Making Friends

A quieter day today. We started with a long (and heated) hike on Cerro Dragon Island and ended up traveling down to an alternate departure spot since it was low tide and our ponga couldn't navigate the rocks. It made for a good adventure and helped us work off our hearty breakfast. Later, I went for a swim at a beautiful beach and shed my wetsuit since it was so warm in the water. The unintended consequence was a lot of sun on unprotected skin so I am rather red tonight. One of the casualties of the trip was that I lost my big bottle of sunscreen in Guayaquil so I have been using odds and ends. No more conserving! I will see what the ship's store has to offer in the morning for my Northern European self.

This afternoon we had a zodiac ride to a scenic coast in an area called El Eden and got caught in a downpour in one of the only times that I didn't have poncho with me. It was nice and cool and since I was able to protect my camera with my backpack, all was well. I was dry by the time we got back to the ship.

One of the woman naturalists had dinner with us tonight. She lives here in the Galapagos so it was interesting to hear about her life. Like all of the crew, they work 4 or 5 weeks on and then have several weeks off. Kind of hard on relationships and families but they seem to really love their work and put their hearts into it. They are all employees of the Galapagos National Park as must be any naturalist who works in the Islands. Quite a wonderful group of people.