Day 6, Isla Rabida, Isla Santiago

Our day began with a hike across a portion of Rabida Island, from one red sand beach to another, with a flamingo lagoon thrown in for good measure in between. At the end of the first beach, where we landed from the panga, there was an amazing nesting colony of around a dozen pairs of pelicans with their young. Typically, the mother would feed her young while the father flew off in search of food, returning to the nest shortly after. We were allowed to get within a few feet of some of these nests, with seemingly little adverse impact on the birds.

The vegetation on Rabida consists mainly of palo santo trees, which look dead at this time of year, but apparently are very green during the rainy season ( January-March ).

A local snorkeling outing was followed by a 2 1/2 hour cruise to James Bay, on Santiago Island ( Santiago is Spanish for "Saint James" ). Our panga dropped us off at Puerto Egas, the site of a former salt mine that was closed forty years ago when the Gaslapagos National Park was created. As it turned out, the grandfather of Reuben, our local guide, used to work there; he is still alive, at the ripe old age of 98.

I saw my first penguin at Puerto Egas. Upon arrival we snorkeled off the beach. This was followed by a very pleasant half hour walk along a path to a site with fur seal grottoes. Several fur seals were resting there. Although commonly referred to as "fur seals", they are, in fact, a type of sea lion, albeit one third the size of a Galapagos sea lion, and they have a fairly thick pelt which provide good insulation. They originate in the sub-Antarctic, and are the smallest species of pinniped in the world. Mike Jackson, our guide, reminded us that the basic difference between a seal and a sea lion is in the flippers. Seals have small flippers, and tend to stay in the water, whereas sea lions have big flippers, which allows them to propel themselves on land. Near the shoreline dolphins were spotted swimming.

That night we cruised to Isla Bartolome, on the eastern side of Santiago.