Excitement started early today as, during breakfast, crew member Jonathan spotted what he thought were whales in the distance. Within a couple of minutes, we'd all jumped in the pangas to try to get closer to them. It turned out they were in fact dolphins, and we got pretty darn close as they swam and lept around us in a feeding frenzy (like you see on Blue Planet, where they herd the fish).

On to Española Island on Punta Suarez to see mroe sea lions... including new born pups, one of which was less than six hours old. And of course, an iguana and crab were happily feasting on the placenta nearby. Yummy. Pup was very cute, though, and kept crying out as everything was VERY difficult already.

To get further inland, we had to divert off the trail to get around a mother sea lion feeding her baby.

A few metres further on and we could check out some lovely boobies. Blue-footed to start with and then Nazca ones. The Nazca boobies have prime cliff-side nesting places as they are more aggressive so the blue-footed ones were nesting right where we walked. We saw a mum sheltering her two new-born chicks from the sun, with them sitting on her lovely blue feet. Their feet are blue because they absorb colour and reflect the sun. Whoddathunk?

More bird-spotting - we were walking by Galapagos Albatrosses and their chicks - these things have up to 2.8m wingspan and we saw them fighting, flirting and one clumsily trying to take off - they need a long run-up.

Sat on a cliff-top, watching loads of iguanas, nazca boobies and batchelor sealions below. All seemed peaceful... until a huge wave crashed ashore, sending an iguana FLYING through the air. An amazing sight of the dark iguana picked out and flailing around against the white wave.

More sealion news:
1 - Saw a sealion who had suffered a shark bite a week or so ago. Was recovering well though still had a big red on its side.
2 - when returning to boat, saw the newborn pup from earlier - and its mother who was already pushing and shoving it towards the sea for its first swim. The pup was totally unimpressed.
3 - mother sea lions go out to sea to hunt for food and leave their pups for days on end... and the pups just sit and wait.

In the afternoon, more deep-water snorkelling with more sealions (what do you mean, old news?) and another wonderful beach with lots more sealions and some shallow-water snorkelling, this time with stingrays.

AND THE GAMES BEGIN:
Once back on board, party night occurred fairly spontaneously. Jason and Chris initiated´'Murder', a game in which everyone has a secret task to carry out on another member of the group, we all had a good old salsa/merengue dance, we played Liz's family Christmas game that involved all of us doing animal impressions to indicate 'hotter' and 'colder' (and of course the whole thing was an attempt to 'murder' someone), and we played 'Psychiatrist', a game we won't explain here in case we ever want to play it with you - better not give too much away...