North Seymour: Deepwater Snorkel

Thursday, July 12 (Part III)

We returned to the ship from our morning activity on Santa Cruz shortly after 11:30a to cold washcloths and tasty fruit juices set up on deck 4 aft.  A few minutes to get cleaned up and we were ready for some sustenance.

On the lunch menu today was a delicious Oriental buffet with the bonus of a made-to-order stir-fry station.  Instead of having our meal in the Darwin Restaurant, we collected what we wanted from the buffet and headed up to the Blue Finch Bar on deck 5.  We’ve yet to see the bar open on this sailing, but the tables are always there and the waiters are happy to bring us our drinks from the lounge on deck 4.

It was just too nice a day to be inside, so we skipped the screening of part three of the BBC documentary about the archipelago since we’d watched it at home just weeks before.  Instead, we snagged a couple of the loungers on deck 6 and relaxed in the cooling breezes as the ship repositioned the short distance to North Seymour Island, where we had two activities planned for the afternoon.

The arrow points to the site of our afternoon activities on and around North Seymour.
[map courtesy of the GalapagosIslands.com website]

North Seymour is considered to be the twin of Baltra, which is sometimes referred to as South Seymour.  Named after an English nobleman, this small island was formed by the uplift of a submarine lava formation.  It is apparently quite similar to Baltra, except there is no human population on North Seymour, just interesting critters.

The first activity of the afternoon was a deepwater snorkel.  Mui went, of course, while I used the time to draft blog entries as I continued to relax on deck 6.

All I know is that the zodiacs took the snorkelers around the boat on the left
to the other side of this islet that is barely above the surface of the ocean.

Those wishing to participate in the activity geared up on deck 3 aft and were taken to the snorkel site by zodiac; no beach entrance for this one.  Mui said that there was quite a bit of wave action at the site, and the water was cold and murky in most places (plankton again).  His best fish encounters were near the rocks and underwater ledges, but he didn’t see anything he hadn’t seen already.

One last snorkel in Galápagos waters.

This was the last snorkel event of the cruise.  When the snorkelers returned to the Xpedition, all equipment was rinsed one last time and turned over to the naturalists.  Mui was glad for the opportunity to get in the water one more time, but later, we wondered if we might have had more time on North Seymour during the second afternoon activity if the snorkel had not been scheduled for this day.   We’ll never know!