Galapagos Day 5

Up at 7:00am for breakfast. Steamed all night to Genovesa Island. Huge waves, had trouble sleeping again.Did a dry landing at Philip's Step. Saw red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, nazca boobies, tropicbirds, Galapagos doves, striated heron and frigatebirds (and probably others). This is the only island where red-footed boobies are found, I believe.Nazca boobies mate almost all year, so there were lots of young ones. The nests and the young ones are everywhere, even right along the edge of the walking path. You can walk right up to them, stand 12 inches away and take pictures. If you get closer, some will try to bite you, but they don't really care, and don't try to get away or anything. It's amazing how they see humans as absolutely no threat to them. Needless to say, I'm getting some awesome pictures. It's so easy!After the hike at Philip's Step, we went back to the boat for some dinghy snorkelling. The seas were rough and we're in a bay, so unfortunately lots of garbage collects in the waters here. It's also one spot where hammerhead sharks like to hang out, but unfortunately they were not around for us today.When we were getting ready for the snorkel, Daisy (the bartender) was helping us get into the dinghy's at the back of the boat. Our guide (Gustavo), in his wet suite, picked up Daisy and gave her a big bear hug, her feet were off the ground. The cook saw the opportunity, ran across the boat, onto the back platform and pushed Gustavo and Daisy into the water. They cook then ran and hid, laughing (as we all did too). Daisy was not impressed at that moment, but once she swam back to the boat, she was laughing too.The food on the boat is amazing! There's breakfast, lunch and supper, and mid-morning and mid-afternoon, Daisy always has snacks for us.The afternoon outing was a wet landing at a beach on Genovesa and a walk to see more sea lions and birds and amazing views.Every outing just continutes to blow my mind. It's absolutely amazing that none of the animals has any hear of us. We can walk right by their nests, a mere foot away, and they don't care.We swam at the beach after the hike. On the beach, I was watching a bird fly to the beach, land, pick up a black lava rock and then fly over to a rocky outcrop and put it down as part of the nest. His mate stood nearby and watched. I was curious about the nest he was making, so walked over to it. While I was watching, a couple of others came to watch too. There was another bird couple there, they were both looking for rocks for their nest together. The male bird picked up a black rock in his beak, the female looked at it, threw her nose up and walked away in a huff. The poor male, he dropped the rock, stood there, alone, looking at it, thinking, 'What's wrong with that rock? It looked fine to me.'Back at the boat, the crew were preparing fish for supper and throwing the head and guts overboard. There were sharks in the area, they came to gorge! Big sharks, coming to the surface, it was awesome. It would've been more awesome to snorkel with them, but I think these guys were not friendly sharks. They were not hammerheads, someone said they were grey sharks.We had supper, then the briefing for the next day. We have an early start tomorrow, 6:00am, because we're dropping off passengers and picking up new passengers.The stars are amazing at night, with no light pollution, and the phosphourence in the water at night is equally amazing.