Tania arrived a little late, but we had plenty of time to get to the airport where she checked us in, purchased our entrances to the Galapagos National Park and paid the appropriate airport taxes. Wolfgang's tripod had not arrived with the rest of his luggage the night before, so she, he, and Regina went to check on its status while the rest of us continued chatting, finding out about each other. They returned with the wayward tripod, and we all filed through the gate to board the plane. It first made a stop in Guayaquil, where 80% of the passengers disembarked for good. Those of us flying on to the Galapagos got off for about twenty minutes then reboarded, joined by a few new passengers from Guayaquil.

As we sit on the SAETA flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos (San Cristobel), below us is only water and more water, evidence of how remote the Galapagos archipelago is from the mainland-600 miles or 1000 km from the Ecuadorian coast.

We met our fellow shipmates this morning-what appears to be a wonderful group. They are:

• Herb & Hillary - from Syracuse, NY. He's a physician specializing in premature babies. He spent the last five months trying to learn Spanish-and doing very well (at least we think so). They are in their 50s (?) and Herb has already entertained us with bad jokes.
• Kathy & Young - a couple about our age, interns at a small rural Native American hospital in New Mexico ("Doing our bleeding heart thing," they say). They love to eat out, and travel, and seem a lot like us. They say San Francisco is more like home, but they have lived many places.
• Wolfgang & Regina - A couple from Berlin, Germany. Wolfgang is a physicians, too (optometrist), which explains their many, sophisticated cameras!
• Heidi & Ursula - Two women from Austria. Both doctors and one is from Innsbrook.
• Mark - The fellow I talked to at Galapagos Travel. Since this trip was not full and he gets one trip per year free, he came on this one.

Everyone seems wonderful and I bet we make some friends. Plus, with all these doctors, there is lots of help if someone gets hurt!

Still just blue water below us. A two+ week journey for an animal in a mass of plants, a several week journey by sailing boat-complete in an hour and a half. The miracle of modern travel....

The flight of about an hour and a half was uneventful. Descending towards the island of San Cristobel, the first thing that Jill and I noticed was how green it was, then how large it seemed. From all the books we had read, we were expecting much drier, browner, smaller islands. Although we were arrived in the hot season, it may be that we arrived during a strong El Nino current, where the warm waters from the Panama region were changing the temperature of the water (an unseasonable 82°F) and increasing the rainfall.

We arrived in the San Cristobel airport, a small but not tiny place (i.e., the runway was not too short). We met our guides, John and Greg. Greg has been here approximately fifteen years and has done a lot of biology and studies here. His companion/wife is Thalia Grant, who is the daughter of two naturalists who have done extensive work in finches for the last twenty-plus years on the islands. The Grants' work is featured in The Beak of the Finch and I believe Thalia's artwork is also featured in the book. Very neat people. John is the official, and required, guide from the research station, a friendly and organized fellow.

We rode a bus for something like three miles then had a short panga (small dingy boat) ride to our boat, the San Jacinto. It is a very nice, smallish boat with three levels of decks, a dining area, a meeting room/lounge, two nice upstairs rooms (which went to the two couples who had signed up first) and downstairs cabins where Glen and I are-not as nice but with a private bath and small portholes.

We got an orientation on the boat (some rules are: shoes off on the boat, no smoking, no toilet tissue in the toilets [they have a small container by the toilet], conserve shower water). Also, park rules (stay on trails, check shoes for seeds when going from island to island, don't touch the wildlife). Then lunch (fish & veggies). Once our luggage arrived and we settled in our cabins, we headed out to our first landing, Playa Ochoa on San Cristobel island.

Playa Ochoa was a wet landing (i.e., you get your feet wet getting out of the boat). We didn't walk anywhere, but saw several birds at a small lagoon just off the beach (see notes before this section). We spent approximately thirty minutes snorkeling, which gave me a chance to see if my equipment (borrowed from Mom) worked, as well as getting it adjusted to fit me. We saw some great fish, but not spectacular, and one sea lion at a distance. We saw these birds at San Cristobel Playa Ochoa:

• Whitecheeked pintail
• Lava gull
• Chatham Mockingbird
• Darwin Finch (Med. tree finch?)
• Brown Pelican
• Frigate birds (not sure which)

We motored back to our docking area and received a short lecture on Darwin. Dinner was good, then we had a briefing on our day tomorrow. Tomorrow we go to Espanola, one of the more remote islands, both in distance and because it is upwind from the other islands. I hope we get to see an albatross!