nazca Boobies. The albatross is a very large bird. You will see the pictures but it is difficult to get the sense of size. They are big and their wingspan is huge, if fact they are so big the only way they can get air born is to catch the wind draft off the cliff. The pictures so this but I know it is not the same as actually witnessing the act. The size of the chicks are deceiving as well.
We also had a chance to get some great shots of the marine iguana, interesting lizard like animal. We have see many of these in places like Mexico but never the variety that actually swims. From what I understand these are unique to this area but I may have misunderstood. These have three eyes, one at the top of their head and two penis’s having three eyes makes no senses but two penis’s must be double the fun, just guessing!
