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DAY 4 ON GALAPAGOS CONTINUES: 
Post Office bay, which we visited in the afternoon of Day 4, is an unofficial "post office" consisting of a barrel where people leave letters, and other visitors pick them up and hand deliver them if they live close to where the letters are addressed to. There are lots of bits and pieces like bones and bits of wood with names on them as well. It's a very old maritime tradition. Sailors who were far from home and not going back for perhaps months or even years left letters in the hope that other sailors, going home sooner, would take them back for them. It's more of a fun thing now but the tradition continues. We took three to deliver around London and left a new one with our own address on it. It's said to be a great way to meet people with similar (travel, ecology etc.) interests. |
 The barrel at Post Office Bay |
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Day 5. One highlight was seeing a flightless cormorant (unique to these islands) eating a thing called a tiger snake eel, which was much longer than the bird that ate it! |
 Flightless cormorant eats tiger snake eel |
 Swallowing eel |  Resting after his meal |
 Drying his wings | On the same trip we saw marine turtles mating in the water. We could get right up to them as we were in the dinghy and they didn't stop what they were doing. Turtles mate for about five hours at a time and seem very relaxed about it. One of the differences between males and females is that males have a convex lower surface to their shells to allow them to mount the females during mating. | |
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The green back turtles are incredibly common in these seas and grow to about six feet long. Nobody knows how long they live but it is thought to be well in excess of 100 years. The first two photographs below were taken by us from the boat showing the mating pair: the third one is a library picture of a green back turtle. |
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We did a lot of snorkelling on all the days, which was always wonderful for fish life, and we were able to come within inches of sea turtles and stay with them for long periods because they swim at about the same speed as a snorkelling human and have no fear of mankind. I even accidentally bumped into one and it just looked around for a second and went back to eating its algae. We also saw penguins and iguanas swimming underwater. |
 Galapagos penguins with marine iguana |
 Sea urchin with crab in background |  Big marine iguana : |
On the same day Franklin showed us one of the feral goats which, along with dogs, pigs and the rest, are doing great damage to the wildlife on all the islands, both by harassing them and by eating up their food supply. He chased one and caught it and we wondered if he was going to kill it and give it to the ship's cook, but he just talked to it severely and let it go. They have a programme costing $10,000,000 in operation to kill all the goats. Franklin says if they give him the money he'll kill them himself. |  |
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In the evening Franklin demonstrated that there were things called "zoo-plankton" around, which cause fluorescence when they are disturbed. I (David) and two of the girls had a swim with them and as we moved through the sea we gave off sparks like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. It was most impressive. Jean got some very clear pictures of it. |
 David swimming with zoo plankton |
 David is joined by Monica : |  The midnight swimmers Debbie, Monica, David |
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In the next section we cross the equator at sea and run into some very rare and exotic fish life. |