Punta Vicente Roca & Punta Espinosa
Six o’clock, so early in the morning and so fruitful already! During our whale watching time aboard the National Geographic Islander on northern Isabela Island we have been blessed by the presence of a couple of manta rays, a big shark, some pacific sunfish and an outstanding encounter with a couple of Bryde’s whales.
The whales, a mother and her adolescent offspring were swimming at random within a big area of the surrounding ocean, very possibly fishing, so they didn’t care much about our presence. However; at one point the young one decided to pay us a visit - out of curiosity more likely - and passed by in a flash several times overwhelming us all.
The whole setting was magnificent and we were given the chance to meet with the pacific sunfishes and with some penguins and cormorants during our Zodiac ride. Later on, during a fabulous snorkeling session we swam with lots of sea turtles in a crystal clear environment that in spite of the rather high temperature (68° F) , was teeming with plankton.
On Fernandina Island, we found an extremely high tide and the flightless cormorants, aware of this, moved a little inland making our photo opportunities just incredible. Cormorants were displaying with their courtship dance, and we know pretty soon they will have another set of babies; they just finished their previous mating season! What a prolific fauna we have here in paradise. This may be one of the reasons why the islands are called paradise?
A great number of Sally Lighfoot crabs were moving back and forth, here and there as if tempting us to take photographs of them. They certainly created that feeling in us and we snapped many shots. Time and again this week we have been subdued by the power of nature, and by feeling this power we have been invigorated.
Six o’clock, so early in the morning and so fruitful already! During our whale watching time aboard the National Geographic Islander on northern Isabela Island we have been blessed by the presence of a couple of manta rays, a big shark, some pacific sunfish and an outstanding encounter with a couple of Bryde’s whales.
The whales, a mother and her adolescent offspring were swimming at random within a big area of the surrounding ocean, very possibly fishing, so they didn’t care much about our presence. However; at one point the young one decided to pay us a visit - out of curiosity more likely - and passed by in a flash several times overwhelming us all.
The whole setting was magnificent and we were given the chance to meet with the pacific sunfishes and with some penguins and cormorants during our Zodiac ride. Later on, during a fabulous snorkeling session we swam with lots of sea turtles in a crystal clear environment that in spite of the rather high temperature (68° F) , was teeming with plankton.
On Fernandina Island, we found an extremely high tide and the flightless cormorants, aware of this, moved a little inland making our photo opportunities just incredible. Cormorants were displaying with their courtship dance, and we know pretty soon they will have another set of babies; they just finished their previous mating season! What a prolific fauna we have here in paradise. This may be one of the reasons why the islands are called paradise?
A great number of Sally Lighfoot crabs were moving back and forth, here and there as if tempting us to take photographs of them. They certainly created that feeling in us and we snapped many shots. Time and again this week we have been subdued by the power of nature, and by feeling this power we have been invigorated.
