After navigating overnight, we dropped anchor in the early morning at a calm bay off the coast of a visitor site called Dragon Hill. Located in the northern coast of the Santa Cruz Island, The trail leads us inland into the territories of one of the last remnants of a once large population of Galápagos land iguanas. These endemic golden reptiles have been severely decimated in. As the ground and air warmed up the iguanas started emerging from their boroughs, to soak up in the sun and eventually find their food. Besides the land iguanas we enjoyed observing more of the local inhabitants like the Galápagos mockingbirds, marine iguanas, yellow warblers, herons and some small migratory coastal lagoon birds, like some small least sandpipers and whimbrels. Due to the surrounding deep waters, it is a high productive area with many fish species, some of them rather large schools of fish accompanied our snorkelers for a while.
In the afternoon we anchored by Eden Islet. This visitor site offer the view of a tall tuff cone half of which has been eroded away by nature agents like wind and rain. It is home to many bird species and it lies just off of Santa Cruz Island. This rocky coastline is rather beautiful lined with evergreens like the red and white mangroves. It offers many coves and inlets where Pacific green sea turtles can rest after their long navigations, and it offers the perfect opportunity to explore it by kayak, as some of our guests could experience. Seabirds like the blue-footed boobies and the magnificent frigates catch their prey in these shallow waters, and one can breathe peace and calm in this place.
During the afternoon, a talk about human history of the Galapagos was given, and we finished our day enjoying the golden colors at sunset while having a delightful wine tasting event at the bow of the National Geographic Endeavour.
