In yet another tribute to Christopher Columbus, Genovesa Island is named after his home town. Of course, the English had their own name, Tower, after a navy admiral. Genovesa is the only island on this expedition north of the equator (a full 19') thus giving the Galapagos penguins here the distinction of being the only ones in the wild in the northern hemisphere. The island is a partially collapsed volcanic caldera now open to the ocean.
We found endemic Galapagos doves on many islands.
And endemic Galapagos mocking-birds too.
And it wouldn't be a Galapagos beach without some sea lions.
The Endeavour II anchored in Darwin Bay, and we experienced two quite special on-shore activities during the course of the day, a beach on Darwin Bay, and the Prince Philip Steps trail. Each visit was limited to about 50 people by the Galapagos National Park.
Frigate birds abound on Genovesa, this female possibly choosing a mate.
This male great (or magnificent?) frigate birds, turns his head way back in an effort to maximise the red display and attract females swooping above.
For the former, we really just roamed about a beach but it contained abundant wildlife - sea lions of course, frigate birds, blue-eyed Galapagos doves, Galapagos mocking birds, but the highlight was our first sighting of the red-footed booby. This completes our booby trifecta, Nazca, blue-footed and now red-footed. What took us by surprise was the blue bill of the red-footed booby!
Much less prolific than the Nazcar booby is this red-footed booby, a brown morph of the species, we are told.
The blue bill is a surprising characteristic of the red footed boobies.
Strking red eyes of the swallow tailed gull.
If he's waiting for the light to change, it's going to be a while!
A Nazca booby chick in the bushes.
Nazca boobies fly in formation when they are young.
Paddle boards being towed back to Endeavour II after we all fell in the water.
Swimming off the back of Endeavour II was not encouraged, but the crew still kept a lookout.
The Prince Philip Steps featured a steep staircase carved into an escarpment which gave access to an elevated plateau which surrounds much of Darwin Bay. Up here was a hot unfriendly track over fissured lava where we saw more Nazca boobys (with eggs and chicks), more red-footed boobys, and a solitary short-eared hunting owl hiding in a cave. Antonio knew exactly where to find this fellow, so we suppose he's pretty predictable.
In a dark cave on the rocky plateau at the top of the Prince Philip Steps hides this Galapagos morph of the short eared owl, the only one we saw, but Antonio knew where to look.
Everywhere on the Galapagos is a photographer's paradise.
Just hatched Nazca chick. The younger one, yet to hatch, will not survive.
The Prince Philip Steps were presumably carved for him, not by him!
As our Zodiac arrived at the landing to the Steps, we saw a fishing boat take a large albacore tuna. The fishermen looked most unprofessional, and the capture was upsettingly inhumane. Antonio said the tuna would earn $300. Some in the Zodiac wanted the fishermen reported (our video chronicler had the evidence) but our guides seemed to be conflicted over whether the catch was illegal or not.
The mother ship of these fisherman caught a large albacore tuna in our sight, but our guides couldn't agree on whether it was legal in this spot.
Local guide Antonio adding an interview to the expedition's video record.
A guest (very sharp eyed ornithologist) plus Mark (L-NG video chronicler) and Aaron (L-NG naturalist and photo instructor).
This map (credit Wikipedia) shows the two walks we did on Genovesa.
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