Photo by Dorothy Crum

Española is the southeastern most island of the archipelago. Gardner Bay is one of two visitor sites and the two sites could not be more different. Gardner Bay, highly redolent of the popular conception of a tropical paradise, features a long white sand beach which is a favored haul-out site for the Galápagos sea lion as well as a nesting site for marine turtles.

The sea lion pup in this image (see also Galapagos Sea Lion Pup) frolicked up and down the beach almost begging to be photographed, seemingly wanting to be part of everything going on. In this scene captured by my wife, the pup was interested in the five legs standing out in the surf as I worked another scene of sleeping adult sea lions.