After Lima, I headed to Quito, Ecuador on January 6 and had some Tacos and Cerveza. The next day (my Birthday) we headed to the Galapagos Islands. I think this is my 4th trip there. We went straight to the Galapagos Legend (a ship I was on once before) for a 2 week cruise of the islands. At the end we stayed 2 extra nights at Casa Opuntia on San Cristobol. This gave us time to explore and hike one the arrival day and book an excursion to Cerro Brujo and snorkeling through Kicker Rock. The food choices on San Cristobol are lacking. I shot some underwater video with my GoPro (inset below). Highlights of the video are Galapagos Penguins, Flightless Cormorant swimming, Marine Iguana swimming, Hammerhead sharks, Tortuga, Sea Lion, Reef Sharks and Spotted Eagle Ray.
Galapagos Islands is one of my favorite places to photograph wildlife. Each trip is unique and presents different opportunities. This time there were less sea lions and many more birds and iguana. On the first day and throughout the trip I became the bird whisperer and I talked to and sang with many of the birds, especially Flycatcher. Also there were a ton of Flightless Cormorants which were very rare in 2010. In the wild death for some means life for others and several photos depict this reality.
For the photos, I have selected 288 to present here. Yes, that’s a lot, but after all the editing I did not have the energy to cut it more. Often it may seem that there are too many repeats to some. But sometimes they are different species or doing something unusual or interacting or it is just a nice shot I want to share. I try to get photos in frame perfect, so there is very little cropping done. On a Galapagos trip I find that a 400mm is sufficient to get close, so 70-200mm 2x teleconverter, 15-35mm, 100mm macro and 2 camera bodies was my gear.