Day 80 - Uplifting Hike

Today we shared our morning location with a large National Geographic boat -- one of the few 100-person boats in the park.  In order to avoid the human congestion we got up early and beat them to the landing site -- which turned out to be pretty sweet since we saw a sea turtle in her nest and watched her cover her eggs with sand!  The other cool thing about Urbina Bay is that it had a "major uplift event" in 1954, meaning the land rose up by ~8m!  So, you can see lots of coral and other sea creatures on what-is-now land (it was all underwater previously).

Snorkeled around the bay and saw more turtles, sea cucumbers, box/puffer fish, as well as some rays from the panga (dinghy).


In between activities we had the opportunity to visit our boat's engine room.  It was pretty loud but we were wearing proper ear protection.  The engineer on duty even let me start up one of the generators for fun!

Also snorkeled at Tagus Cove that afternoon, and it was awesome!  Why?  Because we snorkeled with penguins!!  They're super fast underwater, but I managed to snap a few pictures with my GoPro to prove that it happened.  :)

Afterwards we hiked up to, and past, Darwin Lake to an impressive overlook.  The start of the hike was pretty unique as boats that visit that beach had a habit of writing their names on the rocks (this is now discouraged since it's within a national park).  Some of the first names went back to the 1800's!

Spent that evening finishing off our game of crazy rummy with the Scottish sisters.