Santa Isabella

Alyssa and I woke up at 6:30am and got our stuff together for the day. Luckily the grocery store was open and we were able to grab some yogurt and croissants for the journey. I had taken some Dramamine before leaving the hotel but having a full stomach always helps with my sea sickness. Every time you enter or leave the island, your bags have to be checked for produce and tagged. I think they do a pretty half ass job of checking, but that's just me.

We boarded a water taxi which took us over to the boat we would be taking to the island, the "Invicta II".

They asked who got sea sick and my hand shot up first. This meant Alyssa and I got to ride in the back of the boat where there was a breeze instead of in the enclosed, small, sweltering cabin with everyone else. I watched as they handed out sea sickness bags inside and was so thankful that I was not inside puking with everyone else. I would rather be cold and wet any day than sea sick.

We landed on Santa Isabella and had a few minutes to use the restroom before the tour began. Alyssa and I were immediately surprised by the amount of animals right in front of us! They were all trying to warm up on the sand since there was no sun out and they were not at all afraid of people- they would let you come right up to them.

Our group divided into two so that each group would have less people and a greater chance of seeing animals. Our group started with a boat tour of the area to see some blue footed boobies. The name cracks me up, but they really do have blue feet!

We then headed to "Islote Tintoreras" which is the volcanic rock area where the sea iguanas live. It was crazy to see all of the sea iguanas. They are very good swimmers and feed on the algae growing on the rocks in the ocean. They spend a lot of their time up on the hot black rocks, basking in the sun. Since they have no sweat glands, they get rid of the build up of salt in their bodies from the ocean by constantly spitting out sea water- it's kind of gross!

We then headed to a part of the island where you can see tons of white-tipped sharks. Apparently the sharks swim into the little channel during high tide and then once the tide goes down, they are trapped until it rises again. It was really amazing to see so many of them swimming around.

We re-boarded our boat and went off in search of penguins. We weren't sure that we would find any since there are apparently only 1,200 in the whole Galapagos archipelago but luckily, we found three swimming around together! They were very small but adorable.

After this, we headed back to the island for lunch. For a starter, they served us a carrot soup which you were supposed to put popcorn into. It sounds bizarre but it was actually good!

After lunch, we headed to the Giant Tortoise breeding center on the island. It was cool to see so many different tortoises, ranging from babies to once that were over 100 years old. They have to breed the tortoises in captivity and collect the eggs that are laid on the beaches because so many predators have been introduced by humans (rats, cats, goats, etc) that they baby tortoises don't stand a chance in the wild. The have a thin leathery shell until they are two years old. There are breeding centers on each island focusing on repopulating the 12 different subspecies of giant tortoise that are left.

After seeing all of the tortoises, we headed to a local lagoon to check out the flamingos. Alyssa and I were very excited to see the flamingos in the wild.

After seeing the flamingos, we headed to head back to the boat since the coast guard wouldn't let our boat leave any later than 4:00. We got to sit in the back of the at again although this time the water was really rough and I got very wet and cold. The tour was great though; we got to see so much!
Once we got back to the hotel, Brad informed Alyssa that he had planned a fancy dinner out to celebrate her birthday which had been a few days earlier. I decided that this was an event better suited for just the two of them and took myself out for my own dinner date. I went to "The Rock" for dinner which was a local bar/gastropub that had gotten good reviews online. I had an awesome "Blue Booby Margarita" and a burger.

After dinner, I went to a little cafe nearby to enjoy some delicious coffee and read for a while. I had to be up early for my dive in the morning so I headed to bed before 11:00pm.

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