Our sunny day started with a Zodiac ride along the Coast of Santiago Island and Chinese Hat. During the ride, we spotted striated herons, brown pelicans, frigate birds, and a couple of Galapagos hawks mating. Our goal was to find Galapagos Penguins and after searching for merely a few seconds we found a flock of around 15 of them fishing and basking on the surface of the calm ocean within this bay. We had luck in finding these elegant creatures, which usually take us a while to spot. The Galapagos penguin is the third smallest penguin on the globe and it’s also the only one found over the northern hemisphere. After the ride we decided to jump in the blue water and go snorkeling to explore the magic of the Galapagos Ocean and its wonders. While snorkeling we spotted a large variety of fish, colorful marine invertebrates and were excited to spot a couple of Galapagos penguins in the water. We were able to spot the unique marine iguanas feeding underwater grazing the algae off the rock, a couple of white tip reef sharks lurking below us and a large variety of fish swimming in schools.
After lunch we had a dry landing on a barren young lava field. The experience here was like traveling back in time to explore the Galapagos as the islands were before they had a complex ecosystem well established on them. Interesting shapes of lava, minerals showing different colors once they react with oxygen over time and some beautiful scenery were the perfect combination for a lovely afternoon on the island where Darwin spent nine days in 1835. This location gave us a good taste of what primary succession looks like within island ecosystems.
By the end of the day we had a beautiful sunset followed by a starry night as we enjoyed an amazing barbeque on the sky deck.
