Beyond climbing to the top of the island and snorkeling near Pinnacle Rock, we stopped at a different place on Bartolome to snorkel in a relatively narrow channel. The title gives this all away, but one of the wildlife highlights of the Galapagos (among many) are the adorable little Galapagos Penguins! Their own species, they are little (I’d say probably 18-24″ tall), can be shy, and are very, very cute. A family of these penguins lives in the channel, so we were very hopeful we’d see them (up to this point, we’d only seen one lone penguin).
I guess I think all animals are cute. Except humans. You will not hear me call humans cute, except on rare, rare occasions. I do think DH is cute, obviously.
Well, yet again, this was an excellent snorkeling location. Minus the one very large male sea lion that was not super thrilled with DH’s closeness to his territory. We continued on our way. We saw a lot of fish. And something I thought was a sea cucumber but now I will just call undefined. Anyway, we continue up the channel and low and behold…
I squeal with cuteness. And excitement. There are three little penguins, right beside where we are snorkeling. DH even took a photo of me with the penguins. Because, well, PENGUINS. I look bizarrely and ridiculously happy with said penguins.
So, they seemed pretty content on that rock of theirs. I mean, one appeared to be sunbathing. And I was getting cold, really cold. The panga was just a short swim away, so I decided I’d swim over and watch the penguins from the panga until everyone else was done snorkeling. A bunch of them were headed out towards open water, and open water is way colder than a narrow cove, so I opted to call it a day.
I was settling in nicely, enjoying basking in the sun–like a penguin–when suddenly the panga driver started pointing. Two of the penguins had decided to dive in the water! Of course I decided to get out, just then. DH was right by one of the penguins, with another one following him close behind, though he didn’t notice that one.
I will take no credit for this fantastic penguin photo–it’s all DH. But how amazing is this little penguin, just zipping along in the water!? So cool. And they were really buzzing around so I’m even more impressed that DH got a non-blurry shot. Man, I can’t believe I missed swimming with the penguins in the Galapagos. Next time, next time. And one more picture of one of the little penguins getting out of the water. Because no matter what they are doing, they are so flipping cute. And awkward on land.
As one of our last snorkels, this was definitely a highlight. There aren’t a lot of places you can see penguins in the world. Galapagos Penguins are the only species of penguin that can be found north of the equator. Adorable.
Enough cuteness. But really, aren’t they SO CUTE!?
