Holy Sharks!

We changed islands yesterday from Isla Santa Cruz to Isla Cristobal. This town is a bit smaller but WAY more sea lions hanging out. They greet you on the stairs right when you get off the boat. This morning we saw one sleeping on a park bench! Ahhh! And we saw another sleeping on a doormat. There are a few beaches here in town pretty much sea lion hang out zone. They are so dang cute I can hardly stand it. They remind me of puppies the way they play with each other.

Today we went on a snorkel trip to four different spots around the island and got to play with the pups (fitting name) which are the baby sea lions. One little guy was picking up a piece of coral or rock and tossing it around then doing flips around it, picking it up again (with its mouth) and spitting it out. It looked like a puppy playing with a new toy. I´m pretty sure everyone in our group had never been swimming or snorkeling before, EVER. I have never been kicked and smacked so many times in my life! Or maybe they were just in a hurry to see the wild life and would take out anyone in their path. I didn´t know there was such thing as ¨snorkel etiquette¨ but now I know there is... and these peeps didn´t have it. My favorite spot today was called Leon Dormido (also Kicker Rock) which means Sleeping Lion in english because the locals think the big rock in the middle of the ocean looks like a (whatdoyaknow) sleeping lion. We swam with tons and tons of black tip galapagos reef sharks. They came a little too close for comfort and made me nervous. We also saw more sea turtles. I told the girl next to me that there was a turtle just below her in a calm collected voice and she SHOUTED ¨SEA TURTLE EVERYONE SEA TURTLE OH MY GOD!!!¨ Then everyone raced over kicking each other along the way to see the first of many many sea turtles. Wow. We also got crazy close to some eagle rays. The snorkeling was incredible! We kept our snorkel gear for one more day since there are some great spots close to town that we can hike to tomorrow. I wish I could slow down time, this is one of those places you just want to hit the pause button on the ¨life remote.¨