Penguins Part Deux

Remember these guys? Well, the Galapagos is the only place where you can see penguins north of the equator. These penguins had many similar characteristics to our little friends from Antarctica, but they are a bit smaller (like a bowling pin in size). The one thing you can do in the Galapagos, that you really can't do in Antarctica is to swim with the penguins. Kevin and I loved swimming with them...and as they're not scared of humans, one was swimming around me and then hid behind me, snuck up from behind me, and brushed past my cheek giving me a little "kiss" along the way. Man, I love penguins. Like in the new cartoon "Surf's Up", penguins do indeed excel in water. To see them gliding and swimming around in water is a beautiful thing.


(thank you to Lizzie for these underwater pix!)

And the little guys above water...



The reason the penguins can live at the equator is that the water around the islands is surprisingly cold. We always had to wear wet suits and temps averaged around 12-15 celsius. Brrrrr!



And thanks to Frank and Kendal (who were on our trip) for these two pictures of the penguins above water. These were the little guys we swam with who decided to go to shore for a little break.





Luckily, we had a lot of avid photographers with awesome cameras on board our ship so we are looking forward to even more Galapagos pictures taken by keen photography enthusiasts.

Now, moving on to a less unique but pretty cute bird--the pelican. Pelicans are surprisingly light creatures that can sit atop trees for hours. Despite standing still, they were surprisingly adept at sweeping down into water to grab themselves a fishy little snack.