Ecuador - Galapagos Islands

This morning we went ashore on Bartolome Island and climbed to the summit of the volcano for an amazing view over the Galapagos. We then went on a short walk to South Beach along the golden sands and saw a giant Turtle on the beach and some white tipped reef sharks in the shallows. On the way to the beach in our tender we also saw some Galapagos Penguins which are the second smallest penguin in the world behind Australia’s Fairy Penguin. After our walk we were taken around the point on our tender and snorkelled back to the beach. The snorkelling again was gorgeous, we saw heaps of different brightly coloured fish as well as a Flounder hiding in the sand, and a Stingray.

We motored to Sombrero Chino which is an island that from a distance looks like a Chinaman’s hat. We went for an afternoon snorkel which was our last snorkel in the Galapagos and was an amazing finale! This afternoon we watched Marine Iguanas graze on the algae on the rocks, three Sharks, lots of fish, and... to finish we swam along side some Penguins! Brilliant! 

Again after a hot shower to warm up we went ashore. Sombrero Chino beach reminded us of home, the sand was white and the water was blue. We learnt that white beaches are the result of thousands of years of breakdown of coral and other organic materials. It was just a short walk around to the other side of the island in which we saw two Hawks, baby Sea Lions, and Marine Iguana’s. On each of our walks in the last couple of days we have also seen a couple of snakes and plenty of endemic Lizards, as well as quite a number of different birds.

Late this afternoon we motored to Seymour Island. It was pretty rough motoring, the swell was massive. The highlight of the trip and a nice break to take our mind off the rolling motion of the boat was a pod of Common Dolphins playing in the distance and a few playful Bottle-nosed Dolphins playing in the bow wave of the boat. They were very cute. 

Once we anchored we enjoyed a Pisco Sour with the crew of the boat to say our thank you’s, and then enjoyed our last delicious dinner of the cruise.