Well here I am, first full day in, on or should I say around the Galapagos? As promised, the boat shifted during the night and we awoke to find ourselves quite close to the Island of Sante Fe. I was aware that the engines started at 4 am and that we were moving, but to tell you the truth the, what was very gentle, movement of the shop was not disturbing at all. As I result I had a great nights sleep and was well and truly ready for a full day of activity.....

But first breakfast . All of the meals have been great and breakfast offered a full range including cereals, pancakes, eggs of any sort, fruit, cheese, cold meats, pastries etc. Thus refreshed we departed at 8 am for a wet landing (ie out of the zodiac into the waster on the beach, with towels provided to dry feet before putting on footwear). The beach was strewn with many sea lions of all sizes. In the sea lion's 'nursery area' in the rocks were many babies, with the older young ones (1-4 year olds) and adults on the beach.

As with all the animals on these islands we could get quite close to the sea lions (see pics) though we were under strict instructions on how to behave and the potential harm from touching young ones (the mother will reject them). We also learnt and saw lots more things about their biology, Including some life and death lessons (see pic of decaying sea lions on the beach) and that as well as preying on young sea lions that hawks eat sea lion after birth, so when we saw 4 hawks heading for a nearby rise, our guide recommended that we should go and take a look .

We were not disappointed as 5-6 hawks were feasting on and fighting over some after. During our time on the island we also got up close to several other hawks an adult (brown) and a younger one (with some yellow on their feathers) - within about a metre.

We then went on a 1+ km walk into and up higher on the island looking for land iguanas, following several talks about the evolution of the different species (though I have a few issues about our guide's method of explaining the divergence into several species from one common ancestor as he did not mention natural selection at all, rather the 'need' and 'wanting' of both plants and animals to change their form to suit the environment - I think that old Charles Darwin would not have been happy. Funnily enough when I mentioned this to one of my fellow travellers who shared my viewpoint, about 5 mins later we stopped to look at some plants on the island struggling because of the unusual lack of rain this year, and Mauricio (guide) did use this phrase .... Funny how thing work out).

After some careful looking we found male and female land iguanas (pics), the males the greyish colour of the rocks with spikes on their backs, while the females are more coffee coloured. The animals we saw are in poor condition due to the drought and lack of green food (another pic of the island and where you see grey bare trees, there should be green leaves in summer) and some will of course will die after they use up their body reserves and eat as many of the cactus pads as they can reach. As we walked around the headland we saw some sea iguanas (black - more on them later) on the rocks, and paused to watch some youngish sea lions playing in an protected area in the sea just off the island. They were doing all sorts of antics, leaps, flop overs and jumps .. It looked like fun.

Back to the beach and checked out the baby sea lions some more, a look at the finches and talked about the different versions on different islands (one of Charles Darwins key things), before back to the boat . Greeted on arrival with a juice and snacks.

Then into swimmers, kitted out with wetsuit, flippers, snorkel and goggles and ready for my first Galapagos snorkel. I neglected to get a pic of me in my gear, but will do so next time (there will be many) for your laughing pleasure. The new people who had not arrived yesterday with me had snorkelled several times and were quite used to the system and were very confident, and helpful. It is 4 years since I have snorkelled and I have never done very much so leaping off the zodiac into the wild blue depths was moderately terrifying for me - but I reasoned to myself that my recent experience of facing my terror and scooting each day with less than minimal riding skills meant that this snorkelling lark was by comparison a breeze. Besides, no motor cars to run into me here and all I had to do was to raise my arm and the man in the zodiac would be there for me.

So, just like in an extremely informative book (and in spots extremely hilarious) that I have just finished reading (that has taught me more and beautifully captured much of what I have recently learnt about riding 2-wheeled motorised machines, called 'Motorcycling 201' by Dave Preston) says, 'visor down and shut out everything else', so I did with my face mask on and snorkel in my mouth . Breathe in, out, in...look for the fish and concentrate on nothing else. Let the world take care of itself while you do this.

It was a good strategy and after a few minutes the terror left and I relaxed.

An then .....wow - I had a fabulous time and the fish were excellent. I don't have an underwater camera so I can't share with you with multiple pics this time (but look at Google if you are keen), but the yellow and blues on some fish were amazing. Schools of large, middle sized and tiny ones. Several reef sharks, corneto fish and the list goes on. After about half an hour we hopped back into the zodiac to move over to the other side of the bay to where we had seen sea lions earlier in the day.

Must say I was ready for a breather during the ride and to adjust my gear, which was pinching my lips which later swelled a bit and I looked a bit like a bad Botox lips victim over lunch! But I was just as ready to go again when we got there and while there weren't so many fish over this side, I was delighted then 2 sea lions came into the water right by my side and swam across in front of me without taking too much notice of me at all .

The session ended too soon and we were back into the zodiacs, to the boat, gear off, shower and another meal. As yesterday lunch was great (I won't continue to go on about the food, but so far the smorgasbords at lunch have been a lovely and interesting mixture - as I am writing this immediately after lunch I can remember today's do I will tell you ... Dishes of beef schnitzel, lentil beans, tuna (I think) in a potato log, corn + cucumber, green salad, rice, tomato..... Followed by 5-6 types of fruit for dessert. Tea and coffee and small biscuits are available all the time.can order drinks with lunch (but I prefer not if we are doing stuff that is active and which needs my wits about me).

As an aside, one of my fellow travellers is a beer brewer, originally from Germany, now in New Orleans where he has a micro-brewery /bar (only sells his beer in his bar) in the old quarter. He has beer as often as he can lay his hands on - which is pretty understandable given his expertise - however given that he was drinking beer on arrival at the airport and on the bus on the first day, I was wondering initially what we had here . But all good now and part of the delightful mix of passengers on board, who include 2 couples from the UK (one a retired but super active couple - he took up diving when he retired and so travels a bit to interesting dive sites, and a younger couple on their 2-week annual holiday, a couple from Perth, WA, the couple from New Orleans, a young woman from Victoria, an English fellow en route to somewhere else (he is not sure where) from the US, and a young Indian fellow who has been in the US and heading to Dubai to work. And Diane (Sunshine Coast and me).

After lunch the boat moved and many of the group did some hard yakka on the top sun deck pic) and pretended to be looking out for wildlife (rumours of Dolphins and whales but none were seen). I did see plenty of birds as we left the island. While some slept I, of course, wrote to you, dear reader.

When the boat came to a stop we were under orders to be ready for our next trip ashore (and I was determined to never be the last one to be ready again after yesterday being the last twice and thus morning getting a knowing look from Mauricio who turned to the waiting crew who all chortled .since then I have set my watch forward and have been in the first few since then, even bravely turning up in my swimmers for snorkelling early!).

This time it was a dry landing (onto a jetty / steps of some sort) where our first goal was to spot land iguanas, which were more abundant here - it was easy to find some and here they were not in such poor condition here because despite the normal summer vegetation not growing and thugs looking pretty stark, here the cactus plants are much lower and are a good food of lat resort. In a couple of spots we found several iguanas at a cactus feeding.

Interestingly, we also heard that here on scientists have recently found a hybrid of the land and sea iguanas, bud do not know yet whether the hybrid is fertile or not. There is a theory that the current dry conditions may encourage the survival of the hybrids which can source food in the water while the dry conditions continue. But this is heresay so far so please don't quote me .

Here we learnt and saw lots more about the sea lions, including (summary) the rookeries where they gather sometimes in large numbers, where their excremental is rubbed onto the rocks and polished by the rubbing, area in which the bachelors climb up very steep cliffs to rest between fights and / or while they grow and a long sunken lava tube that turns into a sloping waterfall that the young sea lions slide down (not sure if this is true - but hey ....).

On the far side of the islands where there are cliffs, for ages we watched the seabirds who nest in the cliffs and the comings and goings of more predatory birds. It was most entertaining but as I a not so much into birds (nor do I have the photographic skills or equipment to catch birds on the wing) all I will do is to mention that we saw lots of the Galapagos gulls that feed at night, the frigates, finches, galapagos terns, the blue footed boobie and warblers to name a few.

After what was a long and hot afternoon it was back onto the boat for a beer and feet up while the boat moved south a bit before dinner so that we don't have so far to go tonight to our next stop .

I won't write any more today unless something amazing happens over dinner (it didn't) - though I will finish the bottle of wine that I met last night (I did), but just want to mention the boat. I have attached below some pics for your info. The Queen Beatrix is an 8 cabin catamaran, one of several similar ones I have seen here, with passenger cabins on the Middle 2 levels.

My cabin is pretty ok for sharing and we are not in it very much of the time - see pic of view from where I sit writing,the bathroom is Ok with plenty of hot water (there is a desalination plant for this), plenty of drinking water via bottled water, the dining room is well appointed with 2 tables and the aft area is we'll organised - see pics.

There is also a forward inside area where we have our briefings and two levels above, one with the bar and the other with sun lounges. We met the crew last night and they all multitask including the captain and his assistant, the guy who cleans and tidies our rooms (bless him) and several other deck / serving / bar fellows. There is always a lot of assistance for any of the activities and we get a lot of instructions and briefings about what to expect each time we do anything.

Gosh, it's only been about 30 hours since I arrived and it feels like a long weekend. I am looking forward to it all and feel very comfortable knowing I am in good hands. Night..