A heck of a lot more than a three-hour tour…

Today most of the group, including Deb and me, took a boat tour of various snorkeling and nesting sites around the island. At the first stop, not far from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno harbor, where we started, everyone hopped into the water to check out the fish, but there were plenty of birds swirling around in the air, so I stayed on the boat with the crew to see who I could see.

There were frigatebirds, boobies, and noddies, but the star of the show has got to be this red-billed tropic bird (Phaethon aethereus). It never landed, but kept swooping past the boat as it fished at the base of the cliff, and it is a miracle that I got this one picture to look presentable.

At the next stop, everyone stayed in the boat, and I finally got a nice portrait of a brown noddy (Anous stolidus). Deb and I have seen them fishing in the harbor, and I thought for sure that I had shown you one already, but I guess I never thought the pictures were good enough, until now.

I believe there was another snorkeling opportunity, but I don’t have an underwater camera, so I stayed on the surface again. It was either then or another stop soon after that we got to see some of these swallow-tailed gulls (Creagrus furcatus). We didn’t see any fly, so we couldn’t see their swallow tails, but that red eye ring sure is striking enough on its own. Isn’t it?

Finally, I’ve gotta wrap this up soon because it was another very long day, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. So far, we’ve seen blue-footed boobies and Nazca boobies, but today we also got to see a few of the fabled red-footed boobies (Sula sula). Some even had chicks! Woo hoo!

All morning, we cruised down the leeward side of the island, and the seas were nice and calm. After lunch, however, we turned the corner to head home on the windward side, and the seas were quite a bit rougher. Oof! That was a long ride home, but there was one snorkeling stop along the way, and that’s where Deb finally got to swim with the sea turtles she’s been hoping to see since our visit to Isla de la Plata. Yay!