Bacán day

FYI - Bacán means "fantastic"
We are all attempting to learn a new word every day :P

Leaving the wonderful San Cristobal today to head to Floreana Island. Floreana is very isolated and a nice place to relax with out the business of... anything.

Haha, NOT the boat we took, but one that moored in the harbour of San Cristobal

Boarded the boat and travelled 2.5 hours and not many of us were feeling so hot from all the movement. 

I laid down on the floor and slept to keep my stomach from doing anything unwanted, and everyone else tried to do as little as possible. You aren't a pussy to take sea sickness pills haha, beats puking in the ocean lol.

Sea Sickness - is a condition caused by the rocking motion of the craft. The real cause is in the brain, which receives conflicting signals: while the eyes show a world that is still, our body, and in particular the equilibrium sensors located in our ears, send signals of a moving environment. This discordance causes the mind to send to the whole body a general alarm signal, in order to stop all activities, in particular the most complex of all: the digestion process

Thank you Wikipedia. LOL

Chilling out.

About an hour in, we are woken up by the boat slowing down. Dolphins were spotted and were heading our way.

Sure enough, the came in and played around our boat for the next 1/2 hour.

One of the best experiences I have seen in my life so far. Nothing beats the sounds the dolphins make and the joyful dance they do in the water!

I tried to take some pictures at first, but it was getting to wet up top. So I switched to the GoPro so I could put the camera closer to the water for some stunning video! Click HERE to watch =)

Arriving at Floreana Island (population 230), we went for a snorkel close to the shore and got to see some amazing Sea Turtles up really really close. Even did some garbage duty and pulled some old snorkels from the reef, haha go me!

Once on the island, were again greeted with many Sea Lions and Marine Iguanas milling around lol.

Just a normal day here in Galapagos. **love** Not to mention, watching the blue footed boobies dive bombing into the water. Hehehe, that is fun to watch.

Our lovely hotel was so close to the beach that I felt like we could stay here for weeks! We shovelled down lunch like we hadn't eaten in days, then took off to the Pirate Caves.

When the Pirates were active on the island, they carved out caves in the highlands close to the only fresh water spring on the island. The caves there were quite unique, but the carved human head we found was pretty cool!

The view from the highlands

Ivan and Karla doing what they do best!

Tom presenting the "Thinker" up by the Pirate Caves

Being creative and working on our projects

The Giant Tortoises have had a hard time on this island (as well as the other islands) over the last 4 centuries due to human hunting and poaching, so there is a conservation for them with a wonderful large location for 30+ of these amazing creatures to live in a safe and controlled environment.

Arrived back to the hotel right in time for sunset.
Barb + Tom busted out a couple bottles of wine and Pete got the rum going, so we all sat down on the beach and had a wonderful hour together watching the sun leave us for another evening.

Our visitor while sitting on the beach.
She arrived, saw us, and then disappeared back into the waves.

A beautiful little lady who was sitting near us, we went to her family owned restaurant for dinner.

Karla and Ivan set up our evening photo critique so the projector faced the ceiling, we all got to lay on mattresses and view the photos like a really fun Imax movie :P

The photo I really enjoyed from today, was the picture above with the little girl. <3 <3

Once everyone was in bed, Tanya and I set up our cameras on white lawn chairs and did some night photography with our head lamps lol.

Again, we are all pretty exhausted and didn't attempt to stay up too late. The crashing sounds of the waves near our rooms was the perfect way to put us to sleep! <3 <3

Painting with Light

The trekker of the day is Tom Beck, he is 71 years old and is the President/CEO of Unico USA.

His next travel location would like to be Vietnam.

He has 26 foster siblings! His parents were pretty amazing people ^_^

Tom is a very active guy and between him and Tanya, they nerd out with their "fitbit" pedometers everyday to see who did more steps/stairs. LOL