Day Eight - Genovesa

Day Eight

Our last full day at sea and our first day of rain. We awake to a light drizzle and choppier seas. It is early, just 6:15, when the wakeup call sounds and we are just pulling into Genovesa. We know that we are lucky to have an opportunity to land on this island because this is one of the few ships that currently gets permission to land here and they are only allowed to come here once every two or three weeks.

Genovesa is a caldera which means that we are inside a submerged volcano. The terrain is quite rocky and steep rising up from a few white beaches. This island is the home to an overwhelming number of seabirds and there are two opportunities to land but strictly limited numbers of people allowed ashore at any one time.

We take the first photography expedition into Darwin Bay and have already sited frigate birds with their fully inflated neck pouches before we land. The males inflate these pouches to attract females during the mating season and it is magically the right week to be here. We are surprised to see graffiti high on the walls and the guide explains that sailors have been coming here for many centuries as the caldera offers protection and a safe place to land. The oldest graffiti we see dates back to 1957 but he says there are places where you can see marks scratched into the rocks that go back to the late 1700s.

Our first steps on shore bring us face to face with the red footed boobies who not only have fanciful feet but also have turquoise and blue beaks. They hang about on scrub trees and settle into mangrove bushes all around us. Their webbed feet have claws that can grip and it is fascinating to be able to be close enough to see the mechanics of this. Their chicks are already fairly large and roost in the trees with them, their fluffy feathers fanning in the breeze. The guide also points out that although the majority of the red foots have darker feathering that there is about 5 percent of them that have an alternative colouring and, quite conveniently, he points out one of these rarer specimens in the mangroves in front of us.

The next section of pathway leads us into Nasca boobie territory (which until recently were called masked boobies) which truly are the plainest of the boobies. We don't spend much time with them as there was an opportunity to see them nesting on another island and also because we hear strange and unworldly warblings from around the corner and head off to see what is going on.

The sounds are coming from a dozen or more male frigate birds who have their red throat sack fully inflated and are shimmying their wings (remember they have about a seven foot wing span!) and trying to attract a single female who is sailing high above us. With bright red throats and iridescent green feathers around their ruff they make quite a photo.  She makes many passes getting lower and lower each time. Finally she chooses one of the males and lands beside him. The warbling and shimmying continues because she still may decide that he is not the one but it seems she has chosen wisely.

There is also a pair of gold crested night herons nesting on the beach. We see both the male and female independently but their nest is high on the rocks and climbing is strictly forbidden.

We head back to the ship happy with our mornings 'catch' and Stan heads off for the last snorkeling opportunity.










A little bit more to come... we head homeward tomorrow.