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Welcome to the Galapagos.

The flight was short. Customs was easy. (-Do you have any fruits or vegetables? -No. -Ok.) And after a 10-minute bus ride to the harbor on the island of Baltra - nothing but the airport is on Baltra - we were on our boat and on our way. This all happened with a practiced efficiency, which left me a bit out of sorts, but this is the deal as I have it figured out:
The boat I'm on is the Guantanamera. It has a crew of around seven and one naturalist guide named Washington. There are 16 passengers - all from the US - of which 13 are a group of masters swimmers and kayakers from San Diego and Hawaii. The other two, excluding me, are a couple from Seattle. I am the youngest one. By a good bit.
So this will be my home and they will be my family for the next eight days. The first day did not lead me to believe that it would be quite as exciting as I had hoped. The one stop for the day had us getting off and staring at random wildlife that did not impress in any real way. Flamingos are cool, but... meh. I'm looking for some real animal life here, not just a few easily identifiable birds and crabs. The one upshot so far is that the food is amazing on the boat. And I love food more than most anything.
Tomorrow I'm scheduled to dive Gordon's Rock at 6am with Washington. It's one of the most popular sites in the world and a good place to see hammerheads. We'll see.

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