October 24, 2014 4:00pm by David Farrar

Galapagos Day 4

On Day 4 we went to Fernandina Island which is the only major island with no introduced species. This Great Blue Heron greeted us as we came ashore.

The marine iguanas and sea lions sunbathe next to each other.

On this island are 250,000 marine iguanas. It is basically their island. They are everywhere and you have to be careful not to stand on one.

This is the current alpha male sea lion. He spent quite a bit of time bellowing at us. If you bellowed back he might take it as a challenge and attack.

The alpha male doesn’t eat while he is the alpha, as he spends his time protecting the territory. Hence on average they last only 20 days in the job until they get defeated by someone else.

However not all bad, as once defeated they go to a separate island with all the bachelor males, and single females and enjoy themselves there.

Cute – a baby iguana looking out on top of an adult.

The rare Flightless Cormorant. This is their nesting area.

These birds can’t fly but they have adapted as they can dive up to 25 metres under thewater to hunt fish.

More marine iguanas.

A lava lizard.

A baby Flightless Cormorant under his or her mother.

An Iguana swimming in the water. The next day when I was snorkeling I had one swim into me!

They look like they are posing for a rugby photo!

These two baby sea lion cubs playing in a rock pool.

The Galapagos Hawk, up a tree some distance away.

We did three water activities today, after the walk. Two lots of snorkeling, and also went kayaking. This is a couple of our shipmates.

The snorkeling was great – in the morning we got to swim with some very playful sea lions. We are told to go no closer than six feet, but no one told the sea lions that. They hovered all around us and followed us for ages.

In the afternoon snorkel, we had some penguins swim past us, barely a metre away. Also a great experience.