Day 5 Make war not love

Today we are on Plaza Island. So far, our routine is a walk and snorkel in the morning, then the same in the afternoon.  A changeup today.  Just a walk in the morning.  Reason, the excellent snorkel spot on Plaza Island has been invaded by a hungry shark!  After the third attack recently, no more snorkeling.  Good move.  A rather large sea lion colony here, right next to our little dock actually.  It would have been fun to snorkel with the sea lions.

A great walkthrough on this flat, long island.  Every size, shape and color of iguana you could imagine!  Their favorite food the Opuntia cacti is a tall prickly pear type cactus.  The iguanas spend most of their days relaxing below the cacti waiting for the flowers to drop off.  When they do, a mad dash to the flower, they gobble it down, then sit and wait a few more days for another flower to drop off.

But the iguanas, they are quite chubby, so either there are a lot of flowers or more likely, they are grazing the other plants on the island.  Oh, the battle….. male iguanas sparred for an uninterested female.  They first meet, bob their heads up and down for a bit, circle each other, half-heartily bite at each other, then wander off.  Actually, iguanas to a lot of wandering…….  No predators so they are planting more cactus trees since the iguana population continues to grow.

Second favorite land iguana food after the blossom is the actual cactus.

We caught this sea lion playing with this puffer fish like a balloon.  They don't eat
them since they are poisonous.

Roberto feeding a hungary land iguana his favorite food, cactus blossom.   This, BTW
is as large as these guys get.

A two hour motor to Santa Fe Island, the home of many, many sea lions and land iguanas.  A different species from this morning, larger, more camouflaged.  Again, This bay was another area groups have traditionally snorkeled but it is the new home to a 12-foot tiger shark.  At first, we were a bit skeptical, especially since it was so hot and the sun was unrelenting.  But, Roberto soon showed us a ravaged sea lion carcass proving the shark presence is real.  

Tiger shark kill.  This is why they didn't let us snorkel in this bay.

Then we saw the shark!  Underwater, of course, but non-the-less very ‘inspiring’.  Also, after our walk and as we motored around in the bay, we saw numerous schools of sting rays.  In one bunch, 30.  They stay grouped together like that for safety from the tiger shark.  We happily stayed in the dinghies. 

You can never take enough pictures of baby sea lions.

Finally, another 4 hour motor to San Cristobal Island for dinner and mooring.  To bed early since we have a 6:15am snorkel ahead of us.