Day 6 - Españonala - incredible!

Today we visited Española - probably our collective favourite island because we saw so much here.. our day started on Baha Gardner.... this may sound familiar but we saw tons of sea lions and iguanas (some of these ones were very red and apparantly ready for mating!). The mocking birds were so cheeky - pecking on your water bottle and trying to get into your backpack.. no fear for them! The water is so blue and clear, absolutely beautiful.. but still freezing!


The afternoon took us to Puenta Suarez, and there was something around every corner, the most amazing of which was when we saw a sea lion giving birth! It was an incredible thing to see and our guide, Fatima, had never seen it herself and said it was very rare to see the sea lion in the open, usually they go to their beds under the mangrove bushes, but we came upon this mother lying directly in our path to the beach. It took almost 40 minutes but then a lovely wee baby sea lion popped out .. it was quite a strange time. Everyone was very quiet and taken in by this happening, but it was just another amazing part of our Galapagos adventure.

Other exciting attractions - the albatrosses who hang out on Española ´cos the climate and the wind factor (its def quite windy in parts) works for them. They are amazing birds and can travel for up to 4 years, flying and when they need to land, just sleeping on top of the water, so when they are ready to mate, they come back to Española!


And of course, my all time favourite, the blue footed booby, was hanging out as usual! It was great to see the sea lions and iguanas just chatting it up, nature working in perfect harmony... ahhhhh the good life!

The other HUGE piece of news that we found out when back on board, was that Laura and Alejandro had decided they wanted to get married ON THE BOAT - WITH ALL OF US! It was wild - we were convinced at first that they were just joking but no, this was serious stuff! How exciting and romantic. Official duties were handed out - Paul, a 20 yr old student from New Hampshire was to be best man, Dominique maid of honour, I was to write the vows and Ole would be the official photographer. Carolynn was in charge of the bouquet and decorations, all to be made out of toilet paper and multicoloured plastic bags. Oh yes - and Capitan Jimmy would oversee the blessed event!!! He started it off by having the happy couple pick out their rings from his box of plastic washers, oh yes, and he got a bit excited by the news and decided he wanted to be part of it himself - so asked Dominique to marry him! She of course accepted immediately, thinking this would make for a great blog entry! .. A wild night of romance and excitement aboard our very own Love Boat!