Natalie and Sean's American Adventure: Galapagos Day 2: Kicker Rock!

Okay, I am SUPER excited about this entry. And you should be, too, because here's where we really start getting amongst the Galapagos wildlife.

Remember how some idiot (that would be me) slept on her iPhone and ran the battery down, meaning we overslept on the ONE morning we wanted to get amongst the Calakmul wildlife super-early? Not this time. No siree, I managed to cancel out my earlier error by somehow managing to set the phone alarm to go off an hour early on our first full day in the Galapagos.

Not but that we weren't already awake - the local, enthusiastic roosters made more than certain of that! But having to join the group for an early breakfast, we raced to get ready, only to wonder why there were no signs of life (roosters excepted) when we got outside. It was only then that I looked at my phone again and realised I'd set the alarm early.

This turned out to play to our advantage, because we got to go for a peaceful walk along the Esplanade and say good morning to the fur seal colony. The novelty of seeing these animals so close-up, and so undisturbed by humans, didn't wear off the entire trip. So indulge me a moment while I share yet more photos of the friendly San Cristobal locals:

How could you NOT love this face?

After a hearty breakfast at "Patagonia" restaurant, we half-donned our wetsuits, grabbed our snorkelling gear, and made our way to the wharf, only to find that one of the benches was occupied, by - well, no surprises, really:

Well, hello there!

Our destinations for the morning: Isla de Lobos, for a snorkel in the beautiful lagoon, followed by a date with the formidable Leon Dormido, or Kicker Rock. You can see both on the west side of the island. We departed from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno.

On the short journey to Isla de Lobos, we were treated to our first sighting of the infamous blue-footed boobies (together with a brown pelican). I warn you: I took a LOT of boobie photos. A LOT. I've had to seriously hold myself back in presenting only these five for your viewing pleasure.

I just LOVE those blue feet!!!

The name "booby" comes from the Spanish word, bobo, meaning, sadly, "idiot", or "stupid". Because the birds were so tame from having no reason to fear humans, they were thought to be stupid. I grant you, they do have a rather vacuous expression at times, but I felt a bit sad that their simple lack of fear landed them with a derogatory name. However, it naturally opens up a whole world of humour for English-speaking tourists. "I love Boobies" merchandise is EVERYWHERE.

Personally, I think their common name in Spanish is infinitely sweeter: "Piquero patas azules", or "blue feet" - not a "bobo" in sight.

Anyway, the boobies certainly are efficient diving machines. They are incredibly streamlined when they fold their wings and drop into the water - you can see their streamlined shape in this photo, brought to you by the power of Nikon and somebody practically hanging out of the boat:

The San Cristobal coastline is just beautiful, and the water was azure blue and incredibly enticing:

We were lucky enough to see frigate birds taking to the air from their nests on the cliffs:

As if that wasn't enough, Oswaldo suddenly pointed out a bunch of marine iguanas on the nearby rocks:

Bright orange Sally Lightfoot crabs were everywhere:

We got really excited when we saw a sealion on the rocks, practically inviting us to come and play:

More marine iguanas:

And as we dropped anchor in the lagoon, this was the sight that made all of us get geared up to hop in the water as fast as we could fang into our fins:

Sealions playing here!!

Due to an unfortunate tactical error, Sean and I had neglected to purchase an underwater camera as part of our duty free shopping, and thus had to make do with a cheapie disposable. And once we got in the water, the sights that greeted us were such that we ran out of film in about 5 minutes flat. Given that we didn't take any more underwater photos for the rest of the trip (the disposable cameras being cumbersome and relatively rubbish quality), I hereby present the entirety of this roll. And, despite that this looks like we paid for a sealion encounter at Sea World, I promise the following encounters were all with 100% bona fide WILD animals.

First up, Ed found a small Eagle Ray!

Next, small turtles GALORE. We thought Akumal in Mexico was great for wild turtle encounters? This absolutely POOPED all over it!

Sean and a new reptilian friend!

Simon, resplendent in yellow and showing his English roots by refusing to wear a wetsuit because "the water is so warm", is having the most amazing first-ever snorkel of his life:

I love this photo of me trying to swim as elegantly as the turtle. Sadly, Sean's finger detracts from the shot somewhat.

I mean, seriously. We were pinching ourselves.

And then the action REALLY hotted up, because the sealions decided to welcome us to their playground.

I was literally in HEAVEN.

The sealions effortlessly circled and tumbled all around us. Trying to join in with the fun, I somersaulted, rolled, and forgot which way was up. It was impossible to keep up with the whirling, carefree dance, but it was impossible not to try. Who cared about breathing, anyway?!

Sealions are very interactive and curious. They will come and put their faces right up against your mask. Sometimes, if you wave your arms at them underwater, they will mimic your motions with their flippers. One big female came right up to me and barked at me underwater:

"Uuuurrrrrnnngh!!!"she grunted.

"UUUURRRRRNNNNGGH!!!!" I replied, enthusiastically.

She literally did a double-take!!

Oh, and there was plenty of fish action, too. I saw parrotfish, a school of barracuda, three-stripe butterflyfish, and damselfish, as well as a pufferfish:

Not to mention this school of razor surgeonfish:

But the stars of the morning were undoubtedly the impossible-to-ignore pinnipeds:

Hello!!! I iz swimming upside-down!!

I have a close encounter, but yet again Sean's finger obscures the sealion cutting across him in the foreground. The boy needs to hone his underwater photography skills.....

We could have played with the sealions all day. We had to keep an eye out that the alpha male wasn't feeling threatened, but so long as he was okay with our presence, the multi-species party could happily continue.

Hey! Hello? I'm ready for my close-up!

Effortless swimming skillz. They haz dem.

I have to say, it was extra special sharing this amazing experience with four other people who were equally as enthusiastic and excited about these incredible encounters. Equally, Simon's, Ed's, Claire's and Sean's faces were lit with wonder and joy. There was not a shred of jaded cynicism to cloud the atmosphere of amazement, reverence and appreciation of the privilege we'd been granted.

In fact, it was only the promise of Leon Dormido, with its possibility of hammerhead shark encounters, that allowed us to be prised out of the water.

On our way out of the lagoon, we got a closer view of the beautiful, nesting, frigate birds:

The Galapagos landscapes are just stunning, with the volcanic mountains shrouded in mist, and the vivid green of the vegetation rising from the black volcanic rock.

You can just see the inflated red dewlap of a Great Frigatebird in the lower right side of the photo below. I was so excited to see this and capture the moment.

Oh, all right, then. Here it is cropped and enlarged:

It was onwards to the strangely ominous Leon Dormido: Kicker Rock.

This boot-shaped edifice rising abruptly out of the water was the stuff of Enid Blyton adventures. "Famous Five Go To Smuggler's Rock", anyone? As we approached the monolith, I don't know whether it was the solitary nature of the rugged structure, or its renown as a haunt of the much-sought hammerhead shark, but the whole thing was delightfully spooky.

Leon Dormido is quite a way offshore, so I made the most of the trip by sitting up on the bow and soaking in every vivid moment. I was rewarded with a silvery display of a whole school of dainty flying fish. We saw plenty more flying fish during our subsequent boat travels between the islands, but there was always something magical about the sudden appearance of these delicate, quicksilver fish that spread their pectoral fins like wings and skimmed over the water like birds.

Meanwhile, Kicker Rock loomed ever closer, and we could see more clearly how it was not one, but two rock formations, the second being a sheet of rock arising parallel to the main "boot" structure, to form a narrow channel across the heel of the "boot". It was awe-inspiring.

We were all gobsmacked by this amazing ediface, and were all happily taking photos and enthusing about its intimidating beauty. We had almost forgotten the main purpose of the venture: to get in the water.

But then the motor was cut, the anchor was dropped, and there was a collective, silent, gulp as we contemplated this:

We were on the southern, shady side of the channel, and the water was very murky, dark and rather deep.

To use a technical term, it felt kind of sharky.

Of course, our outward countenances showed nothing but reckless enthusiasm and bravado.

Here's Oswaldo with Sean.

And here I am with Claire.

Here's the thing: I've done plenty of research diving in what is arguably the Great White Shark corridor of the planet, on the west coast of South Australia. And here's the difference: with diving, you're on the bottom, and you're safe. Sharks take their prey from midwater or the surface: their mouths are not the right shape to allow them to feed from the bottom. As a snorkeller, or a surfer, you look remarkably like a seal, so you're effectively proffering yourself as shark bait. Not that I blame the sharks. And look, at the end of the day, the risk of anything happening is so low, that I always tell people they should be more frightened of dying in a car accident on their way to the beach than of being attacked by a shark.

And okay, these are Galapagos hammerheads we're talking about here. Hammerheads have a bad rap as being in the "man eater" class (a term I dislike in any case), but there are many species of hammerhead, and the Galapagos variety are typically docile. Besides which, they have no shortage of fish on the smorgasboard.

But still. The dark waters around Leon Dormido were just kind of scary, especially because we'd decided the day before to forgo diving, and a nice, safe, spot on the bottom, in favour of snorkelling. As we slipped in to the water and I felt the familiar vulnerability associated with hanging around on the surface, I glanced over at Ed, the most experienced diver in our group. We exchanged a silent look of trepidation, while not wanting to spread an atmosphere of panic among the group.

"Not sure about this, Ed", I muttered. "I don't know about you, but I could use a tank around now".

"Me, too", Ed replied, fervently.

But there was nothing for it but to start finning. Discouragingly, I could see nothing beneath me. The water was as murky as it had appeared from the boat, and there was little sunlight to illuminate the scene.

We collectively headed for the channel and started swimming through the gap between the rocks. It was all very dramatic, with the gloom obscuring who-knew-what lurking below, leaving all to our revved-up imaginations, and those sheer walls of rock arising vertically from the deep.

But persistence pays off. About a third of the way into the channel, the light improved, allowing me to discern a huge school of fish calmly aggregated below me, displaying the occasional flash of silver as their bodies caught the light.

I felt much better seeing those fish. Knowing what's beneath you in the water is profoundly reassuring, and besides, I figured that if the fish were calm and placid, that was good news for me on the shark bait front.

In no time, we had all emerged on the northern side of Kicker Rock. We started seeing turtles down quite deep, and estimated the water's depth at 10-15m.

By wordless agreement, we all fanned out and started looking for sharks. I also kept a close eye on the others, but particularly on Ed, who, with his experience and enthusiasm, had already showed an aptitude for discovering cool marine life.

Sure enough, in what seemed like no time, Ed wordlessly made a shark fin gesture with his hand on the top of his head.

So, what was my reaction? Did I freak out? Experience shivers? Swim in the other direction?

Um, nope.

On the contrary. I made like a veritable outboard motor with my fins, until I was right next to Ed, who pointed beneath him.

A good few metres below us was a HUGE hammerhead shark. And I'm not exaggerating. Three of us independently estimated it as being close to 4 metres in length.

Fear didn't even enter into it.

Without even pausing to think, both Ed and I instinctively followed this majestically beautiful creature, and as soon as we were directly over it, dived down to it.

With a bit of strong finning, I was alongside of this graceful, huge shark. I marvelled at the freakishly alien-looking hammer, and was fortunate to get close enough to look into its eye. It was a profoundly moving encounter.

I was utterly captivated.

Two thoughts:

1) Reality is always less scary than one's imagination.

2) I'm probably not the best example of the optimal execution of the principles of natural selection and self-preservation.

This latter was confirmed when I re-surfaced, only to be met by a practically bug-eyed Oswaldo, who spat his snorkel and exclaimed, in awestruck tones,

"That was the beeeegest hammerhead I have eeeever seen!! I was going to dive down to it, but then I saw you dive down to it, and I saw you next to it, and I thought, that hammerhead is huuuge, and I am not diving down to that hammerhead! It was HUUUUGE!!!! That is AMAZING!!! You are craaaazy!!!!"

Maybe, but then again, shark body language is kind of similar to that of dogs. An aggressive shark will display certain "tells", such as lowered pectoral fins and an arched back. This shark was just calmly swimming around its Kicker Rock environ, supremely unconcerned by yet another plethora of tourists.

After that, the snorkelling experience was nothing short of joyous. We all saw at least two hammerheads, and right at the end, Claire called me over to share her sighting of a smaller Galapagos Shark.

In fact, we had been incredibly fortunate. Oswaldo had made it sound like hammerhead sightings were a virtual guarantee, but it turned out that this was only the second time one of his groups had seen hammerheads at Leon Dormido. Also, we later learned that it seems to be that, bizarrely, if snorkellers see hammerheads, divers on the same day somehow tend not to, and vice versa. This made us feel infinitely better about our decision to forgo diving, that we'd earlier been regretting.

Oswaldo was beside himself, repeating over and over, "That was AMAZING! That was the BEEEGEST hammerhead I have EVER seen!!!" His enthusiasm and joy were so refreshing.

And now you can virtually beat me up, because I plead guilty to having used up all our disposable camera film on the sealions at Isla de Lobos. But I'm not going to apologise for the lack of hammerhead photos. For a start, I can practically gurarantee that photos wouldn't have turned out given the depth at which the sharks were swimming and the crappy quality of the disposable camera. Second, no grainy silhouette of a photo could possibly hope to capture the majesty and awe of this amazing experience. If anything, I'd be afraid of tainting the memory by having a lesser quality tangible representation.

Oh, all right, then.

Fine.

Here's a photo I ripped from the internet, courtesy of one Michael Gallagher. It kind of gives you the sense of what it was like for me to look directly into (one of) the shark's eyes. Thanks, Michael:

And another:

(courtesy of http://www.cjclandandseaphoto.com/mainugalapagos.htm)

Of course, these hammerheads are MUCH smaller than our HUUUUUUGE one.

Back on board, our group was totally ecstatic. I was practically pinching myself. This was right up there with the whale shark encounter in Mexico.

It was icing on the cake to cruise around the western (seaward) side of Kicker Rock and spy sealions sunning themselves:

And the cherry on top of the icing was seeing the second of the Galapagos' three booby species. These are masked boobies, so named for obvious reasons:

The morning had delivered in spades. We cruised back to San Cristobal and pulled into a deserted cove, where I managed to snap this idyllic photo of our honeymooners.