Welcome to your first episode of Frisky Business – The Galapagos Edition. But first I need to catch you up.

I am starting to formulate a hypothesis as to why Ecuadorian coffee is so amazing (as reported by Peter and friends). The ship crew is up all hours of the day and night getting us from one place to another, and more importantly feeding us at odd hours. Today was no exception. After moving us overnight to Genovesa Island, we started the day with breakfast at 5:00 AM.

We loaded up the zodiacs promptly at 6:00 AM. Think about that for a minute. You are expected to step down into a zodiac while the waves are moving the ship AND tossing the zodiac around AND you’ve barely gotten out of bed, much less tied your shoelaces together successfully. This, my friends, is a coordination feat worthy of a cheerleader. And I have to hand it to the crew, they got us in and out of the zodiacs without incident every time….and in record time.

But that was just step 1, we had to get out of the zodiacs, and the sea was really energetic this morning. The plan was to make a dry landing onto a jetty, but it was a dry landing that was never meant to be. When we pulled up to the jetty there were 4 large sea lions lounging horizontally across its entire width.

We’re supposed to stay 6 feet away from the animals and there wasn’t that much room between the landing spot and the animals. Back and forth gesturing occurred between the crew in the first zodiac and the naturalist in the back zodiac (was I witness a secretive and special form of maritime sign language?). One of the crew was given permission to wave their life jacket at them and scoot them off. As we were watching this process, completely transfixed, a huge wave broke and splashed over the jetty right where we were standing. Soaked up to my knees, we set off for a 3 hour hike that was supposed to take us 2 hours. It is a known truth, photographers move really, really slowly. Which can be a bit of a problem when the mosquitos start looking for breakfast, your wet clothes are now at a nice warm body temperature, and you’re just standing there not moving waiting to frame up the most amazing photo of a Galapagos [you can insert any kind of animal name here, Hawk, Dove, etc. It seems like many species in the Galapagos are similar to ones you know, but evolutionarily different, so they slap “Galapagos” on the front and call it good]. Within 100 steps in soaking wet shoes, I was already feeling like I was in a 150 degree steam bath, and swatting away mosquitoes, I knew this was going to be another one of those zen exercises in ignoring discomfort.

We were able to get close to Sally Lightfoot Crabs during the hike. They are colorful, beautiful, and they know how to jump. Sallys are named after a Caribbean dancer who was famous for her agility and jumping ability. Intrigued I needed to know more about this captivating figure. But don’t go trying to look her up, she isn’t real. Just a bit of sailor folklore. Now I just need to find that bit of folklore to really understand the connection. I’ll save that rabbit hole for another day.

The rocky, overgrown path eventually gave way to a clearing where albatross’ nest. It was surreal to find ourselves walking down the path with an albatross leading the way. Waddling like it had just finished 5 trips to a Vegas buffet, with its head moving in the opposite direction to keep it balanced. These are big birds, the size of small children with a wing span of 12 feet.

Even though albatross’ mate for life, at times there is a little extra-curricular action occurring. The oldest dominant male on the cliff sometimes mates with other females whose soul mates have not yet arrived. 25% of those “hookups” successfully inseminate the only egg a female will lay that year. That’s interesting to noodle on. About 1/4 of the albatross population is raised by a different male. And if you’re an adolescent albatross you get a special Galapagos name: Galapagos Cotton Candy, because you are unusually furry and fluffy.

It was a frisky morning on the cliff. Not only were the albatrosses doing their bill clacking mating ritual (similar to 7-year olds with light sabors re-enacting their favorite Star Wars scenes), but the Blue Footed Boobies were doing their special foot dance.

It’s kind of like that move women make when they are showing off their new favorite toe nail polish after a pedicure… but the boobies do it in slow motion. And just to make sure the potential mate has really taken in all that electric blue webbed foot goodness they switch feet, showing one foot, then the other foot and then repeating the motion a few times for good measure. It makes Footloose look like a bunch of frenetic sloppy tap dancing. The Blue Footed Boobies take foot fetish to a whole new level.

Our last outing of the day was exactly the opposite from all the frisky bird behavior in the morning. We jumped off the zodiac into vibrant turquoise water and walked up to a long beautiful sandy beach laced with about 100 sea lions lounging around in the warm sun. Those creatures redefine “chill-axing”. Every once in a while there would be some commotion as they got themselves re-situated with a different cuddle buddy, then they would settle down again. They were fun to watch but hard to photograph. In all my photographs they looked like big brown lumps sprinkled with brown sugar. But it was nice to slow down and take in the whole experience of walking down a pristine beach with creatures so relaxed they remain napping even as you pass by.