As we looked around Tuesday morning, the reason for the island's name was pretty clear. This was the day we were pretty much on our own. And while the day started cloudy, it really didn't rain and cleared right up.

The briefing from Jonathan the previous evening noted that we'd be taking a panga ride in the morning, back for snacks then more deep water snorkeling before lunch. During and after lunch we moved from Chinese Hat to Rabida where we had a wet landing, walking tour and snorkeling off the beach. Both Chinese Hat and Rabida are small islands off of Santiago.

The vegetation was striking to me: cactus and low red and green scruff. Jonathan said the red vegetation was adaptive to the sun and heat. If I was imaging a desert island, this would be pretty close to it. It seemed very inhospitable. But the birds, sea turtles and iguanas seemed to be happy with their home.

The stars of this snorkeling trip were the Galapagos penguins. But look closely at the photo above, that's an octopus eye staring back you — well camouflaged as a rock.

Look carefully at the photo below: that's a penguin swimming on the left, and Sarah just ahead of it. Unfortunately, she was looking right instead of left. And penguins are fast swimmers!

As we got close to Rabida, we saw some fins just off one side of the boat. Jonathan told us (confirming what Sarah thought) those were the tips of rays — manta rays in this case. As we were planning a snorkel anyway, Jonathan and the crew got us into the panga quickly and followed the rays. Those who wanted to jumped in with Jonathan to chase the rays.

Those are Sarah's fins again above, and the manta ray on the right. Sarah and I were pretty winded by the time we got that view of the rays. We were working hard to keep up with what seemed like their effortless gliding.

When we collected the rest of the ray-chasers we headed to the beach to check out the flamingo pond.

That was one wet landing when I could have used my big camera and longer lens. I might have done better with the flamingos and the lava lizard who was hanging out close to the trail.

The snorkeling was great again. And again: a sea lion came by to say hi! There were also king angelfish and flag cabrilla as well — but fish are outshone by sea lions, in my book.