Curse those moments when you write something really long and you're feeling good about it and then you've lost internet or your computer crashes and it's like the world crashed instead.  Well here goes attempt number 2 at writing a new post about my dad's birthday voyage down to G. Islas.  So I had 1 week to sum up my island, San Cristobal, as best as I could to my dad.  Like most of our tropical trips, our activities are scheduled around surfing so we surf when there's surf and when there's not we roam around like gringos finding other excursiony stuff to do.  In the late afternoon on the day the burro (aka my dad) got in, we got some waist to chest high surf at Punta Carola, a right point break that peels off a headland on a NW swell and breaks into a bay.  A fun little sesh to get wet, w/ the every day turtles swimming about along with sea lions who were also trying to catch a few waves themselves.  The next few days weren't as fruitful on the surf so instead we snorkeled, hiked, went to the highlands to see giant ass land turtles (Saddlebacks, which is English for Galapagos), fished offshore, hung with my host family, and drank cervezas while listening to some good old music and watching the sun set spectacularly behind the boats from our view over the harbor.  Properly suited with an ultra high tech mask and snorkel, my dad was ready or action.  We went to a couple of different beaches and swam with an assortment of rocky reef fish, sea turtles, rays, and playful yet devious sea lions.  However we didn't have time to fit in a boat ride and snorkel out to Leon Dormido, a vertical volcanic rock that is a source of local upwelling providing nutrients for many animals in addition to providing a substratum for larval recruitment and growth (contrary to the California coast where upwelling resides in larval dispersal away from the coast, and downwelling like north of Cape Blanco in Oregon maintains larval populations adjacent to the coastline).  But the cool thing about this site other than there being a greater diversity of fish, fish population density, sea turtles, and occasionally whales (orcas & whale sharks have been spotted there since I've been living here) are the sharks like white tip, black tip, Galapagos, and wickedly cool scalloped hammerhead.  Anyways we couldn't get this in but we hiked all over the island (just to get to Carola from my dad's place was about 15 minutes, from my house like 22ish minutes), since transportation is mainly foot, brakeless bikes, if you're lucky you have a motor bike, or if you speak bribe then you got yourself a car here.  But most vehicles are either taxis, owned by the police, or the occasional tour bus for the older crowd of visitors.  The foremost we took to get to the highlands to a place called Sierra Colorado wherein lies a protected reserve, La Galapaguerra, to restore the Saddleback turtle population.  The sizes of turtles here range from just hatched to 80-year-old adults that are the size of boulders.  While it would have been epic to get a pic of my dad riding a Saddleback, the park folks wouldn't take it too kindly.  So since the surf continued to be flat we took advantage of this to go fishing for wahoo and yellow fin tuna.  We brought my host mom and host bro-in-law with us since we were going out on some relative of ours boat.  The fish gods weren't quite smiling down on us that day and while we had a couple of knock downs and even had a "catch-and-release", or it touched the liter, but in all only brought back with us a small yellow fin which we made fish bites out of for dinner that night in my mom's house with the rest of the fam.  But Sunday, the borro's bday, was approaching and we did get some sunny rays smiling down on us along with the surf gods.  The 2 of us paddled out in the morning at Carola w/ clean conditions and head high to a foot over head sets and nobody out.  We enjoyed this all to ourselves before a few locals came out, and to them every wave is a party wave.  But we shared the peak, with the locals only dropping in on each other and not the 2 of us.  Needless to say we spent the whole morning out, and only paddled in when there was too much tide on it, so about 3 hours later.  I think this along would have made my dad's bday, but throughout the week I had been planning him a surprise party at my mom's restaurant with some fam, friends, and my boyfriend (yes, what are adventures without a bit of romance entangled, but this is all you're getting).  All of this was done in front of him but in Spanish, so yea he didn't really get any of it.  But the whole thing was so sweet, we had dinner followed by a tres leches cake w/ strawberries & peaches that my sister had made and presents to follow.  This was the one night my dad stayed up past 10 (till midnight!) hanging out in our place and talking w/ my boyfriend.  We caught a couple of more surf seshes in the mornings before my dad's spring break was up and he had to fly back to the states where he just missed our tsunami warning.  Super stoked he could make it, and was spoiled with sunset cervezas, hot water, and internet that week (hence the blowing up of facebook with pictures taken weeks and months before)!  Hope his time down here was all and me that he had envisioned!

More recently, I spent the whole afternoon 3 days ago kayaking in the ocean with another naturalist guide who's a friend of mine.  We left land at Playa de Oro, pirated a boat where I had a standoff with a sea lion for the helm, dispatched to claim another buoy, then sailed back ashore to Playa Mann to drop off some booty before faring to Tijeretas, a lagoon like area tucked away from town and the ocean.  Our adventures continued under the water playing with 2 sea lions and chasing sea turtles around.  The latter as part of my research investigating sea turtles.  When I got what they call "piel de pollo", or chicken's skin, we climbed back into the kayak and slowly made our way back.  Just outside of the lagoon we stopped to spy upon blue footed boobies along the cliff face.  On our trek back the sea was roaring at us and we roared back with forward speed in to oncoming wind, waves, and current.  Now there ain't no rest for the wicked, cause rest would've meant being shot back erasing any progress made.  But conquering the elements means rewarding ourselves with a pre-dinner snack of giant hot brownies with vanilla ice cream and chocolaty drinks to match.  And what I've learned is that a full belly of food is a belly full of love hence the fashion of big bellies around here.

As I've been writing this I snuck from the freezer a homemade bolo de coco to suck on and devour, while partaking in the home-run family business of selling ice.  Which I just got cleaned out of so gonna have to make some more after this.