Friday 14 October 2005

2 Hours, 108 Photos

That's three 24 exposure films plus one 36 exposure one.

It all happened on Wednesday when visiting Islas Ballestas off the coast of Pisco, 4 hour by bus south of Lima. The islands are a nature reserve that is home to an amazing number of birds and sea lions, as well as fish, crabs and all sorts of marine animals.

The most amazing moment was the nursery, a beach on one of the islands that is called thus because it is where female sea lions come to gove birth. This is nearly the right season but not quite so the beach was full of pregnant females that are going to give birth in a few weeks. The noise they made was absolutely astounding!

Other beaches where more quiet but still full of sea lions quite curious about the boats and willing to investigate quite closely. Hopefully I'll have some nice close-ups.

Above all this, birds where everywhere: cormorans, seagulls, penguins, etc. They weren't quite as noisy as the sea lions but they were the source of the one unpleasant part of the trip: the acrid smell of guano, the islands are covered with it so we went quite quickly around the parts where we were downwind.

This one 2 hour boat trip more than justified carrying my big 100-400mm zoom lens around Peru.

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