Our day 2 agenda – first wet landing, and first snorkel!
Every evening before the dinner bell (it was a real ship’s bell!) we would gather in the common area to debrief what we saw that day and to go over the itinerary for the next day. Our day 2 stop would be Isla Genovesa, about 60 miles to the NNW. We would be steaming perpendicular to some strong westward flowing currents, and it was suggested we prepare for a rough night. We ate a quick dinner, made sure all our belongings were secured, and went right to sleep.
It was about midnight when the ship really started rocking. I’m a side-sleeper and with every roll I’d be pushed to my stomach, then my back, and then back over again – like a beached whale flailing in the surf. Then belongings started falling on the floor. And then the absolute worst thing happened – I had to pee. That was a rough night.
And so it was that the entire group sailed into Isla Genovesa pretty worn out. The morning excursion would be a ‘wet landing’. The panga comes in backwards, lifts up the outboard, and everyone piles over the side desperately trying to keep their gear dry. You know that scene in Moana when Moana’s boat capsizes in the strong waves and she and the pig almost drown? It was nothing like that. A little splash on our calves and some sand between the toes, and we’re ashore. The morning was spent on the North part of the island (we landed where it says ‘coral beach’), where we spent a solid 2-3 hours walking back and forth along the path as indicated in the map.
There were 2 highlights for me for this day, and I’ll jump right to them. First, these 2 pictures below – and I have yet to really look at any pictures in detail beyond day 2 – might be my favorite of the trip (addendum: after looking at all my photos, these are still near the top). The soft, complementary background color relative to the brown shades of the booby, punctuated by the blue beak & eye ring, and just a bit of red. The booby meticulously preening its feathers. It just works for me. (I’m going to pretend I don’t see the slightly out of focus preened feathers. I’m torn on whether that helps the composition by keeping your focus on the head and beak, or detracts by being…. well, blurry)
The next highlight occurred at the end of the day, in our last few minutes on the island before the 6 pm curfew. We were on the southeast corner of Genovesa, near where the map says ‘owl’. That map don’t lie. There was an owl! We had seen the owl an hour or so earlier, across a chasm, sitting still, opening a single eye just enough to get a peak of the photographers taking its picture. Below is Tui getting the stink eye.
Near sunset as we were walking back to the pickup zone, the group stumbled upon an owl – the same one? – with a freshly caught storm petrel (also listed on the map above. Pretty amazing map). One of our fellow photographers literally almost stepped on it, it was blended into the brown, spotted, rocky terrain so perfectly, as you can see below, sitting perfectly still so as to not be noticed. We were rapidly losing sunlight, so we all chose our positions for the now familiar photographer animal circle. There would be many such circles the next 2 weeks.
With the sunlight gone (you can see it was cloudy as well), I dialed up the ISO to make sure I had something in focus, even if the noise was a bit high (see my ‘philosophy’ on my Galapagos photography overview post). This is where the Z6 really shines. I was shooting at 22,800 ISO (!), and the photos are far less noisy than my trusty D600 at 1600 ISO. Detector technology is just amazing these days. As I said earlier, don’t be afraid of high ISO!
The owl would sit very still, with its eyes closed, waiting until it was safe to start eating again. Eventually Tui got everyone to settle down and stop making noise, at which point the owl laid into the petrel. We eventually really did have to leave, so with seconds left until our curfew we ran back to the steps where our panga was waiting.
The owl had caught a storm petrel, which flew by the thousands on this rocky cliff. It’s hard to provide perspective of just how many birds there are, but here’s a brief clip, zoomed in to no area in particular. I tried to track them and get a shot but….
On the West side of the morning loop there was a large mangrove tree which contained several red-footed booby nests, adjacent to some frigate nests just a few feet away. I was able to snap a few nice ‘family’ portraits. But what was most interesting about this particular mangrove tree was that I am 99% certain I saw the exact same tree in a documentary about Tui’s life, filmed in 1986! Undisturbed by man, with no predators or extreme weather events, the flora and fauna of the Galapagos just chugs along, with everything in balance. (Until it isn’t, almost always with the introduction of a new species.) This characteristic of Galapagos, in which the evolutionary pressures are internal to the ecosystem, is one of the things that make Galapagos so unique and special.
A couple of other highlights were the tropic birds circling the cliffs, my first marine iguana sighting, and our first sea turtle encounter. We were really excited about the turtle, which came up from the bottom, swam right in front us to check us out, then swam back down (small clip below). You can hear the muffled excitement! The turtle encounter is fun to look back on, because within a day or 2 we’d be surrounded by dozens of sea turtles, on an almost daily basis, and by the end of the trip we’d be like, ‘oh, it’s just another sea turtle’. (not really – it was always fun to play with the sea turtles).
For the full day 2 gallery (excluding videos), head on over to my Smugmug site. Back to Day 1, or forward to Day 3.
