As fall time rolls around and the weather will hopefully start getting a little cooler and dryer, the kids head back to school. On Monday many of the students had a half-day of classes. When I walk to the university close to 7, I see troops of them in uniforms walking by or getting a ride on the back of their parent’s Moped. At night there are kids in the street playing soccer and one of my host-sister’s friends comes to see her about homework. The air of the island seems to have changed a little bit as people admit summer vacation’s defeat. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them!)The last 4 days of our trip was spent aboard a boat. I was apprehensive about living at sea for several days, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. We traveled between 8 islands within 4 days, including crossing the equator and coming back to the southern hemisphere. The boat itself appeared smaller than it was. We had 16 students on the boat and another 5 people for staff and guide. Because of the limit of the boat size, 2 of the GAIAS students were placed another cruise and the Ecuadorian students were also not there. It was a little weird to be split up, but everyone had adventures to speak of after sailing the sea.
The first day that we boarded the boat we were given lunch and our cabins and our guide offered to take us into the highlands of Santa Cruz to see the giant tortoises. Giant tortoises are cool, but once you’ve been on several trips to see them you start to want to experience something new, especially if you would be seeing the tortoises on the same island. Instead of going to see the tortoises, we went back to Tortuga Bay and enjoyed our day there. That evening we settled onto the boat and we started sailing for new islands around midnight.
When I walked out of my cabin on Friday I had a beautiful view of the island on which we would spend the morning. Rabida is a smaller island to the north of Santa Cruz. It is situated near Isla San Salvador, also known as Santiago Island, and you can see the volcanoes of Isabela off in the distance. Rabida is a red soil island, including having a red sand beach. We took a short walk around in the island where there are cacti, cactus finches, some lizards and coves around the island. The snorkeling off of Rabida is in darker water because of the red sand and the water was a little cold. On this trip I allowed one of my friends to use my snorkeling equipment and only used my goggles and fins. Fins can be very useful and very annoying. If they fit correctly, which is an issue when you’re on a boat with a limited amount of fins, then fins can be useful because it takes less energy to move around. Most of the time I prefer to swim without fins although for scuba diving I will always be wearing fins. Off of the coast of Rabida, there is a fair diversity of marine life such as rainbow fish, hogfish, starfish, urchins, marine iguanas on the shore nearby, gulls, and sharks. As I mentioned before, the first shark I saw was the baby shark at Tortuga Bay. While snorkeling on Rabida I saw black tip sharks and possibly some white tip sharks. The sharks that I saw in whole were no longer than I am tall. But I also saw the end of a larger shark’s tail that I could imagine was very big. 
Once we had had enough of snorkeling at Rabida, we moved on to Bartolomé, sailing there after lunch. As we were traveling we had a half dozen frigate birds following us around. Frigate birds are an interesting bird species whose males have a red pouch on their that they inflate during mating season and make a call similar to a turkey while moving their heads back and forth and spreading their wings wide. Frigate birds also have to steal their food from sea lions and other marine birds because they don’t have the right oils on their feathers to be able to dive in salt water. These are the same birds that come to el Junco to take a bath in the fresh water. Birds follow boats often because they can fly easier with the drag created by the vessels. The frigates were also following us because the boat would expel the waste of fruits and vegetables that they would eat. 
Traveling throughout the islands during the day was beautiful. We passed by many islets that are the remaining domes of great volcanoes that once were. Passing along these differently aged islands, we could see the vegetation that has managed to spring up, the lava fields a mixture of black and red, and some volcanic domes that still look like volcanoes. After being in the bay for a little while, we spotted some sharks swimming around our boat. There were 2 large black tip sharks that kept reappearing and one of my classmates jumped in the water to swim with them. The rest of us stayed on the boat. 
Snorkeling at Bartolomé was similar to snorkeling at Rabida in that the sand had a red coloring. There were schools of Panamic sergeant major fish, more hogfish, parrotfish, probably damselfish, and many starfish. There was also a pod of golden cow rays and a couple of penguins on the rocks. Small amounts of coral can also be found in the area. Later in the evening we also hiked to the top of Bartolomé where you have a view of Daphne Major, the famous island where the Grants have done most of their research on Darwin’s finches. There are also craters around that have been made from collapsed volcano domes and pinnacle rock. Pinnacle rock is famous because it juts out from Bartolomé forming a very noticeable landmark. However, that landmark was not naturally made. The rock itself was shot up from an eruption of lava, but it was formed into such a point by the United States when their air force used the area as target practice during World War II. This practice meant the end of some land iguanas that were once on different islands. That night we were warned about how rough the surf might get as we traveled from Bartolomé to Genovesa. The journey takes about 7 hours and includes crossing over the equator. This was my favorite night of being in Ecuador. When we started moving the captain turned off all the lights and we could see the stars. Not only could we see the stars, we could see the Milky Way. I know this is probably getting repetitive, but it was once again one of the most humbling experiences I have ever felt. I could recognize Orion, and for the first time see all of Orion, as well as the upside down Big Dipper. As we traveled we had swallowtail gulls following us. They’re the world’s only night gulls that have turned nocturnal to avoid the thievery of the frigate birds. Traveling from south to north over several hours meant we could see the constellations shifting positions and we saw the moon rising as an orange slice over the horizon.
When I woke up the next morning we were in Darwin’s Bay at the island of Genovesa. Darwin’s Bay is a giant crater that has been formed by the collapsing of the dome of a volcano. It forms a near-perfect circle that allows for a beautiful view of Genovesa, which is a long thin island. Our first stop was on the island itself to view see the frigate birds courting each other, red footed boobies, and Nazca boobies. The adolescent frigate birds also make a very prehistoric sounding call that chills to the bones. The rocks on the side of the island also hold fur seals that are in the same scientific family as the sea lions, but a different genus. They may be cuter because they have more fur and are a little smaller. On the island there was also a lot of storm petrels flying around. Small owls also inhabit the island but are very difficult to find and we did not see any. 
Before lunch we went snorkeling in the bay. Our main goal of snorkeling here was to see hammerheads and we did! I saw 3 different hammerheads and apparently there were many more around. The first hammerhead I saw swam by nonchalantly. The other 2 were circling below me at one point and were fairly large. Around that area was also a school of rays and a couple of see turtles as well as an abundance of fish. Sadly I cannot share the photos I have taken with my underwater cameras because they are disposable. My plan is to find some way to put them on here when I finally get them developed back in the states. That is, if the pictures are any good.
That afternoon we went for a walk off of a beach. Here we saw more Nazca boobies, the swallowtail gulls that followed our boat, some adolescent night herons, more red-footed boobies and some fur seals playing in a lagoon area. The night herons we have nicknamed creeper birds because there are a few around Cristóbal that just stalk around at night. Sometimes we will see them on our walks home standing in the middle of the street. Often they will not even move out of the way. There was also a swallowtail gull chick that was hurt and hiding in the shade of someone’s bag. Its foot was hurt, but there was hope as its parents were standing near it. We did a bit of snorkeling off of the beach where we landed, but there was very little to see other than a few fish.
That night we had a small party on the boat because it was our last night with the crew. Once the party ran out, a few of us again watched the stars while we traveled and listened to some relaxing music. We were on our way to North Seymour, again just north of Santa Cruz. Wake up call was at 5:30 the next morning to go see the land iguanas and some blue-footed boobies on the small island. Waking up that early allowed us to see the magnificent sunrise. I am sad to say that my camera was dead at this point, but we did see some sea lions, blue-footed boobies courting one another, and some land iguanas. Land iguanas are particularly large because they have no predators on the island.
Traveling back home to Cristóbal was a process similar to traveling back to Quito from the Tiputini. We landed on Baltra as originally planned. Baltra is where the United States set up an airbase during World War II and the location is now used as an airport. From the place where we landed we were supposed to take a bus to the ferry, take the ferry to Santa Cruz, take another bus from the North of Santa Cruz back to Puerto Ayora, and take a speed boat from there to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. However, we took a speedboat home directly from Baltra. That should have been easy if we didn’t have 2 people on another boat cruise. After some traveling and sitting in the harbor in the north of Santa Cruz, it was finally decided that the 2 students from the other cruise would take a different speedboat back. The ride from the north of Santa Cruz back to Cristóbal was the worse ride we have had in a boat thus far. If several of us hadn’t been wearing patches, I think more than 1 of us would have been seasick. It was a ride rough enough to make me think of the bus rides from Cumbayá to Quito.
The whole adventure was amazing. We were able to see so much of the archipelago and witness some of the most beautiful places on Earth. I’m getting the opportunity to see even more amazing sites by learning how to scuba dive. By the end of this Saturday I will be SCUBA certified and have been on 3 dives, not including the pool lesson we had today. But that is an experience for another time.
As always, I hope all is well at home! From today there is a month until I fly back to Quito. Add 2 days to that and I will be back in the states, surely reeling from the impacts of reverse culture shock. Best wishes!
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