Day 249: When the Shit Hits the Fan (04/10/2011)

Two hours ago, I narrowly avoided being left in the desert.

Now we had reached the coast again and were climbing aboard a motor boat for the 27km journey to the Ballestas Islands. Perhaps unfairly, they are labelled as the poor man’s Galapagos but they are home to massive numbers of birds and marine mammals.

The boat roared across the ocean as the twin props churned the water behind us into a fountain of spray. The clouds closed in and those without coats shivered for the thirty minutes it took to cover the distance.

When we got there, the trip was worth every nickel - not least because the Boobies dived bombed us with salvoes of rapid-fire guano. Within five minutes we looked like casualties from a black and white paint ball skirmish.

Every five years, the island is still farmed for all the guano that isn't launched at the visiting day trippers and giant gantries serve both as roosts for the birds and the means of loading the barges that sit in the bay.

The skipper expertly manoeuvred the boat amongst the rocks that protrude for the water’s surface. The waves rushed in and the swell carried us closer and closer, if not to certain death, then certainly to a hole beneath the water-line.

With a deft dab of the throttle and a half spin of the wheel, he kept us at arm’s length from disaster – and the drowsy groups of seals and sea lions that rested on the rock ledges.

We were so close that if you were brave, you could have reached out and tweaked their whiskers but their fishy breath, let alone their teeth, was enough to dissuade even the stupidest.

For a couple of hours, we eased past roosting flocks of pelicans and beneath giant formations of frigate birds that flew overhead. Surveying the world beneath them, they swooped and wheeled for their periodic aerial bombardments of the boat.

The seals flopped into the water around us and bobbed in the swell. We motored under huge arches in the rock and past giant caves eroded by the perpetual action of the waves.

But, soon we were turning for home.

Pelicans skimmed the surface beside us for most of the way, scooping up mouthfuls of fish as they went and swelling their characteristic pouches to bursting point. Boobies continued to dive bomb us with ruthless precision and a hundred types of gull patrolled overhead just to ensure that we were leaving their domain.

I'm sure that Col will forgive me for saying that he was a big bird enthusiast - that way I can tell you about how the shit really hit the fan.

Sorry - that was very poor!