Española Island
Today we had a beautiful day at Española Island. We saw everything, including the sea lion colonies and the bachelor sea lion colony. It was great to see a young bachelor sea lion going down from a very high cliff and walking on the boulders. Our group didn't believe that he could walk so easily on the rocks. We saw a nice colony of Nazca boobies (formerly called masked boobies), swallow-tailed gulls, and at a distance, many red spots moving on the rocks. These are the red lava crabs, also called the Sally lightfoot crab. They are brightly colored with red above, blue below and yellow all around.
I approached one of them and this crab let me get a very close picture, and I saw very nice details on its body. Its eyes are so beautiful that you can refract your image on it, and I started to wonder what this creature thought of us. We don't really know where the name Sally came from, there are different versions. One sailor's tale says that once a sailor disembarked in an island on the Atlantic, and he got to know a beautiful girl called Sally. She had red hair and was a very good dancer, so he danced with her all night. The next morning he had to leave the harbor and he was waiting for Sally, but she never appeared. He was very sad during the trip, and when the boat came to South America he disembarked at the shore and saw on the rocks these red crabs jumping from one rock to another. They reminded him of Sally with the light foot, and that is how we have the Sally lightfoot crab name.
Today we had a beautiful day at Española Island. We saw everything, including the sea lion colonies and the bachelor sea lion colony. It was great to see a young bachelor sea lion going down from a very high cliff and walking on the boulders. Our group didn't believe that he could walk so easily on the rocks. We saw a nice colony of Nazca boobies (formerly called masked boobies), swallow-tailed gulls, and at a distance, many red spots moving on the rocks. These are the red lava crabs, also called the Sally lightfoot crab. They are brightly colored with red above, blue below and yellow all around.
I approached one of them and this crab let me get a very close picture, and I saw very nice details on its body. Its eyes are so beautiful that you can refract your image on it, and I started to wonder what this creature thought of us. We don't really know where the name Sally came from, there are different versions. One sailor's tale says that once a sailor disembarked in an island on the Atlantic, and he got to know a beautiful girl called Sally. She had red hair and was a very good dancer, so he danced with her all night. The next morning he had to leave the harbor and he was waiting for Sally, but she never appeared. He was very sad during the trip, and when the boat came to South America he disembarked at the shore and saw on the rocks these red crabs jumping from one rock to another. They reminded him of Sally with the light foot, and that is how we have the Sally lightfoot crab name.
