A Short Walk on North Seymour Island

Incredible Is All We Can Say

After our deep water snorkel we almost opted out of this excursion but so glad we didn’t. It turned out to be one of our favorites. We were joined by one other couple in our group of 9. The others in our group elected a tender only excursion. The Celebrity Flora is large enough so it can offer multiple options for excursions, often one involving a more strenuous long walk, one with a shorter walk and another with just a tender ride. This gives everyone an opportunity to see something incredible regardless of their ability or exhaustion level.

Our short walk started with a tender ride over to the cliffs along North Seymour Island where dozens of frigatebirds circled overhead. The male frigates have a red pouch at their neck which is hidden until they are looking for a mate which occurs multiple times per year. Each day until they find a mate they spend about 30 minutes inflating their pouch, then find a spot to sit In the female nesting area showing off the true colors until a female decides the male is the right one for them. After we passed the small ankle-twisting boulders on our walk we got to see dozens of the male frigatebirds trying to attract their mates. Frigatebird eggs take over 60 days to hatch so the male and female share nesting. We got to see one male up close sitting on his nest. We also got to see a pair of blue-footed boobies doing a mating dance and another female boobie laying an egg right in the middle of a path. The area is also home to nesting land iguanas which we got to see very close up. On our return to the tender we encountered a sea lion chasing another right in front of us. The whole walk felt like we were in the middle of a Planet Earth episode.