2-19-01 Isla Genovesa

Galan was sick last night- soiling the floor of the bathroom, which Angela lets us know about. So he decides by not getting ready to stay behind. 

At 8am, it's into the boats with hiking shoes for a "dry" landing on the inside of the caldera that created Darwin Bay - The caldera of one of the two volcanoes that make up the island.

After scrambling up stairs cut into the lava wall, we immediately see masked boobies on the ground all around and red-footed boobies and frigate birds with their red pouches in many trees.

The red-footed boobies are especially striking. Besides reddish feet, they have a lovely blue tinted beak. They are predominately brown bodied, but we also see a sub-species with white bodies. They nest in the Palo Santos trees and we see many baby birds in nests. The nests are really not much, a pile of twigs glued together by guano. Snow white fluffy down covers the roughly one-month-old babies.

The masked boobies have similar nests except they are on the ground and the guano radiates out from the center of the nest in spoke like fashion. Casar, the naturalist, says this is territory marking, but it seems to me that this may just be a result of the nest being where birds spend the most time. They have projectile pooping down pretty well. 

We don't see any frigate birds inflating their red pouches, but do see several hanging around in trees. The beaks have terrible looking hooks at the end that look as if they'd be especially good at tearing flesh.

The only trees we see are the Palo Santos. They have leaves four months of the year starting around Christmas time. 

After casting off from  the bottom of the rock stairway, the panga (dinghy) moves along the inside of the caldera wall. Swallow-Tailed Gulls nest in the crags. There are also two varieties of sea lions, one of which is misleadingly named a fur seal. Both the seals and the juvenile iguanas we see camouflage well against the lava. 

With swimsuits and snorkel gear, we head for a “wet" landing at the swimming beach in Darwin Bay. Galan comes because he is feeling better now.

The swallow-tailed gull that nests on the ground sits there with its beak hanging open and its long tongue that extends just beyond the end of the lower part of its beak. 

I don't get to use my own camera much as Karen continually borrows it to use the zoom lens.

Underwater, I see a white tipped shark, a big black number about 5 ft. long, a roundish black fish with a yellow tail, lots of sea urchins, and a bunch of smaller fish that I can't distinguish.

Back to the boat for a shower, lunch, and eight hours of sailing. 

At dinner Galan feels ill again and since we are now at Baltra again, Karen takes him to see a doctor in a big ship. We'll try antibiotics.