Day 2 on the Galapagos Islands

And what a day it was! Overnight, our yacht traveled to Isla San Cristobal and anchored off the coast. Leon Dormido, aka "Kicker Rock" was also off the coast and was our first destination - a deep water snorkel at 6:45 am!

We got into the dinghies -

And jumped into the water out by Kicker Rock. We're going to snorkel through the deep water in the crack of the rock. We were told we would see sharks!

I saw lots of fish, although they were pretty deep, so not so good for pictures.

A sea lion swam by me.

Wait! What's that?!? Uh-oh - I think it's a shark. We were told they were Galapagos Sharks, but when I googled it, they had pointer noses, so I'm really not sure.

I took a selfie, just in case it was the last picture ever of me. But I made it out okay, and we went back to the yacht for breakfast.

After breakfast, we got back into the dinghies and motored over to Cerro Brujo aka "Wizard Hill." We're going to go right through the hole in the rock.

Looking back from the other side, with our pelican friends, we could see Kicker Rock in the distance.

We then landed on the nearby beach and checked it out. Here's our yacht with Kicker Rock again.

On shore we saw our first of many Darwin Finches, along with a lot of Sally Lightfoot Crabs.

There were quite a few sea lions on the beach, some having a really good time. They totally ignored us...

And we saw a new-to-us bird (aren't they all?) - an American Oystercatcher.

After lunch, we moved over to Isla Lobos. First, we went snorkeling along the shore. It was a lot easier to see the fish in the shallow water.

For quite a while, I snorkeled along with a huge school of Yellow-tailed Surgeonfish.

Back on board, we changed into our dry clothes, then went to the beach there. There is a large colony of sea lions that reside on the island. Many had babies. This one was only about a week old.

Awwwwwww....

And there were lots of Blue-Footed Boobies in residence.

One interesting thing we learned was that the bluer the boobies feet are, the less good health they are in.

And there were more frigatebirds there - this young one was older than the baby in the last post.

Back on the yacht, at our afternoon briefing, we met the crew - all except for the cook, who was busy cooking. Amazing how many people it takes to take care of the 15 of us, plus 2 guides.