These animals and birds and sea lions have seen so few people that they are not afraid at all and we went right up very close to many of them.
As it is right on the Equator the sun’s glare is very bright and so hot that for the first few days all of us were very badly sunburned [[27]]and blistered; everybody was going around with sore shoulders and blistered legs and two or three even had their entire backs burned and sore.
The first night here Bill Merriam and Dr. Cady went ashore and caught a big female turtle that was going up the beach maybe to lay her eggs. Sea turtles come ashore, go way up a beach and bury their eggs in the dry sand. They leave them there till it is time for them to hatch. We saw many deep holes in the sand from which piles of eggs had hatched. They lay hundreds of eggs. When we were there the egg season was over. All we saw were shells.
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TOWER ISLAND
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Tower Island was our second landing. Early in the morning we had sighted a low strip of green, and by the time breakfast was over at half past seven we were already in the most protected little cove or harbor. It was almost closed to the outside ocean and was calm without any surf or big waves. At first when we came in we couldn’t see any beach for landing on or swimming, but pretty soon we saw one, a beautiful one hidden behind a small reef.