Española boobies

Monday, July 26th
Today, we would wake up alongside the beautiful island of Espanola. The game plan for the day was to hike around Punta Suarez and see various species of endemic animals. Upon first landing on the island, it kinda looked like Cape Cod (same color sand as the dunes in the cape and some green shrubbery scattered around the beach). One major difference between the Cape and here is that that there's a plethora of marine iguanas lining the beach and chillin' on the volcanic rocks. As we continued to hike around the island we saw albatrosses mating, blue boobies doing their mating dance (a.k.a "the discoteque" nazca boobies, Sally lightfoot crabs, lava lizards, various species of Darwin finches, mockingbirds, and galapagos doves. The middle of the island was desert-like and it was rimmed on one side with a sandy beach while the other side had sheer volcanic cliffs. I never knew what to expect of the islands, but I never imagined them to be so dry.
After Punta Suarez, we headed off to Gardener bay to go snorkeling. The water was unexpectedly frigid, about 58 degrees. The winter (occuring now) was the best time of year to snorkel/ dive becuse of the upwelling that occurs (bringing lots of deep water marine life to the surface). John (the Norwegian) was my snorkeling buddy and together we saw various species of fish including- needlefish, parrotfish, hogfish, wrasses,  surgeonfish, tangs, anglefish, sergeant majors, barberfish, pufferfish, porcupinefish, triggerfish, labrisomid, scorpionfish, and hawkfish. We also some saw turtles and sea lions swimming about without a care in the world. After snorkeling we headed back on the boat for dinner and set sail late in the evening to arrive to our next destination by the am - Floreana island.