Accommodation: Samba

Our morning in San Cristobal Island began with an early navigation to the North west side of the island to a tuff cone formation known as Kicker Rock. This rock formation emerges from the ocean seemingly out of nowhere but once you come across it, it easily takes your breath away.

At over 450 feet, the walls of the rock easily towers over us, especially as we adventured into the water for a 6:00am snorkeling excursion. In between those two spires is a narrow channel, no more than 100 feet across, that is home to Galapagos sharks, eagle rays and even a sea turtle or two. The sides of the rock formation form a kaleidoscope of color underwater where an endless range of coral, fish and algae grow.

After our early morning snorkeling, we navigated another hour to Isla Lobos, just north of Kicker Rock that is home to a plethora or nesting blue footed boobies. Our trail was spotted by these modest nests, only a ring of guano with a mother incubating an egg in the center. The days can get awfully hot in the Galapagos so the boobies use a gill like movement on their necks to stay cool.

Unlike the Nazca booby, the blue footed boobies babies don’t fight to the death to stay in the nest. Instead, if the parents are able to provide enough food they are able to keep more than one baby alive. Unfortunately, in 80% or so of cases, there isn’t enough food, so the siblings fight their meals and one eventually starves.

Along our hike we also ran into the red footed booby, nesting in a neighboring tree from where the photo above was taken. Like any other typical bird, their nests are housed in trees and made up of twigs, stones and dirt. Luck was not our side this day as they were too hidden to get a decent shot and shortly after finding this group, we had to return to the Samba and head back to the city as one of our companions required medical care.

Upon returning to the city of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, we adventured to the Centro de Interpretation Ambiental Gianni Arismendy (Interpretation Center) to learn more about the Galapagos and its history and wondered through the Universidad San Fransisco de Quito (Local University) where, of course we ran into a giant metal blue footed booby.