by galapagoscruises — published on March 16th, 2009
Frigate Birds in Galapagos and beyond are the only sea birds that are not waterproofed!
Frigate birds produce hardly any oil and therefore don’t want to land in the ocean. They do attack and rob other seabirds of their fish.
Since they are never in the sea, you will notice them up in the air: they are those large black birds looking like big black kites. And they perform a fast and amazing display when they dive after fish dropped by other seabirds.
Their body is as big as a chicken and the tallest Galapagos frigate bird can have a wingspan reaching more than 7 feet (or 2m).
Although frigate birds seems to have black feathers when you see them flying in the Galapagos sky, their feathers produce different colours when they refract the sunlight:
- Magnificent Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract purple colours
- Great Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract green colours.
Male frigate birds have a typical red patch of skin at their throat. During courtship, males will force air in this red gular pouch as if they were carrying a big red balloon.
We didn’t see any frigate birds’ courtship when we visited Galapagos, as the birds where hatching when we set foot on the North Seymour Islands.
On the picture you see a female Frigate Bird of Galapagos as females are marked with white colours below.
Technorati Tags: frigate birds, frigate birds galapagos, Galapagos, north seymour islands, sea birds
by galapagoscruises — published on March 4th, 2009
So after quite a long flight and a good night rest, we were ready to board our real Galapagos cruise adventure. But travel problems weren’t over yet.
The next hurdle to take was trying not to get seasick. A daunting task when you see people next to you suddenly vomiting…
Also our cabine was for 2 people: 1 bed above the other, and I advice you to take the lowest bed if you have a sensitive stomach.
Having said all this: you need to know that you will be on the sea when you travel to Galapagos, so it’s advice-able to take seasick pills with you, or to get some experience traveling on the sea before you embark on a long and costly cruise around Galapagos.
On the other hand: we already could admire a blue heron when embarking our "cruise ship" (it’s a great word for a "luxury boat" named "The Darwin Explorer")…
Technorati Tags: blue heron, cabine, cruise adventure, daunting task, Galapagos Cruise, heron, hurdle, night rest, seasick pills, sensitive stomach, travel problems
by galapagoscruises — published on February 15th, 2009
What I especially love about my Galapagos vacation is being on a small boat with about 14 other tourists and 9 crew members. That all means that you can go to quite places that are a bit out of the beaten track.
Although the boat is small, it beats the massive luxury cruises that brings you to yet another Galapagos tourist attraction.
How to eat a cactus
Every day we saw different Islands: one looks like the moon, the next looks like a volcano, the next is filled with flamingo’s, the next has real trees and the next only has one cactus next to the other…
Galapagos wildlife: iguana eating a cactus
And of course this variety leads to an equal immense variety of Galapagos wildlife animals: try to avoid the spikes when eating a cactus… It’s just amazing and as always: you are sitting next to the animal 
Technorati Tags: beaten track, cactus, crew members, flamingo, galapagos vacation, galapagos wildlife, immense variety, luxury cruises, moon, spikes, tourist attraction, tourists, trees, volcano, wildlife animals
