Beach Time and Bird Watching on Genovesa Island

 April 2: Day 10. Capt. Larry is up early because of a time change that wasn’t taken into account. Our ship is anchored 19 minutes north of the equator in Darwin Bay on Genovesa Island, also known as Tower Island.

Swimming sea turtle

Genovesa is a shield volcano named for its low profile resembling a warrior’s shield lying flat. It was formed by the eruption of highly fluid, low viscosity lava which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more viscous lava from a stratovolcano. The island gets it’s horseshoe-shape from the collapse of one side of its volcanic caldera forming Darwin Bay.

Genovesa beach and our ship

Our cabin has a wall to wall window that retracts and allows us to hear the birds and wildlife on the island. The birds are very noisy and the large and varied colonies of birds have also earned the island the moniker of Bird Island. Directly below us we spot a sea turtle rolling around in the water.

After a late breakfast with Linda and David, we return to our cabin to get ready for some swimming and beach time. We are less than two weeks past the vernal equinox when the sun is directly over the equator, so we will experience very high exposure to the sun’s rays and will need to take more protective measures than usual.

Fun on the beach!

We meet up with David and Linda in the ship’s expedition staging area and wait for our panga to take us ashore for our first WET landing of the cruise. Onshore we find that we have to share the beach and swimming area with some shorebirds and sea lions. Linda is particularly sharing when a sea lion swims out of the water and makes a beeline charge directly at her and her belongings.

Mmmm...ceviche!

She scrambles away to avoid the encounter only to have the sea lion come at her again a short time later. Hopefully, the next time she won’t wear that Essence of Fish perfume! We do a little more swimming and relaxing before taking a panga back to the ship for lunch.

A staple of Peruvian and Ecuadoran diets, lunch features a different type of ceviche every day, and Capt. Larry has sworn to try them all. The meal is buffet style or menu order depending on the diner’s preference, but so far we haven’t seen the offerings as being exceptionally inspiring.

After lunch everybody returns to their cabin for a nap, but Capt. Larry attends a lecture on “Nature Photography” presented by the ship’s filmmaker. Later in the afternoon we again board a panga and return to shore for a Darwin Bay nature walk.

Leaving the beach area it is easy to see why this islands sometimes referred to as Bird Island, as there are literally birds everywhere.

Red-footed booby

Driving Jr. off

We are introduced to our first member of the booby family—the red footed booby. These are the smallest of the boobies in the Galapagos, but the most numerous with an estimated population of over 130,000 pairs. They are easily recognized by their bright red feet, blue beaks and colorful faces. We also see lots of male great frigate birds with their distinctive red gular pouch which they inflate during the breeding season to attract females. And it must’ve been breeding season because they all had them inflated!

Great frigate birds and one with collapsed sac

Our guide told us that one male we spotted with a deflated pouch was due to a wound incurred in a fight with another male. These birds have wing spans of up to 7 ½ feet—the largest wing area to body weight ratio of any bird. Other birds our guide pointed out were Nazca boobies, storm petrels, swallow-tailed gulls, brown pelicans, and Darwin’s finches. Just as our nature walk was about to end, we witnessed two bull sea lions get in a fight, probably over females or territory.

Sleeping sealion

After a couple of minutes of fighting, it became apparent that one dominant alpha male was going to prevail over his challenger and wasted little time in chasing Junior off.

Back on board the ship, we cleaned up and met in the lounge for pre-dinner drinks which flowed into the day’s recap and a lecture on the geology of the Galapagos.

Ship's staff

Our expedition leader then gave us a destination briefing discussing tomorrow’s activities in North Seymour and Santiago Islands. The briefing was followed by a captain’s welcome toast and introduction to the ship’s staff. We enjoyed dinner with David and Linda and then decided to call it a day.