Overnight, we went from Baltra (with the airport, just off the coast of Santa Cruz) to Genovesa; one of our four crossings of the equator.

We woke up to cloudy day. While it was the rainy season, there was also an El Niño, which meant we were lucky to have so little rain on our week-long trip. And our sister ship, the Nemo II along with a couple others were in the same bay we were in. That turned out to be the case on all but the second day of our trip. Around China Hat (in part 3), we were the only boat and had that day completely to ourselves.

After a lovely breakfast, we headed out in the panga for our first dry landing: that is, on a pier or rocks rather than straight on the beach. And our first hike and chance for Jonathan to show his stuff. Genovesa is famous for the bird colonies — and it did not disappoint.

We took the famous Prince Phillip Steps up from the water to the plateau and at the top of steps we ran across our first boobies — gray footed nazcas (NASCAR). We also saw juvenile great frigatebirds, night hawks, owls and boobie chicks among others. Not all were standing still, waiting for photos. But none seemed bothered by our intrusion.

We headed back down the steps, onto the panga and back to the boat for a snack and getting set with snorkeling gear: wetsuits, fins, masks and snorkels.

This was a Deep Water snorkel, which meant we jumped in from the panga (some later snorkeling opportunities were from the beach). As always, a brief questioning of sanity as you hop off a perfectly fine boat into the water. But then magic happened: a sea lion came up to check us out. (While I did get one photo of the fish — razor surgeons and scissortail chromises, I think — I was blown away by the sea lion and that was it!)

When we came back from the beach, we had a snack waiting for us, and a little time before dinner. That made for what was actually a very rare sight: a game of Qwirkle. Most other days, we were pretty busy or tired (in a good way) from the running around and going to bed early. But it was great that Hank and Sally brought Qwirkle even if there were only a couple matches that first day.

After dinner, the Nemo headed to Isla Santiago and Chinese Hat. That was our second crossing of the equator. (If you look at the map, Isla Isabella, on the left, looks sort of like a sea horse and the equator runs just above the sea horse's nose — just above the "Santiago" label.)

Part 3: Monday 1/13: Santiago: Chinese Hat, Rabida.