The Captain moved the ship during the nigh. We woke in a quiet bay off the coast of Genovesa island, also known as bird island because of the varied bird colonies which nest here. There are an abundance of frigatebirds and it is among the best place in the archipelago to see red-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, swallow-tailed gulls,storm petrels, tropicbirds, Darwin’s finches, and Galápagos mockingbirds.  This morning we took a panga ride along side of the rocky cliff to view the  abundant bird life, iguanas and the Galapagos fur sea lion. Fortunately we saw most of the birds mentioned above and a few fur sea lions lounging on the rocks.

We had a wet landing on to a sandy beach. On the shore there was a well preserved whale skeleton and many beautiful shells. Our hike took us past large cactus, a delectable treat for the Darwin finches.

The mangrove swamp is home to hundreds of boobies, blue and red footed as well as nazca. There’s also a few herons nesting in the trees.

The Boobies have become my favourite Galapagos bird, especially the wide eyed babies. They didn’t seem to mind the humans admiring them. I just couldn’t get enough of their inquisitive little faces.

We stopped to watch a group of male frigate birds trying to win over a female. It’s quite amazing to see how big they can blow up their red throat to impress the female.

There’s a calm inlet at the edge of the swamp where the water is so clear you can see the pan rays swimming about.  We continued our walk back to the beach area, passing various birds, crabs and lounging sea lions.

Back at the beach we took a few moments to enjoy the magnificent scenery, the interesting sky and say our last goodbyes to the sea lions.  We boarded the ship to change for snorkelling.

The horse-shoe shaped island has a volcanic caldera whose wall has collapsed, forming the Great Darwin Bay, surrounded by cliffs.  The calm bay is teeming with fish which made our last snorkelling expedition fantastically memorable. The rock wall is a feeding ground for large schools of colourful fish. Every now and then I’d pop up from the water to view the sea lions on the rock ledge above. One curious sea lion slid off rocks into the water to swim with us. It was difficult to leave this magical water world but alas, all good things must come to an end. Reluctantly we climbed into the pangas for our transfer back to the ship.