Month: May 2003

I seem to have passed my flu on to the Goob, which is not a good thing — he missed out on a snorkel today that included reef sharks, sea turtles, tons of fish, and eventually even another sea lion who was so curious that she played with JB and I for a good twenty minutes before following us up onto some rocks and sniffing at our flippers. Dr. Trey is suffering from sea sickness, which is also unfortunate — he’s definitely not doing well. And even JB is thinking he might be getting ill, so I’m hoping I didn’t infect the entire boat.

Illnesses withstanding, the trip is amazing. We all got up for a snorkel before breakfast that included rays, a few small sharks and tons of fish. We then moved to a new spot and swam through tunnels of silver fish — JB and I were herding them like sheep dogs and then charging through the middle. All of this was before 9:00 AM. We did a brief landing on a beach with sea lions before doing more snorkeling on Isla Tortuga — this was the previously-mentioned snorkel with the reef sharks, turtles and sea lion — and then motored over to one of the largest bird colonies in the islands. Walking through this rookery was one of my favorite experiences from the last trip since the birds are fearless, with some of them even nesting on the trail. The blue footed boobies were doing their dances, the Nazca boobies were out in force, and even some of the albatrosses were doing their beak fencing — watching their mating dance is like a Marx Brothers comedy as they look in all directions, duck their heads, open their beaks wide, and then bang their beaks together quickly, making a hollow thwacking sound. Greg has put together a heck of a trip, and I think everyone is loving it thus far.

Greg claims that there will be days better than this one, but a lot of the folks on the boat are skeptical. We got up at 5:00 AM to do a seven mile hike on San Cristobal to find giant tortoises. Forty-odd tortoises and three and a half miles later we started the return trip, but detoured part way to climb a volcanic cone that was awe-inspiring — even Greg was taking photos from the top.

Following the morning’s hike the main events began — first there was snorkeling at Kicker Rock with a sea turtle, tons of fish, and a few rays and sharks that I didn’t see. Afterwards we headed towards shore and jumped into the water with what seemed like every young sea lion in the world — these guys did everything from blowing bubbles in our faces to staring at us from inches away to balancing sand dollars on their noses. After being in the cool water for almost three hours I was cold as ice but completely unwilling to get out — had I not gotten the worst leg cramp of my life I might still be there playing with them now. Happy times indeed.

The trip has finally happened — three and a half years of planning, and finally everyone is here. Spent a ton of time talking to Greg today — the man is a god — and after getting situated we all headed off to South Plaza, which is a small island inhabited by about a thousand sea lions and a fair number of birds and land iguanas. Even though I remembered that the animals were fearless, it was still weird to have a bird calmly preening itself two feet away from me, or to see a land iguana crawling ponderously towards me over the rocks. I’m back.

We have arrived in Quito after some particularly turbulent air — I never knew Aaron was afraid of flying, and laughed like mad while he was grabbing the armrests as we were coming into Quito. Aaron, who has never been outside of the US and Canada, continued to amuse us after arriving as he pointed out every sight he saw — “Dude, you can drive AND drink beers here!” — “Oh man, green means go and red means go, too!” — “The security guy in front of the hotel has a 9mm strapped to his chest!” This trip promises to be a memorable one.