Aug 27 Genovesa Island

Today did not start well. We were up all night due to the rough seas. The swells were massive .i was woken up every hour at least to boat's deep pitching and rolling. i finally gave up at around 6am and and jumped out of my top bunk. Abbi had been up first to have a hot shower while we were still motoring to our anchor point. She was pale as a ghost. I guess even 2 gravals was not enough anti-nausea medication. Tonight we need more.
Anyways, i showered after abbi was finished throwing up in the bathroom. I was then able to see why she felt so sick afterwards. The shower was crammed and i had to use all of my concentration not to fall on my ass. I shampooed and conditioned while being thrown around in the the tiny shower stall. Huge waves were crashing up and swirling around the port hole. I kept searching for the horizon out the window to try and get my bearings with no luck.

I left the shower clean and grateful for the first hot shower of the trip but needed to put on the motion sickness bands, go up stairs and get some fresh air. It was 715 am by this point and we haven’t reached our destination yet. We were supposed to arrive at 6am. The seas have really slowed us down.

I looked up to the top level of our boat and realized that we were not the only ones up so early. It turned out the everyone on board shared the same awful experience that we had.

We finally had breakfast at 745 am and had to quickly get ready for our first activity of the day. We all got our day packs ready and headed for the “pangas”. As i climbed for our boat into the dinghy’s i managed to slam my toe into one of the handles. Ouch, that;'s gonna leave a mark. I had to keep my cool so i didn’t say anything and i didn’t scream out loud.

We made our wet landing on shore and i immediately saw 3 sea lions sun bathing on the warm white sands of the beach. I hobbled over to them and took a few pics. Its amazing how close we could get! They didn’t even flinch as we approached them. They were beautiful. There were also many birds resting on the hard lava rocks of the beach. This was to be what we saw on the rest of this island. I tied up my shoe laces and off we went.

The island's second name is Darwin bay. The bay that we are anchored in is a huge volcanic crater. The island is the most northern of all the islands here and it is totally uninhabited. Except for thousands of birds. There are a few different species of boobies (not just on us girls),red footed and masked are the 2 that i can remember, frigates, lava gulls, herons pelicans, swallow tailed gulls and probably more but to be honest there are too many! There are birds everywhere and they too are not scared of humans at all. We are not allowed to touch them but we could get as close and we want. We walked along the cliffs of the island and looked out into the bay, it was absolutely stunning the water was teal green and you could see the coral reefs reaching out farther than your eyes could see.

Side note; my foot is hurting pretty bad at this point, and abbi and i both are growing tired of bird watching. There really is only so many birds one can handle. We did manage to find another sea lion with her baby in a training pool, so cute.

After the 2 hour hike around the island, it was time to head back to the boat. I took off my shoes and realized then that i had hurt my foot pretty bad. My toe was all swollen and black and blue. This is really gonna slow me down :( oh well, it only makes sense as every single time i go on vacation i hurt my foot is some way.

Okay enough about my foot. It still hurts a lot by the way and it is huge, I’ve been icing it when i get the chance...

We drove the pangas back to the boat, had a snack and met on the top deck to get our snorkeling briefing. We all tried on our stuff and off we went, back to the pangas. Our guide took us right up to the cliff that we are anchored near as the ocean seemed a bit more calm there.

We slid off the boats and into the water. It was a bit fresh but really pretty nice considering the time of year here. We followed the cliffs along the shoreline and saw a few fish and crabs but nothing too exciting. I stuck my head out of the water to see what everyone else was doing and saw a few peeps hanging back. I thought i should swim over and check it out and what did i find?! A sea lion right there in the water with us! He was hanging out upside down watching the same fish we were. It was so awesome, he swam around in the water with such ease and grace and all while looking like he was having a riot. I've seem many sea lions from above the water but to be right there less than a meter away from him under the water was a whole new experience. This is exactly what i came here for. I am happy :)

The sea lion swam off after letting us watch him for 15 minutes or so and it was time to go back for lunch. After lunch we got some chill out time and most people went to have a nap to catch up on the lost sleep from last night. The sun was still shining so i figured i should take it in. I got my book and by iPod and sat on 2nd deck for and hour or so. I really enjoyed listening to my music and watching the birds circle around the boat and the cliffs while getting gently rocked back and forth with the waves.

Eventually the rest of the team started to come out of their cabins and it was time for snorkeling trip number two. The sea had become quite rough at this point so abbi and a few other peeps stayed back while the rest of us climbed back into the dingy. We went over to the other side of the bay to see if we could find some calm water but didn’t really have any luck, the waves were tossing us around quite a bit and we almost called it quits. We decided that since we were already out there we better give it a go. I plunged in first and starting searching the water below me for wildlife. There was nothing. We were in much deeper and rougher waters this time and I’m not gonna lie; i had bull sharks on my brain the whole time. I looked over my shoulder about a million times and nearly jumped out of my bathing suite when anyone accidentally touched me with their flippers. Hopefully i get over this fear as we only have about 10 more snorkeling trips left!

Then it was back to to the boat for yet another excursion. We got our shoes ready for a dry landing and headed over the the other side of the island for more bird watching. I've seen enough birds to last a life time at this point.

Now we are back on the boat, we've had dinner and are all now writing in our journals, watching movies, chatting and having beers. All in all, after the way today started off, its ended pretty well. I've got some sun, had some laughs and seen a few amazing sights. We are heading to our next island in a couple hours or so. The captain was going to leave tomorrow morning but after how rough the ocean was last night he doesn’t want to risk arriving late tomorrow to Santiago island. Apparently it is more popular with tour groups than the island we visited to day.

We are all hoping that we sleep better tonight and that the ocean isn't too rough while we cruise to Santiago island. Its about a 6-7 hour ride. I’ve shared some of my graval with one of the ladies who experienced sea sickness pretty bad this morning. I hope we all make it through the night!

Tomorrow we are hoping to snorkel with some penguins! Here's to hoping!