The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

After the hike we took the boat around the coastline.

This is another many armed sea star. He is just above the water because it is low tide.

 

Love was definitely in the air this morning.

These sea turtles are mating.

The male gives the female a big hug and hangs on for 5 to 6 hours.

The female sometimes has trouble breathing, especially since stacks of males can form. Our guide has seen up to five males hugging one female.

The flightless cormorant courtship dance is much more exciting.

They swim together in the water.

And then take turns jumping and twirling.

We started the day with another hike on Isabella.

We had anchored in a protected cove that was used by pirates over 300 years ago because the island is tall enough to hide sails from almost all directions. There was graffiti all around us, some dating back to 1836.

The walls are made up of thin layers of volcanic ash.

Noddy terns were nesting under the overhangs.

Along the way there were these hard balls of ash, that Matt insists are called “”not the pumice stones those other things”. They form kind of like hail, high in the atmosphere, but from volcanic ash.

It is also a hangout place for bachelor sea lions.

We came across Darwin Lake, a hypersaline lake that Darwin found during the Voyage of the Beagle.

The water flows up from the ocean due to salt concentration, but can’t go back. It evaporates in the lake, further concentrating the lake.

There was a medium ground finch.

He had funny tail feathers.

We walked up to one of the volcano peaks that was formed by sputtering lava and lava bombs.

It was pretty barren desert, but it is supposed to green up after they have had some rain.

The cactus waved goodbye!

There were lots of penguins in the bay.

Some seemed to be questioning whether the water was too cold for swimming.

It was very cold.

Even a penguin would have to be pretty hungry to fish in that water.

But some went swimming anyway.

Some were preening on the edge.

Some were preening in the water.

It is hard to get all of your feathers.

Especially the white belly.

Bellies are really difficult.

Sometimes they help each other out.

Some were just floating.

Some were rolling.

Some were swimming.

They are very tiny and cute.

With funny red and yellow eyes.

Some were fishing.

Some were couples in love.

In case you haven’t guessed, Kerri really liked the penguins.

There were also flightless cormorants.

They have useless little wings that don’t work for flying. Or even for hopping. They have to dry them out after swimming so they hold them out funny.

They don’t use them for swimming either, like the penguins do. They have to kick with their big webbed feet.

They also spend a lot of time preening and waterproofing.

Then they go fishing.

Eventually the guide pulled Kerri away from the penguins and to see the giant tortoises. The ones on Isabella are saddleback type, so their shell goes up in front to let them reach tall cacti.

They are not as cute as the penguins.

The males have big tails, which serve multiple purposes.

They make big paths through the forest.

And leave funny tracks in the sand.

Their footprints are as big as Kerri’s hand.

The old tortoise shells break into shards when they break apart.

This is a carpenter bee. They are very large and loud. They are found on the mainland too. Kerri does not like them.

All of these pits on the beach are sea turtle nests. In a few months there will be tons of itty bitty cute sea turtles on this beach. It’s probably good that that didn’t happen now, because there are already too many pictures of penguins in this post.

The boobies were fishing in the bay as we finished.

They circle around in big groups.

Then they take a deep breath,

Make themselves really streamlined,

And dive really fast into the water.

They shoot straight down and hopefully catch a fish.

Boobies float with their lungs full of air, so after a couple seconds they float back up to the surface and pop up out of the water.

Then they start all over again.

Here is a penguin saying goodbye.

On our way to land through the mangroves, we saw a school of rays.

The mangroves, looking back at our boat.

The mangroves were growing straight out of the lava.

The newest lava does not have much growing out of it.

This is a lava cactus, one of the first pioneer species to live on the lava.

This is a candelabra cactus. They come a bit later.

This is a closeup of the candelabra cactus.

They make these red fruit.

There were also painted locusts, which the lava lizards eat.

Apparently we will be plagued by locusts wherever we go.

We visited a lake with lots of flamingos.

They were very pink.

They were fishing for shrimp.

And only poked their heads up occasionally to breathe.

They look funny sleeping.

And scratching.

Kerri is running out of things to say about flamingos.

But she likes flamingos.

They are pink and funny looking.

And she’s not allowed to put in pictures of flamingos if she has nothing to say about them.

This flamingo is totally different from the ones above.

Look, this picture also has ducks!