Galápagos Day 6: North Seymour, Baltra, and the Chinese Hut

Circumventing Isla Santa Cruz, we arrived at North Seymour Island, a small plot of land within visual range of Baltra, with its airport tarmac, and Isla Santa Cruz. Here we were to find all sorts of varied wildlife, as per the theme of the islands! The morning was a bit different than normal, as we headed out at 6:30 in the morning, before breakfast, to touch down on the shore of North Seymour.

Once there, Enrique led us on a trail through beachland, brush, and shrub, where we caught glimpses of the traditional animal fare, like the ubiquitous sea lion...

but with some really spectacular sights mixed in. Here, we were able to find a plethora of frigatebirds. The frigatebird’s name comes after the Spanish word for ‘pirate’ because these birds like to steal other birds’ food. Normally, they aren’t too much to look at – they’re rather large birds whose females kind of resemble the albatross that we saw earlier.

But the males are particularly unique! They have a red pouch on their neck which is obviously a source of pride, because to attract females they puff it up to a huge size and show it off like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes if you look at them head on, the pouch actually looks like a heart!

Another sight that we got to see in detail was the mating dance of the blue-footed booby. Remember how I said a couple of posts ago that the boobies look really stupid? Well, they do. They don’t have a glorious red pouch to show off, but what they do have is their blue feet. And so they prance around, much like a clumsy human walking around on land with snorkeling fins on, lifting up their blue feet for all to see. And to complement this maneuver, at times they’ll flex their wings outwards, lift their head, and make this rather windy sound that resembles somebody blowing really hard into a flute.

Often times, the females aren’t too impressed with the persistent males, and they get really feisty!

But occasionally a male gets lucky and obtains permission from the female to mount her. But unlike the tortoise, the booby mating act lasts all of about 3 seconds. Yeah – three seconds. All that work strutting and hooting only for a minuscule flash of love-making. But apparently it’s sufficient enough to do the job, as we saw a few mothers nursing their young ones in their ‘nest,’ which is really a thick ring they make around them with their own poop.

So having seen more boobies than we ever thought possible (hey – even the native folk make booby jokes), we headed back onto the boat, finally, for breakfast. And while we ate the boat sailed a bit south to the island of Baltra, where some decent snorkeling awaited us. However, at the instant we set goggles in the water, all we saw was sand, sand, and more sand. Not even a fish among the floating grains. It sucked egg dog, as Jennifer likes to say. I think our snorkeling experience was universally panned by all the passengers in the survey at the end of the cruise.

But, what we didn’t know is that our next excursion would more than make up for it. After the failed snorkel at Baltra, our boat headed northwest to the “Chinese Hut,” an island off the coast of Isla Santiago that looks, if you use your imagination, like an old hut in China (actually to me it looked more like a Pizza Hut). Here, we were to engage in a marathon snorkeling session around the island, being carried by a current to our stopping point. Seeing penguins off the coast during our panga ride must have been a good omen...

because this proved to be one of the best snorkels we had the whole trip! We were treated to sweeping vistas of the ocean floor, teeming with tropical fish of all shapes and colors, the occasional sea lion, manta rays, and the occasional white-tip shark. Yes, that’s right – we snorkeled with 2-meter sharks. Scary, you ask? NO! Extremely exciting! It was the exact opposite of “Jaws,” because when someone yelled “SHARK!” everyone streamed towards it, not away from it!

So after more than an hour of snorkeling, I was getting tired, and I was paddling around near the rocks half-heartedly when all of a sudden three penguins raced directly towards me. Penguins!! I turned around and followed them as best I could, but, alas, they escaped my camera range. But when I popped my head back up, I found myself on the side of a rocky outcropping – teeming with penguins! I and a few others around clamored onto the rocks, holding on tight because of the strong current. And I managed to situate myself inches from a penguin – we were face to face, shooting the breeze. It was simply amazing. It took all my willpower not to snatch one up and stuff it in my suitcase to take home. Stay tuned for the underwater camera photos - they're going to be awesome.

After the amazing snorkeling among sharks and penguins we all returned to the boat euphoric.


What a fantastic afternoon! And to unwind, we showered, relaxed a bit, ate another fantastic dinner, and returned to the poker table as always, enjoying the company of our family of ragtag travelers, cognizant of the fact that our time together was drawing rapidly to a close. So with another awesome day behind us, we prepared ourselves for our last full day aboard the Princess of Galapagos.