January 23, 2026, Day 3 of the Cruise
After breakfast and before we even left the boat, there were at least 50 dolphins around the boat, followed by fish trying to get away from the dolphins, and also a stow away sea lion….
Our first excursion today was to Punta Suarez on Espanola island. We had a 5 to 6 hour travel overnight to get here, and I recall it was pretty rough water. I’m very happy that i haven’t had any issues with sea sickness. I know a few people on the boat who have had it anywhere from a little bit, to a lot, but there seemed to be readily available remedies that worked for almost everyone.
This was a dry landing, meaning that the zodiacs would get us right to land, however, when we arrived at Island, the spot where we were meant to disembark, a couple of cement steps right at the water, had sea lions on them, and rather then disturb the sea lions, we disembarked on the rocks which was a bit challenging. I was super happy they made us do that though. They take their responsibilities to the island so incredibly seriously. They were not going to shew a couple of animals out of the way to make way for the tourists. In the video below, you can see that the last boat to come in, managed to use the steps as the sea lion moved away.
We went for a more or less circular hike around the island. We saw so many animals! Sea lions playing and nursing and lounging, so many iguanas (they call them Christmas Iguanas because they are red and green), lots of Boobies, and an ALBATROSS. They told us we had missed the Albatrosses because they had already migrated, but we found one juvenile one, so it probably isn’t gonna live.
So many Iguanas!!
We got to see them dance around…
Volume up for this one. The Boobies sound like someone is blowing a busted whistle…
This was like a Sea Lion nursery!
When we finished the hike, we all went back to the Coral 1. We had lunch and then had free time on the boat until around 3pm when we headed back out for our first deep water snorkel.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect but I saw my first sea turtle! It was just kinda hanging out on the bottom so my pix of it are not very good. But I did get a video of a Ray – they are so cool, and a bunch of Sea Lions. It’s amazing when they swim right by you in the water, like they are flying!
Also, that night after our briefing for the next day when we were all winding down with drinks, the staff made an announcement that there were sharks! And boy were there ever! I couldn’t count how many there were and they were all around the ship. The staff said they were drawn by the light. You can hear one person in the background saying “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”.
That was a terrific way to finish the day!