Today was the last day of exploration around the Galapagos Islands. It has been a wonderful experience and a great week. We have seen all of the astonishing nature of Galapagos, and Genovesa is the perfect icing on the cake—the grand finale!
To start off the day, we disembarked at Darwin Bay, surrounded by tons of seabirds gliding through the sky: Red-footed boobies, frigatebirds, swallow-tailed gulls, Nazca boobies, red-billed tropicbirds, lava gulls and more. It was clear that Genovesa had earned its nickname as “the island of the birds”.
Along the path on Darwin Bay, we were quiet, enjoying a relaxing walk and appreciating every single second here, surrounded by the sounds of the incredible animals; it is a place where we, as guides, follow the rule “less talking more enjoying” and more observation too. It seems to be the end of the dry season in Galapagos, the morning was outstanding, and we enjoyed all the unique fauna and flora, like the opuntia cactus with soft and very tiny spines, because of the absence of predators like land iguanas or giant tortoises. Among the red mangroves, the red-footed boobies were building their nests, while on the shrub-shaped cacti, finches and mockingbirds were working hard to find some food to eat. Another unique feature of this island is the fact that owls here are diurnal, as a result of the absence of the archipelago’s top predator, the Galapagos hawk. The morning was warm and the sky was very clear.
After our hikes, we came back to our ship, to suit up and head out for snorkeling along the shore, for one more taste of the amazing marine wildlife of Galapagos. Others went kayaking or paddle-boarding along the cliff, in search of a colony of Galapagos fur sea lions found there.
In the afternoon we disembarked in Prince Phillip’s steps. The walk was marvelous, frigatebirds and Nazca boobies were very active, and we saw newborn chicks being fed by their parents; at the end of the trail we found owls.
On our way back to the ship, the sunset lit up our faces and the cool breeze refreshed our minds. I was thinking about all the experiences of this week, full of enjoyment and adventure. We finished one more week of expeditions on board of National Geographic Endeavour II around the Galapagos Islands, my home, a magical place to be.
