Last night we anchored in front of North Seymour Island in the central realm of the archipelago and had a nice calm night. This morning we headed ashore to explore this island and right from the very beginning we were greeted by Galapagos sea lions and colorful Sally lightfoot crabs. As we walked further inland the vegetation looked dry as the rainy season is almost over. This is the best time of the year to find male great frigate birds in full mating season. Males inflate a red color membrane that resembles a bright red balloon and then move their wings and make loud sounds to get the attention of females.
As we looked at frigates and their colorful pouches we also encounter blue footed boobies also busy with their always entertaining courtship rituals. This involves sky pointing, offerings of nesting material, bill touching, marching and wing shaking. Nowadays to observe this species of bird is becoming rare as their numbers are a bit low, but we saw some couples trying to get a mate.
Along with the birds we saw there were also some Galapagos land iguanas further inland as well as along the coast dotting the landscape with their bright yellow color. Their cousins, the Galapagos marine iguanas, were also found sunbathing on the lava rocks along the coast.
After a great morning on North Seymour, we headed towards Rábida Island. We arrived after lunch and had many different options; we went snorkeling along the cliffs and found white tipped reef shark, a very large school of black striped salemas, parrot fish and lots of marine invertebrates. For our guests who wanted to see the marine life without getting in the water there were a couple of outings on board our Glass bottom boat. Later in the afternoon we also had long and short walks on Rábida Island and found some Galapagos sea lions resting on the beach while others were fishing off the coast.
We returned aboard at the end of the afternoon and left behind the sea lions and the red sand of Rábida Island but are taking with us great memories of this great day.
