[Note: Due to limited internet connectivity, these trip logs will be posted daily now that we have returned home. Spoiler alert: we had an amazing once in a life time experience. As usual, most of the images you see in these logs are from my iPhone. We will follow-up in a few weeks with links to our final set of images from our “big cameras”.]

Greetings from the Galapagos! The Fab Four arrived in the birthplace of the theory of evolution ready for a week of exciting wildlife encounters. We had no idea what experiences laid ahead.

I knew this photography workshop was going to be unique….but didn’t realize how so, until the orientation. There is nothing like meeting a group of 15 strangers, and 4 minutes later, casually throwing around phrases like: “we shoot naked” and “boobies are the best”. My goodness, I forgot to check the workshop description to see if clothes were optional. Thankfully, the phrases were much more innocent than they sounded: “We shoot naked” means removing any filters from the front of your lens. And Boobies are a type of bird, some with blue feet (very coveted to photograph), some with red feet, and some with plain old feet. The name Booby comes from the Spanish word bobo, which means clown. Now you can get your mind out of the gutter.

We took the short 1 1/2 hour flight from the Guayaquil Airport on the mainland to San Cristobal island. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador with over 75% of the population residing here. All the domestic flights leaving the airport this morning, with the exception of 2, were heading to the Galapagos. We were handed three documents from the company that facilitated our transfer to the Galapagos and told not to lose one of them….we would need this one for our return from the island (Spoiler alert: Peter lost his). I can’t remember which one it is, so I plan to hand over the pile whenever I’m asked for something.

As with any new place, there are always interesting things to experience, from the extraordinary to the mundane. The flight from Guayaquil to San Christobol was no exception. The Ecaudourians take the protection of these very special islands seriously. Similar to Hawaii, no fresh or organic food is allowed. Your luggage is scanned at the airport, carryons sprayed with a disinfectant in the overhead bins before landing (god only knows what I was breathing in, but the good news is I don’t think any cold or flu virus could survived that fog), your carry-ons are scanned again upon landing, but the most fascinating thing is what happens to your checked baggage when you arrive.

All flights go through another type of passport control and two additional checkpoints which require one of the papers from the massive pile you were given. Then you are shepherded into a small baggage claim area and you wait behind a band of yellow tile in the floor with a 1,000 other people. Airline staff carefully pull the bags through a small window and build neatly lined up rows of bags. Once they have about 10 rows, a police person arrives with a German Shepherd, gestures to the dog who runs up and down the row twice. This happens 10 times, and once it’s complete, it’s like a rugby scrum with all the passengers jumping into the arena to claim their bag.

We were thwarted from embarking on our first photo expedition because of rain. It seems that rain follows me on every epic vacation. We instead stayed in San Cristobal and photographed sunset from Playa Mann. Sea lions (not seals – please never refer to them as seals or a passionate naturalist will withhold all sweets for the remainder of the trip), were lounging all along the bay…not just in the sand or the rocks, but on the park benches, on the steps, and even on the dock where we loaded and unloaded from the zodiac.

We were hoping for a few of these playful creatures to come ashore and take in the sunset in front of our cameras, but they decided to frolic in the waves and body surf back and forth to the shore.

Even though it was hot, and we became dinner for the bugs along the shore (yes, we were wearing bug repellant), it was a beautiful way to usher in our first night in the Galapagos.