Sunday, July 21, 2013

Isabela Island

Moreno Point is one of the more remote and least-visited sites in the Galapagos itinerary. I was so thankful we got to stop here because it was probably my favourite spot on the cruise. This is a "newer" part of the Galapagos Islands so the landscape is dominated with lava fields. Here is what I loved about the day:

- Seeing little signs of plant and animal life peeking through the barren lava fields.
- Searching for mysterious creatures like the whitetip reef shark and Sally Lightfoot Crab.
- Getting up close and personal with the yellow land iguana - their upturned mouths make them look deceptively friendly!





















Vince took the below photo and there is something about it that I absolutely love! In case you can't tell, it's a blue footed booby landing in the water.





A flightless cormorant! This is a beautiful jet black bird with striking blue eyes. They blend in so well with the lava rock that they can be hard to spot. After feeding in the water, they stand on the lava rock and spread out their wings to dry off.




Marine iguana are extremely territorial and we saw a lot of threatening looks, menacing sounds, and head nodding coming from these two.



I love seeing marine iguana in the water - it is so surreal.




After lunch, we headed to Urbina Bay, where we caught our first glimpses of huge land iguana and giant tortoises!











I thought I would include some of my video clips in this blog post - the below is a short compilation of the land iguana. Similar to marine iguana, land iguana are very territorial. In the video below, two large males threaten and confront each other but ultimately reach a stalemate. We watched them for several minutes before our naturalist told us to move on. I guess you could say we broke the tension. I wish we could have stayed to watch it play out naturally.












Another incredible day!


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