It was an early start, 6AM, when we were at the front desk, still sleepy. When we arrived to the dock the water was very calm. It was a good start to our day cruise. We transferred to Pikaia 1 and got settled in. There was breakfast for us and a fine breeze on the third deck. We had a Frigate bird escort the whole way. It started with one and eventually 4 Frigates were circling the boat and jockeying for position. I wanted Leslie to get to the front of the boat so I could get a picture showing how close the bird was. She jumped up there and promptly got pooped on. All the crew members said that that would be good luck for us. Perhaps it was, because soon we saw an entire pod of dolphins! At one point during the day the frigate bird landed on some of the rigging and I could get a lot of really close up pictures of it. Later there were four birds swooping and careening.
This island is Daphine Major, site of some incredible finch research by the Grant's, a husband and wife team.
Waking up a bit
Fully woke
Daphine Major
A large sea bird highlighted against the rocks
Basalt formations
Poop, there it is!
Haha says the Frigate bird
I believe this to be a young magnificent Frigate
There is a groove along the beak thet chan saline solution that the bird excretes from its nostrils
Ready to take flight
And then there was four
