January 11 – Galapagos Day 2

January 11, 2017 – Galapagos Islands, Islas Seymour
Slept a solid 8 hours last night. Hotel breakfast was good. The coffee was excellent.
The tour today has some people who are not from our ship. We took a 40 minute bus drive to get to the port where the excursion boat was. We rode a Zodiac out to our “yacht”. We had to wear life vests for the 2 minute ride because of port regulations. Once onboard we had to remove our shoes. The zodiac had to make 2 trips to get everyone out to three boat.
The boat ride to N. Seymour island took 50 minutes. We were told this would be a dry landing, The zodiac pulled up to a ledge of volcanic rock and we each stepped from the zodiac to the ledge and then walk up “stairs” to the path. It was easy for some and very difficult for other. Once everyone made it we set off on a walk where we saw adult and baby sea lions, iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs, and many great frigatesbirds. We got to see a male frigatebird with his red chest all puffed out. We hiked back to the landing and zodiaced back to the boat. Lunch was rice, salad, veggies, and fresh tuna. I don’t like fish so I just ate the rest. Linda, also, doesn’t like fish except for some tastless white fish. I had her try it and one look at her face convinced me to skip it.
After lunch we went to a beach on Santa Cruz island and took a hike to see flamingos. This was a wet landing so we carried our shoes and put them on after we got to the beach. Only one flamingo was hanging out at the pond. There was a magnificent iguana on some rocks. During the walk many large waves came in soaking our shoes.
We got back to the port around 4pm and headed back to the hotel. We got stopped briefly by a giant tortoise crossing the road.
Linda and I walked over to the fish market. Pelicans and a sea lion hang out hoping for free fish.

Unable to upload pix tonight. Will try later so please check back.   Believe it or not but hotel has slower internet than the ship.

Update – 8 of 8 pics uploaded. Will do today’s pix tomorrow