Okay, maybe not a disaster for most people, but for a photographer? Yeah disaster.
We were dismounting the zodiac with my camera firmly secured in a dry bag inside my daypack on my back. Firmly. Or so I thought. My trekking pole was sticking out the top, and between it and the water bottle hooked to it with a carabiner, it pulled the zipper flap open, and my camera fell to the dock. With the new, 75-300 lens on it. (Shades of falling off the table in London last year.) And yes, when I went to take a photo, it was completely blurry.
I was so mad I cried. Literally cried. How could I possibly be in the Galapagos and have this happen? Knowing I’d taken the last close up photo of the trip cast a pall over the day. It took me HOURS to pull myself out of my funk. I’m so lucky to be seeing all this. Not being able to document it as well as I would like is really small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
So, today is Espanola. The marine iguanas here are tinged red. And there are tons of them. The photos of them are not as bad as I had feared they would be. Of course it helps that they are totally unfazed by humans and don’t run off when you get close to them.
Our first glimpse of an albatross was this “teenager” tucked in a nest under a bush.
The lack of my long lens was really an issue today, because you have to stay on trails and most of the birds have nested away from the trails, and you just can’t get a good photo without a good zoom. I must have taken 100 photos of the Albatross, and this was the best shot I got. So sad…
The Galapagos hawks were even worse…
Up on the bluff over-looking a pool teeming with marine iguanas was another spot where the zoom would have come in handy. I had to content myself with enjoying the view without enhancement. Poor me. As beautiful as it is, you can see how silly my distress is.
If you look closely you can see one of the amazing creatures just above the mid-line of the photo.
The Nazca Boobies, although not as flashy as the Blue-footed Boobies, were still fun to watch.
Our afternoon jaunt was to another gorgeous beach.
I am just so enamored of the sea lions…
We got to witness a “West-Side Story” style turf battle between a bunch of mockingbirds. Note the line down the middle…They just screeched at each other from the sides, then all of a sudden forgot who the bad guys were and started fussing within the groups on the same side of the line. It was quite amusing.
There were lots of tiny shells on the beach, and Mr. Tattered helped me fashion a heart with them.
I’m posting these photos in the days after we returned home. Now is as good of a time as any to confess that the lens I thought was broken, isn’t. The crash caused a setting to get off-kilter, and a simple adjustment was all that was needed. I spent the whole rest of the trip with just my short lens, just because I don’t know enough about my camera/lens. GRRRRRRR!
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