Back in time...beautiful Isabel

We had to go about a quarter of the way back around the island to get to the southern bay, and with the wind coming up, the trip in the dingy was bucking and wet.  The island had a very primal feel, hostile and threatening.  I had the feeling of being in Jurassic Park and I expected a dinosaur to stick his head around the rocks at any moment.  The shore line was extremely rugged and foreboding and it felt much better when we made our turn into the southern bay, entering the protection of all the rock formations and pinnacles that lined the entrance to the landing spot.  The entrance to the beach was long and I could see pangas lined up. At first, I was not able to see where a landing would be possible without potential damage to the hull of the dingy, but in just last few minutes the beach came into vie, and I maneuvered toward a likely spot.  The beach was not at all pretty.  The sand and boulder beach was black and did not look inviting at all.  But I picked a spot, made a commitment to it, and headed in.  There was little swell and the landing went very well.  As we were pulling the dingy up on the beach a young fisherman came out of the camp, and lent us a hand in securing the dingy.  He took one of the shore ties intended for a panga and tied up our dingy for us.  He was a delightful young man, out here in the middle of nowhere, and although he spoke no English we talked with our hands, and with the few words we had in common, and he told us places that we should visit and things to see.  It was a delightful interchange and totally unexpected.

There were signs talking about the island being a national park, and all, but we could only make out parts of them. There was a path of sorts that headed out through the stubby, rugged little trees that seemed to cover the island.  All along the path through the trees, there were nests six to eight feet off the ground with nesting birds on the nests, and our presence did not disturb them at all.  I had a few make a snapping noise with their beaks, which I am sure was a warning of some kind, to keep my distance, but no inclination to fly away or leave their nests. The birds were large, with huge wing spans.     I am assuming these birds were boobies.  They were not sea gulls, pelicans, or frigates; I know what they look like so I assume these are boobies.  They were not blue footed boobies (those seem to be the famous ones) but boobies they were, I am sure.  As we moved along the path we became aware of a large number of baby birds, dead, hanging in the trees, or laying on the ground.  It was depressing to see this.  They appeared to be freshly dead, not been dead for long in other words, you can tell.  But there were also large number of baby birds in the nests, and they were all complaining about our presence.

We wandered on up the hill to an old abandoned research facility.  It was a concrete structure, a nice looking facility, obviously abandoned several years ago. Now the grounds were covered by iguanas... every where you looked.  There were several different types, or maybe the different sexes look different, I don’t know that much about iguanas.  Some were very large, upwards of six feet in length.  Although they didn’t appear to be threatening to us, I still kept my distance.  These were formidable animals, and I quickly developed a respect for their space and stayed way out of it.  This island is also a home to an abundant population of the Mexican Milksnake, which had a tendency to keep me out of the tall grasses.

I had already walked far enough to feel my ankle beginning to swell, so I left Sharon at the research facility to return to the boat.  I also needed to replace the switch on the bilge pump before we set sail again.

The repairs to the bilge pump went well, and at about mid afternoon I received a call from Sharon with our hand held VHF radio asking me to fetch her; it’s sort of a British sounding term, very proper.  I took the dingy and retraced my course back to the beach and picked Sharon up.  She was most excited about her hike.  She had been everywhere, all the ridge lines, the volcano crater, which she said was a festering green slime pool, and spotted about a billion birds, including the Blue-Footed Boobie. She showed me all her pictures. They were splendid. Well done!   Mission Accomplished!  Let’s move on!

We had never intended to spend a night here, the question about the anchor holding capacity of the bottom would make me uneasy, and I would prefer to be underway.  We had spent the majority of a day here.  That was enough.