Our introduction to Galapagos wildlife was these sea lions at the boatyard at Baltra, where the big guy on top waddled up, climbed on top of the lower sleeping animal and eventually pushed it off the bench.

Sleeping is about all sea lions seem to do on land.

Also, they smell.

Our week on the Galapagos Eco Explorer featured land tours and diving among a half-dozen islands in the archipeago's older, southeastern islands. We dived along the base of Kicker Rock, in the background.

Once a high volcanic island, Espanola is now an eroded mesa of weathered lava rock.

The whole island, including the walking trails, was covered with rocks like these.

Sally Lightfoot crabs.

Blue-footed boobies. The male is "skypointing" as part of a courtship ritual. Alas, she wasn't interested and he left.

The male blue-footed booby at rear is "parading," or doing the slow dance that's also a courtship behavior. Apparently, she was interested.

Booby chicks have fluffy, snow-white down and, apparently, no bones.

Masked booby.

Waved albatrosses engaging in "bill fencing" - yes, a courtship ritual.

A waved albatross nesting area.

On Espanola, this mother came ashore, barely, to feed her pup.

See: sleeping.

Swimming marine iguana.

Since they don't generate internal body heat, these iguanas bunched together in the late afternoon to conserve heat.

These guys soaked up heat from warm rocks.

The Palo Santo trees look dead, but at the first little rain they will sprout green foliage.

On North Seymour Island we saw male frigatebirds puffing up their big red chest sacs to attact females.

Puffing away.

Swallow-tailed gulls on North Seymour.

These giant domed tortoises live at the Darwin Research Center on Santa Cruz Island.

Who can resist this face?!

Domed giant tortoises.

There were originally 11 different species of giant tortoises among the islands. Some are extinct now.

This poor fellow is Lonesome George, the last of his species of tortoise. He's challenging his keeper, who you'll notice is basically ignoring him.

In the town on Santa Cruz Island, we watched these brown pelicans watch the guy at the local fishmarket.

A vermillion flycatcher on a wildlife reserve in the Santa Cruz highlands.

After we finished diving on the last afternoon, we snorkeled near a colony of Galapagos penguins on San Salvadore Island.

Galapagos penguins are the smallest penguin species, and also the only one that lives in equatorial regions.

Early in the morning before we caught our flight home, we did a dinghy tour of a mangrove lagoon.

Mangrove roots form a natural shelter for juvenile animals of many species.

Overhead, this flock of blue-footed boobies swarmed above a school of silverside fishes, apparently herding them with their shadow.

Every once in a while one would make a kamikaze dive to grab a fish.

Then, suddenly, they all did.

After that, a squadron of spotted eagle rays swam slowly through the lagoon.

As they passed our boat, we decided we couldn't top it and it was time to go home.