Going Ashore

CR waves goodby to the legend
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It’s moving day on the Galopagos M/V Legend ship. This is always a pain. The crew wants us out of the rooms ASAP so they can clean up but we can’t get off till 10:30 so we’re kinda hangin’. Ugg!. They offered an early tour of the beach to see the flamingoes and several went. They saw one pink bird… but it was dead … so I’m not sure if that qualifies as a sighting! The group saw some broken turtle shells sans babies. They suspected that they had been safely hatched. At least that’s what they tell the kids. I think it was a tasty breakfast for a couple of blue footed boobies. The group came back and we said goodby to the Legend and took the Zodiac to the pier on Baltra Island. This island was totally barren except for the airport which the U S Navy CB’s had built during WWII. 4,000 soldiers were stationed on this little island. They even had a base theater where Marilyn Munroe played or danced or whatever she use to do! We caught the public bus to the ferry, took the ferry over to Santa Cruz and grabbed three cabs toward the hotel. Since Charles missed the trip to the Tortoise farm we stopped by there to show him the giants. Our hotel, the Red Mangrove was quite unique. It was built right in the middle of a massive mangrove. The restaurant has windows that look right into the jungle of these trees. Out the back side was the ocean … with pelicans, marine iguanas, sea lions and some critters we couldn’t identify. We walked into town for a pizza, shopped a little bit and went back to the hotel where the kids sat on our magnificent deck and watched the pelicans and boobies dive for fish. Then we went to the restaurant for another birthday party for Amy Jo. .