Galápagos Day 4, Part 2: Tagus Cove

Tagus Cove is part of the largest island in the archipelago, Isabela Island. It's a sheltered harbor where travelers have long sought the calm waters, and was another of Charles Darwin's ports. And it was an afternoon of too many choices and not enough time: kayaking, deep water snorkeling, and long hike, but only two time slots. What to do? In my quest to do some of everything, I opted to deep water snorkel (since I can't do THAT at home) and kayak, since I hadn't done that yet. Also, one of my group had to drop out, leaving their partner partner-less for the two-person kayak. 

We saw schools of these black striped salemas nearly every outing. Sometimes they were small schools, sometimes there had to be a hundred fish in the group. Watching them whirl and move was extraordinary. 

 It was also fun to watch Ruly dive. He's got the big camera here, doing some filming for our video.

 Another one of the bluechin parrotfish. They were really beautiful.

 I'm not sure what these were, but considering I have a list and we didn't see many big schools of red fish, you'd think I could figure it out.....

 Penguins! I was in the water the same time as sea lions but didn't swim with them. But I did swim with penguins. Or rather, I stayed still while they torpedoed by. As awkward as they are on land is the inverse to how elegant and magnificent they are in the water. And since most penguins live down by the Arctic Circle, this is about the only place in the world where you really can swim with them.

 This section of water was a bit clearer. I believe these are ringtail damselfish.

 Yes, sea turtles. It was always a treat to be in the water with these beautiful and gentle giants. I never tired of watching them.

 More salemas.

 Yes, a huge marbled stingray! We saw several rays this week, but I was really surprised when I looked down and saw this one just under the shelf I was drifting over. It was murky, but the black blob you can see is about half of the ray.

After snorkeling, I made up the other half of a double kayak with Frances. We were going along the coast, and not only looking at the wildlife but also viewing one of the less illustrious markers of the island: graffiti left by numerous past visitors, from the Walt Disney Company to the Ecuadorian Navy.

 I think Max was our zodiac driver. It was great fun to watch them hook and set the kayaks to the zodiac, and then watch the boats trail us along. Even though we could see the ship, we kayaked back to the zodiac. It's just easier to get in/out of the kayaks with the zodiacs than with the ship's platform.

 And we're off!

 Penguins! And crabs. We saw lots of diving pelicans too, and were accompanied by sea turtles much of the way. It was so lovely to just drift along in the cove and watch.

Underneath the "tropic bird" in the middle, is the movie camera symbol left by the Walt Disney Company.

Unfortunately, this meant I missed the hike, but since you can't always do everything, it was OK. And it was a fabulous afternoon. More unfortunately, the evening brought more clouds, so our stargazing session was cancelled. We were hoping to reschedule for another evening, but the weather and our schedule did not permit it. Too bad! Instead, we had our usual fabulous dinner -- for these middle nights, I was hosting dinners for our Smithsonian group -- along with a recap for questions of the day and the preview for the next. By this point, I was pretty certain that I could get used to this life very easily.....