Every Day

"9:30 I'm walking out of this house." I announced to everyone the evening before. I wanted to get a good start on our last full day together. At 9:30 am, I did leave the house with only a few other people (funnily enough all the parents) and we walked into town to get our snorkel gear. After the shop handed me a bunch of the same size fins that were too big and a pair of adjustable, I finally actually got a pair of fins to wear for the day. Yay! Just as we were ready to leave the shop, the rest of the gang showed up to get their gear and we said we would meet them at the ferry. On the dock we looked at all sorts of wildlife and also spotted the tiniest little baby sea lion with its mother. It was about two feet long and so adorable. The park service had sectioned off an area for them to be alone but we still had a good view from the dock. The little yelps it was making to get the attention from mama was adorable! Then everyone arrived and we were able to take the ...

We woke up at 5:15/5:30 am. Thats early. Our shuttle was picking us up at our place at 5:50am. Ty, my parents and I were out the door at 5:47 and our ride pulled up and the gentleman who booked our trip jumped out (the nice gentleman who didn't speak much English). Only the four of us were outside so we yelled for our companions to join us. "Ride's here!!" But sense there was only room for four per taxi, the gentleman assured us that he would wait there for the next taxi and the rest of the group so we jumped in and hoped that the rest would arrive after! Our driver stopped the truck (white trucks are used as taxi's down there) and said something in Spanish which we all assumed meant "get out" or something similar in nicer language. So we hopped out, grabbed our stuff and met our Naturalist for the day. After a few minutes of waiting for the rest of our group and thinking each white truck would be them, they finally showed up and joined us and so we ...

Tuesday was off to a slow start especially because of the long, exciting day on Monday. I honestly cannot remember why it took us almost until noon to get moving. We probably made breakfast, sat around and talked and slowly got ready. Its also especially hard to get 8 people out the door at an early hour lol. So before noon we all left the house to go rent snorkel gear only to find out that the place we wanted to rent from was closed. So, we had to try to find somewhere else (added time). With 7 of us needing either a mask, snorkel or both, that was a lot for this place to find. We were probably there for like 20 minutes while they went to their other location (3 times) to try to find what we all needed. I have my own mask but lost my fins in Thailand (you can read up on that in my blog, http://everydaymoad.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-lost-flipper-of-thailand.html ). It was a very sad day and now I'm crazy picky about my snorkel gear. They kept trying to give me adjustable fins and ...

Sunday morning we got up and decided to go for a snorkel at the Charles Darwin Research beach before our friends joined us in the afternoon. Ty and I were the only ones with our own mask and snorkel but my parents had swim goggles. Heres the beach at low tide (you can see the high tide mark) but just as beautiful: It was a warm, sunny day but the water was still pretty chilly. I had my lava core (thick wetsuit type top) and was still cold! It took me awhile to get into the water and it was my first snorkel in over a year so it always takes a little getting used to. You have to breathe differently through a snorkel, long and slow breaths (I keep having to tell myself: no, you are not going to drown with your face in the water, you have a freeking snorkel in your mouth...). Immediately, we noticed the lack of corals but still an abundance of fishes on the reef. My dad stayed with us for awhile but then Ty wanted to get out further and it was just the two of us. We were exploring ...

It was beautifully warm getting off the plane onto the tarmac. We walked to a sign that welcomed us to the first eco-friendly airport in the world. Along this long covered (with solar panels) walk, we saw volcanic rock and Darwin's finches! Getting through customs was a breeze, we even got Galapagos national park stamps in our passports! Score! When we left the airport, we again found my name on a whiteboard. This guy helped us find the correct bus to take us to the ferry and then helped us get taxi's for the ride into town. But back to the bus. We were sitting there for awhile and it was HOT. and I LOVED it. I talked with our guide for awhile in very simple, broken Spanish. He complimented me on my Spanish, however, after this trip, I am very aware of how I need to work on it. I want to take Spanish lessons! Getting to the ferry was beautiful. The Island of Baltra used to be a military base for the U.S. during WWII. It is a large flat island north of Santa Cruz (w...