Day 81 - Fernandina

Sally Lightfoot eating a marine iguana!

Flightless cormorant with a big baby!

A nice pahoehoe hike to start the day, and then the really cool part; seeing something unique to the Galapagos - marine iguanas!  This is the only place where iguanas have evolved to swim underwater to eat algae off of rocks.  We timed our morning snorkel to increase our odds of being in the water with the iguanas: too early and they're not warm enough to brave the chilly water, too late and they've already had their morning meal and are re-charging themselves in the sun.  We lucked out and saw a bunch of them in the water.  Got some great pictures and videos, but I'm pretty sure the memory of swimming with, and watching them, will last forever.

Mola mola pic taken from the boat

That afternoon our planned dinghy ride was cancelled due to bad weather so we got a head-start on the long boat ride to our next destination.  On the way there we saw a bunch of mola mola in the water and had earlier convinced our captain to let us attempt to swim with them.  We jumped in, and with the captain directing us from the boat deck, swam around in circles trying to get close to the fish.  They're quite big and look calm, but in fact they can swim really fast.  Despite our best efforts we, at best, "think we saw it in the distance."  Still pretty fun way to burn off some energy.  In the water we did see a bunch of neat siphonophores though!

During this boat ride we had another important moment - crossing the equator!  We all gathered on the bridge, had a complimentary beverage, and carefully watched the GPS as it went to 0!

The rest of the day was spend reading, napping, eating, and watching Part 2 of the BBC Galapagos video.