Looking
toward Tower Island, where we will visit today, we
can see that the sky is covered with birds, as we
watch the rising sun. I have never seen so many birds
in the sky at one time. This island is known for
it's
huge number of bird colonies. There
are masked boobies and red footed boobies, and many,
many, storm petrels. Sea lions were basking in the
sun. We had a wet landing on a white coraline beach.
The walk over the beach was only one-eighth of a
mile, and very easy, but it was followed by a more
difficult walk of about one-quarter mile more over
irregular lava. The highlights here are the Lava
Gulls, Swallow-tailed Gulls, Red Footed Boobies,
Masked Boobies, Great Frigate Birds, Herons, Finches,
and Mockingbirds. Although we had seen these same
birds on other islands, we never grew tired of
observing them.
 
After our
hike, we had the option
of going out into the open sea to snorkel along the
cliffs, or to swim and snorkel from the beach. We
chose to swim at the beach, and relax on the peaceful
white sand.
After lunch, we had a dry landing on rocks. We were
about to take a difficult, rocky, but rather short,
climb, followed by an easy walk of about 1.2 miles.
Ed decided he didn't want do the walk, and had opted
to stay on the beach, alone, until we returned. I
continued on with our group.
The first thing we approached, was a small tidal
pool. There were such interesting, colorful, little
fish in it. It didn't take up much more area than a
child's small plastic swimming pool. We hiked to an
area where we overlooked a beautiful bay. Hammerhead
sharks frequent this bay, but do not bother the human
swimmers or snorkelers. We observed many different.
birds and various cactus. There were fur seals, Sally
Lightfoot Crabs, and marine iguanas.
Our hike here was brief, about 20 minutes. As we were
returning to the beach, we got a huge surprise. The
tide had come in. Remember the little tidal pool? It
was no longer little. We were trapped. The whole area
was covered with water. There was only one way for us
to get back to the beach, and that, was through the
water. This was rather precarious for some of us, as
we were carrying video and other types of cameras,
and other valuables that could not get wet.
Fortunately, one very generous man, who was carrying
a waterproof backpack, offered to put as many of our
valuables into it as he could fit. He put my digital
camcorder in his bag for me. I was very relieved, as
it was brand new, and I certainly didn't want
anything to happen to it.
We began our journey through the water. Near the
edge, the land beneath the water, was all lava rock.
It was sharp and slippery. We could stand, as the
water was only about 'thigh high' here, but we
couldn't walk. When we tried, we slipped off the
rocks and fell. At the same time, there was a female
sea lion swimming here, and two bulls, who were
fighting over her. They were darting back and forth
very rapidly, and with tremendous power. We were
right in the middle of this melee. We weren't sure
how safe this situation was for us. The female sea
lion swam over to each of us, smelling us and saying
hello, but the bulls just wanted to fight.
Periodically, one of the bulls would swim away, and
the other would chase right after him. During their
very brief absences, we humans would try to make
progress toward the beach, as we couldn't do so with
the bulls fighting right here where we were. The
bulls probably would not have attacked any of us, but
they are very large and powerful animals, and if one
of them swam into us, we probably would not have
lived
to tell our grandchildren about our experience.
 
Eventually, we all made it back to the beach safely.
Ed was already swimming when we arrived. He was being
kept company by some sting rays, who were swimming
around him. The remainder of the afternoon was spent
swimming and relaxing on the
beach.
Tonight we will experience our last sunset aboard
the Santa
Cruz.
 
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