Day 7: Snorkelling & Catamarans

I wake early again but with a sore throat. Feels like a cold coming.

I am ready before the girls wake and it´s quite nice that I can faff around at my own pace.

We dress for the beach and smother ourselves with Factor 500, well Factor 60 for me, and head off to meet the others at 9 am outside the Hostel San Francisco, the general meeting place for volunteers.

We have breakfast in a nearby cafe, average cost around $3 for fruit juice, coffee or tea, scrambled egg, toast. Then we go our separate ways.

Jesse, Belinda, Ann and Imogen go on an excursion to see the giant tortoises, Kelly has already flown to Isabela and won´t see her till Monday night. Kate, Marten, Irina and I have to find the supermarket to buy food for our picnic lunch and Marten and Irina have to hire snokel gear. I am pretty annoyed I was badly misinformed in Quito that this would cost $20 a day as it actually costs $3 for the weekend!

We walk in the heat to the Playa Tijèretas (or is it Carola?), just over 1 km. It is searingly hot but I am well protected with my usual clothes. My Factor 60 should keep me safe on exposed parts.
We clamber over a rough path of volcanic boulders and in front of us is a crescent-shaped sandy beach covered with sealions lying in the shallows or under the trees/shrubs or sunning themselves or playing in the water.
The beach is amazingly beautiful. There are trees to the right and the beach overlooks the port and you can see the airport but as only one plane arrives and leaves per day, this isn´t an issue.

The others are quickly in the water but as usual I´m a bit slower. But it was worth the wait. I am swimming with sealions in seconds and see my first turtle within minutes. My mask leaks as does Kate´s snorkel. She borrows Simon´s, who is just leaving the beach and I combine her mask with my snorkel so we´re both sorted.

I watch the sealions and turtles for ages then get out for something to eat. The lizards, yellow warbler and black finches are our constant companions and get really close. I sit in the shade for an hour as I don´t want to get burned in the hot, hot sun.

Irina goes back for another session in the water but I wanter up the beach to watch the boobies diving. The volcanic rocks are hot enough to cook food on so I can´t sit down. I take a few photos but these birds are too few and fast to capture. I hear a plane taxi-ing to the end of the runway. It shatters the peace but at least there aren´t that many landing and taking-off - maximum of 2 per day.

By the time we get back to town my legs are tired from all that swimming, unaccustomed as I am. It´s a long walk back.

We meet Aussie Belinda on the way who tells us we´ve all been invited by the Sharksky folk onto the catarmaran they´re looking after (long story) for a party.

Not one to pass up such an inpromptu invitation we rush back to our room to dump our stuff, no time for a shower and leave Belinda to buy booze.

We catch a water taxi to the boat and meet the rest of those from Jatun Sacha station where we spend a very enjoyable evening sitting, chatting, relaxing and getting to know those we haven´t really mixed with that much.

We pay $5 each for pizza which doesn´t arrive until 10 pm and we´re all starving. I eat so fast I get a tummy-ache. Monolo takes most of us back in shuttles in his little boat and we are accompanied back to the harbour by sealions playing in our wake.

I discover I have very bad sunburn on my back where I missed rather large patches when applying sunscreen this morning. I´ve even got fingermarks! I´m not impressed as I obviously picked this up when snorkelling. I console myself that at least I avoided sunstroke!