Galapagos journals Day 2

Dear diary,

Another amazing day! It feels like we are now truly in the Galapagos - I guess after spending the night somewhere, it makes it all feel more real.

We left early in the morning to go snorkelling in the National Marine Park in Santa Cruz and it was amazing!! When we reached the beach, we spotted three seals lazing about under the trees. I suppose they were already hot, like us! Bright red crabs and black, leathery marine iguanas were clambering across the volcanic rocks close to the shoreline of the beach - what a contrast of colours that was!  

We jumped in the water and swam around, watching all sorts of bright fish (rainbow fish was my favourite) float by and even swimming near an iguana. There was so much fish life in just a few meters.

We had gotten out of the sea and were just sitting down on the sand when one of the seals under the trees got up and waddled down to the sea! It gave us plenty of time to prepare though, and by the time it was in the sea, we were ready with our snorkels and masks on. As it flopped into the water, we dipped our heads in and watched as it lay on its back chilling in the water ! We couldn't get too close though. Every time it turned and lazily swam towards us, we would turn and speed away hoping it wouldn't mistake us as fish and give chase!

In the evening, we went out to the commercial harbour to see if there was anything to see. When we arrived, we saw a seal lazing about on the jetty, but nothing else, at least until we looked into the water and saw thirty or so baby black tipped reef sharks gliding about in the water. It was amazing! The sharks where gliding in and out of the light that was under water! We waited a while, and then the seal that was on the jetty, waddled down and splashed into the water. It immediately started annoying another seal which was casually sleeping in a boat (apparently seals in the Galapagos do that!). He rested himself on the side of the rib and barked at the seal in the boat trying to wake him up and get him to play. Or maybe go fishing together? Who knows? His barking was accompanied by laughs from the watching crowd - it was rather funny.

I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Bye for now!