November 1

Away at 0710 for one of the best few hours of sailing we’ve had for a long while, in 10-15 knots on the beam, at reached Isla de la Plata, 24 miles to the northwest, at 1020. In the anchorage there, as we motored around, looking for a better place to anchor than we’d found when we were here in February, the park attendant came down to the beach and motioned where to go. He was of course absolutely correct. We were on a narrow 22-foot shelf near the beach that abruptly ended in a 64-foot drop.

With the anchor secured, we had time to observe the numbers of green turtles popping their heads above the water as they swam round and round the boat, studying this new fish in their water.

After an early lunch, we met the park attendant, Favio, for a 2 ½-hour hike up a trail so steep stairs were provided much of the way. Too bad we didn’t have that wonderful marine layer of the coast! The equatorial sun was searing. But we had a splendid outing, for booby birds covered the ridge of the island. The blue-footed, in every stage of the reproduction cycle, were prevalent. Some couples were performing their elaborate mating dances, others were taking turns sitting on nests of eggs, limp gray newborns, or white downy chicks.

Farther along the trail was a much smaller colony of the elegant white and black masked, or Nazca, boobies. We saw no mating displays but nests with eggs and/or chicks, each guarded by one or both parents. In the tree tops of a narrow, remote canyon visible from the ridge perched a few red-footed boobies. And in the trees along the walls of many canyons were magnificent frigatebirds, the most numerous of the species on the island. Late in their season,, few males still displayed their vivid red pouches, but many fluffy white chicks stretched their long necks as they sat on the tree-top, fully exposed nests.