After three days of travel and training,
the Mission Presidents and their wives were thrown
into these boats and sent out to the
Natural Bird and Wildlife Preserve Island
off the coast of Paracas.
Our first stop was at this unique ruin called the Candelabra.
This is over a thousand years old.
But they are not sure who made it.
They think it was made by sailors or pirates to mark this bay.
You can see it by boat over 12 miles away.
It is near the Nasca Lines but it is made totally different than the
Lines of Nasca. It is over two football fields in height.
We all called it the Tree of Life
Only from Mission Presidents would you get that analogy.
Then we headed to this amazing Island.
It is exactly what you would expect to find in
Pirates of the Caribbean.
It is a huge bird refuge.
There are over one million birds here.
If you look closely below you will see the Sea lions warming on the beach
and you will see the penguins silhouette on the dark mound in the background
Then you will see the sky through the arch full of birds.
There were so many kinds of birds it was incredible.
The sea lions would just pop up next to the boat.
We were just staring at each other.
There were no empty spots on the whole island.
Every rock was covered with sea lions, birds, crabs,
barnacles, muscles, etc....
Wow am I a great photographer...
Look at that bird in flight right above the ship in the arch.
There were four boats of Mission Presidents and their wives.
We all looked about as geeky as you can get.
Look closely at the birds in the sky.
It is very creepy. I thought they wanted us to wear hats
to protect us from the sun.
No, it was to protect us from the birds and their droppings.
The Penguins are President Turks favorites.
And of course I like them because they are Black and White.
More holes in the rocks and lounging lions.
Ooooo as I am looking at these photos I am getting chills...
What if I would have fallen in this water
I would have been petrified.
This ginormous male Sea Lions name is Tyson.
He was quite the king of the Hill.
Now here is where you can get a little feeling of how many birds there really were all around us.
That whole hill is covered with thousands and thousands of birds.
They have a fertilizer company right out on the Island
because their is so much of the bird stuff.
The smell was overwhelming.
I would have to go to the wrist for some powerful perfume sniffs.
There were many in the boats that got physically sick
from the rocking of the boat and the foul smell.
Hey, I didn't throw up this time!
The droppings from the birds flying all over above us would
hit the boats and the seats and the man on the microphone
would just grab his rags and clean it up.
No biggie!
It was a great adventure.
