November 4, 2002, 6:45 pm 30.45" Hg, 75.0 F

Today featured an uncomfortably early wake-up for those interested in visiting Post Office Bay, a bay on Floreana Island on which whalers put a barrel in which to deposit mail. Then a passing whaler on their way home would retrieve mail to bring it back. Some of us departed on zodiacs at 6:30 after a brief tea and pastry to have a brief tour near Post Office Bay. We saw several sea lion colonies/beaches, and some sea turtles, and two penguins! They are about ten inches high and can swim terribly fast under water. They swim just under the surface of the water with their wings outstretched. Occasionally they will stick their head above the water, almost looking like a duck. Then we landed near the Post Office Barrel where I left six postcards and picked up one postcard destined for San Francisco.

The post office barrel

Then we returned for breakfast, joining the balance of the passengers. As luck would have it, I sat near a window and heard someone comment of seeing something jumping from the water. I stared for a while and saw a few and then more - dolphins jumping from the water. Lynn Fowler, our naturalist, announced that the captain would be turning the ship to steam through the pod of dolphins. After a bit, Lynn announced that some dolphins were bow wave riding the ship! I went up to the deck, to where the anchor chain winds up below the bridge, and by looking over the side of the prow I could see six dolphins riding the bow wave.

Bottle nose dolphins riding the Polaris' bow wave
The ship's bow can be seen at the bottom of the photo; we are travelling roughly to the left

Six, and sometimes as many as ten, dolphins were just riding the bow wave in front of the ship. Occasionally one of them would spurt ahead and jump out of the water to then resume his or her place. Once a pair of them spurted ahead and executed simultaneous leaps fifteen feet in the air!

It really seems to me that the dolphins had intentionally directed their course to intercept the ship in order to catch the bow wave, because when we first saw them from the dining room they appeared headed on a intercept course. The jumps they executed, some with rolls in the air, makes me think quite a bit less of the training that establishments similar to Seaworld carry out since dolphins are executing jumps in the air for fun without any training (unless the dolphins we observed were escaped Seaworld performers on the lam). They really seemed to be having fun as they rode the bow wave, jockeying for position, and running ahead to jump in the air as if showing off to their fellows. Perhaps I am anthropomorphizing a bit here, but I wonder if anyone has ever carried out an anthropological study of dolphins, as opposed to the work done in captivity. I mean, Jane Goodall did so much with apes (chimps?) by observing them in the wild. Perhaps it is a bit more difficult to observe dolphins in the wild...radio transponders?

For instance, prior to riding in a ship's bow wave does a dolphin pod have the same sort of conversation each time? Does one sport the ship and they then engage in a "Whaddaya wanna do Marty?" cnversation?
I should look it up.

Then all departed for snorkelling except for the Chosen Seven, who transferred via zodiac to a small dive boat. They had already selected dive gear for all of us based on sizes. I was buddied with Dr. Gary Williams, the invertebrate zoology curator from the California Academy of Science along on this trip.

Myself and Gary Williams

Jane Zometsky, Bill Hoon, myself, Gary, and Marla Zometsky

Waiting to arrive at the dive site

Lindblad Expeditions, founded by Sven Lindblad, operates the Polaris and organizes these trips to the Galapagos Islands among many others to a variety of locations. The Academy of Science advertises these trips to its membership for the benefit of its membership.

The first dive I was somewhat nervous and uptight and I consumed my air rather quickly. I spent about 30 minutes down and saw some morays, corals (lots of black corals), fans, a sea lion, and a sea turtle. Gary also got low on air quickly so we went up and safety stopped together. On the boat afterwards everyone talked about the sharks they saw - of which I saw none. gary said that there was a shark right above me - as big as I am!

Done with a dive

We had a snack of crackers and cookies and drove to the second dive site ("drove" by boat). This site was the Devils' Crown. My mask had not been fitting well, and on the second dive I experienced a lot of water in my mask - and fogging.

We had a lunch of sandwiches on the boat on the way back to the Polaris. After we returned there was a lovely selection from the lunch saved for the seven of us in the dining area. Five of us showed up and ate and chatted about the dives.

Then we had a wet landing and a walk across a spot to a nice white beack which is a sea turtle nesting ground. We spotted several sea turtles swimming in the surf, but none beached. Above the high tide line we were not permitted to walk, for that is the location of the nests - small bomb-crater like depressions. What struck me was that the turtle tracks looked like miniature bulldozer tracks. It looked like the tracks left by the small one-man fighting vehicles used by the Abwehr in World War II and found by the Allies upon landings at Normandy.

Andy Jaros standing near the sea turtle nesting beach

Waiting to be picked up by a zodiac

Sitting on the stern teak deck for barbecue dinner

Late in the evening John Somebody came into the lounge where I was sitting with this journal and a cognac to ask if I knew what the white streaks in the water near the stern were. I went and looked with him and Andy Jaros. In addition to sea lions swimming about in the light spilling from the ship there were small silvery shapes flitting in the water and occasionally jumping from the water.

I went to the bridge to fetch Benito, who received permission from the captain to go (taking a radio). He came back and said the flitting shapes were "Lisa" and are striped mullet.

I was then up late chatting with Benito about shakras and body energies. He showed me a small massage/energizer device: made of Tagua wood from the coast and Shanta wood from the jungle.

I asked, and Benito explained, that the nitrogen gas bottles on board were to apply pressure through lines to halon cylinders in the engine compartments; the nitrogen pushes out pins which then release the halon into the enginer spaces.

November 5, 2002