After our siesta we had a wet landing on a coral beach on Darwin Bay.. We came across a hermit crab living in an abandoned gastropod shell. As they get bigger they discard small shells for larger ones and may switch houses four or five times before reaching adult size.

Going inland we came across a Yellow-crowned night heron fishing for something in a small pool and for the first time got a close look at a Swallow-tailed gull. Although a few pairs nest on an island off Columbia, almost the entire world population nests in the Galapagos.

We also found our old friends the frigatebirds and boobies

While waiting for pangas to arrive to take us back to our yacht we had a chance to study the Galapagos version of the familiar Prickly pear cactus.

Index — Ecuador & the Galapagos