Punta Vicente Roca, Isabela Island and Punta Espinoza, Fernandina Island
We were still sailing to our next anchoring place when we woke up. While we were getting close to Punta Vicente Roca, we crossed the equator line and we became the shellbacks…, and just before anchoring we could see a waved albatross floating in the ocean, a sighting completely unexpected!
Our morning outing was fantastic! The magnificence of Ecuador volcano scenery combined with Galápagos wildlife was breathtaking. We took a Zodiac ride along the coastline of the volcano. We could see so much wildlife such as: pacific green sea turtles, Galápagos penguins, flightless cormorants, noddy terns, blue-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, fur sea lions and Galápagos sea lions. We saw more than we expected, and just before we came back on board, we saw noddy terns foraging with Galápagos penguins, what a sight! Later on, we went snorkeling. We could see so many turtles that at some point we stopped counting.
Our afternoon outing was at the youngest island of the Galápagos, Fernandina Island. It is the most well conserved island of the Archipelago; no wonder why it is the favorite island of the naturalists! Punta Espinoza is the only open site of the island and we could walk through it. When we were approaching the site, it was like there was nothing there, but once we got close enough, we saw so many marine iguanas at once that it should be renamed iguana-land. The number of iguanas per area is the largest of any other visitor site in the Galápagos.
We walked along the cost of Punta Espinoza, and it was so spectacular that was hard to describe it. We enjoyed walking through black lava as much as we loved looking at the wildlife we encountered. The highlight of the afternoon was a Galápagos hawk. It stood up so close to us that we did not need to use our zoom lenses. Our afternoon ended up with a wonderful sunset!
