Galapagos!

So now I find myself in the Galapagos islands.Galapagos is AMAZING i´m so happy to be here and so happy to be doing the conservation project I signed up for in San Cristobal. I´ve landed myself a really interested personal project that i´m heading up with a couple of other younger volunteers fighting our way through dense vegetation with machetes to unexplored areas with a GPS and find petrel nests (endangered bird only present in Galapagos and Hawaii) and identifying threats such as wild pig, cat, rat (which predate on eggs) or dense brambles which block the nests so habitat management can be implemented later. Actually reminds me a lot of water vole surveys I do back home, looking for burrows in water courses and keeping an eye out for habitat management and invasive species which threaten their survival. We had to camp out too under the stars to listen out for petrels, although was a bit windy so they weren´t active, but got my fix of cooking dinner on the fire and making shelters out of guava trees. A group of the staff came along to make sure we didn´t get lost and aggressive wild pigs didn´t attack us(!). I´ve also started off this self guided nature tour identifying invasive, native and endemic species, and had a go at some invasive species management (macheting) and reforestation work. I´ve had weekends off and scived a bit of work to go on a 4day tour around some of the other islands, all in all been getting my fair share of amazing snorkeling with sea lions, turtles and manta rays, white tipped reef sharks, moray eels, big schools of colourful fish in a little beach round the corner, not to mention all the parrot fish box fish and ususal stuff you only normally get to see diving. Also went diving yesterday but managed to miss the two hammerheads and massive Galapagos shark that a few others saw a few metres away. Apart from that the guitars been out almost every night, there´s been lots of camp fires and singing and i´ve been dishing out my percussion instruments to everyone to join in. I´ve met some lovely people on the project and its been so much fun. The sea lions are my favourite animal and so playful, they swim right up to me when i´m snorkeling (like face to face) and lounge around on street corners sleeping. Havn´t managed to upload any Galapagos pictures yet, but will do soon! Only got a few more days left here so gonna love you and leave you all, and head to the beach for a few hours to try find some sharks to swim with.