Mary Campbell and I inflated the dinghy, mounted the outboard, and motored around to the small bay at the south end of Isla Isabella. The beach is ringed with about a dozen small green tin buildings where the fisherman and their families live. The fisherman’s pangas lined the beach in front of the buildings. A very young girl was standing outside the building nearest where we landed. We turned off the outboard, landed on the beach, and pulled the dinghy up above the tide line.
After putting on shoes and sox, we hiked the island starting at about 10:30. We first walked through a fairly large abandoned government building that looked like it may have once been a national park facility. It was made of reinforced concrete. We then hiked up to the ridge behind the building where a short tower was located. The lower portion of the hill was covered in large bushes or small trees each of which contained two or more Frigate bird nests. Many of the nests contained juvenile Frigate birds each about the size of a chicken. The nests were at eye level and we could approach within inches of the birds in the nests. The chicks looked closely at us and squawked a little but otherwise seemed unalarmed. There were dozens of birds nested in the trees.
When we reached the low ridge, the low trees gave way to rock covered with sparse grass. Here the Blue Footed Bobbies and Gulls were nesting on the ground. They scooped out a shallow next in the rocks and gravel where they laid and nested on their eggs. If we approached a nest the mother bird would squawk and remain on the nest guarding their eggs. As soon as we passed, all was quiet. Several of the young birds had already hatched and some of the nestling were quite large. They were covered in white down. We saw one Gull eating a Boobie egg.
After descending the ridge and return to the fish camp, we crossed to the other side of the camp and hiked up a short flight of stairs and down the other side to Crater Lake. It is a small lake nestled in a small rocky crater about 300 yards from the fish camp. Birds were circling over the lake.
We returned the short distance from the lake to the fish camp. We saw a group of four young children swimming near where we had left the dinghy. We launched the dinghy with the help of one of the fisherman, and one of the young boys on the beach. The children were a bit bashful but greeted us in Spanish as we got in the dinghy and rowed away. We started the outboard and explored a bit of the island in the dinghy before returning to the boat and an afternoon swim.
Comments