North Seymour Island & Bartolome
North Seymour is home to a small colony of Galapagos Sea Lions, and a large crèche of great frigate birds, and magnificent frigate birds. The great frigate birds breed all year round, so we are finally treated to the sight of a number of black male frigate birds with their trademark red pouches, who have built nests in the hope of attracting a female. There is also a small population of blue-footed boobies, some with chicks, interspersed in what is really a giant crèche area for frigate birds.
Snorkelling today is along the coastline of Bartolome Island, quite good conditions, some white-tipped reef sharks in the water, with Galapagos penguins putting in an appearance near us in the water. A short video of the penguins swimming in the water.
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The afternoon is spent climbing up the boardwalk/stairs to the top of the hill for the view over the islands. Todays funny photo is brought to you courtesy of a marina iguana doing chin-ups at the landing site. Their sharp claws allow them to hang on to rocks and in this case, a piece of concrete with a vertical drop of more than a metre.
Unfortunately the viewpoint faces due west, so this is really a morning activity if you don’t want photos with the sun burning out every frame.
During the hike up, we can see devil rays leaping out of the water from between 500 – 1000m from the shore. These huge rays, with a wingspan of more than 6 metres, apparently leap out of the water for unknown reasons – some biologists think it is to rid them selves of parasites. It looks like they do it for fun – they make a huge leap out of the water of a couple of metres, twist around and belly-flop back in to the water. I managed to get a (not great) shot of one of them from the landing platform at Bartholome, shown below.
