Galapagos Day 4 Morning: Rabida Island

 

Two American flamingos fluffed up and enter-twined, their version of fighting.

   After traveling through the night on our expedition ship La Pinta, and crossing the equator twice, I woke to the dropping of the anchor in front of an beautiful island called Rabida Island in the central part of the Galapagos Archipelago. A beautiful red sand beach stretches along the coast here, and that provided our beach landing spot for our morning nature walk. It was a wet landing, so everyone sits and spins off the sides of the zodiac into the shallow water. As we did this a curious sea lion played nearby in the surf, and a few blue footed boobies cruised overhead.

   After drying our feet and putting on our shoes, Dries, our guide, led us about fifty feet, behind the bushy dune, which revealed a shallow lagoon. Inside this brackish lagoon we were delighted to see bright pink flamingos. Dries said that they never know if the flamingos will be here, because they fly from island to island, feeding in the different lagoons. So I felt like our group's luck was still holding strong. Not to mention that most of the flamingos were right up near the front of the lagoon, giving us a great show. These are American flamingos, the same that you can find in Florida and the Caribbean. They were much brighter pink than the Greater and Lesser flamingos I was just hanging out with in Kenya.

   After spending some time with the flamingos we followed a rocky trail through an amazing cactus landscape, ending high up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and many other islands in the archipelago. The entire walk, I was scanning all the cactus for the rare cactus finch. Finally towards the end of the walk we spotted a cactus finch feeding on the flowers of a cactus right in front of us! I got some great shots, and even a video. The beak of the cactus finch was noticeably longer than the ground finches we had been seeing.

One of our big finds of the day, a rarely seen cactus finch!

I got everyone excited when we saw this cactus finch. It was the only one we saw, but it put on a show. It went flower to flower, feeding on each of the buds.

   The morning was not over yet though. After a quick coffee break back onboard, we suited up for a drift snorkel, farther down the coastline of Rabida Island. We dropped in the water next to the coastline, always keeping the island on our right. The bottom was mostly rocky, and sloped off into the deep blue. It was a bit slow at first, but once the first shark was spotted, the sightings just kept coming. We ended up seeing four or five white tip reef sharks, a spotted eagle ray, a bunch of large moray eels, and then a massive 16ft wide manta ray. The manta didn't stick with us long, but it started off way in the shallows, giving us a really good look at the two sucker fish on its back. It also had a shiny fishing lure on the top of its left wing. It may have been the biggest manta I've ever swam with. Finally, I spotted a Galapagos penguin, swimming underneath me. The local guides told me afterwards that it is very, very rare to see a penguin there on Rabida island. It was a stellar snorkel!

Surprise surprise, there are flamingos here! We had a flock of 16 or so bright pink American flamingos.

Flamingo on the move in Rabida lagoon.

The sun came out and the sparkles came alive in the shallow lagoon behind this flamingo.

Flamingo romance? Nope, flamingo turf wars.

These two really put on a good show just as we were leaving the lagoon.

Flock of flamingos on Rabida Island. Our guide told us there were only about 200 in all of the Galapagos Islands.

Landing on the red sand beach of Rabida Island.

After getting dropped off on the red sand beach, our zodiac speeds back to the mother ship, while the next group prepares for their wet landing.

You had to really watch where you were going on this trail, as the cactus often seemed to reach out to get you.

Our guide, Dries, leading us to discoveries at the flamingo filled lagoon on Rabida Island.

That is me, and that is our ship. What a life!