After breakfast, we had a dry landing on a flat uplifted island known as South Plaza. This visitor site looked very colorful from the beginning; red succulent plants, a forest of prickly pear cacti and when you looked carefully, you could see several land iguanas camouflaged under the shade of the cacti, either resting or feasting on pieces of the succulent cactus.
The cliffs were full of Galapagos shearwaters, swallow tailed gulls and a few of the red billed tropic birds trying to make it into their nesting grottos. On this island, with a bit of luck, one can spot the hybrid iguana, which is result of the crossbreeding between and marine and land iguanas overlapping territory.
After an extraordinary hike on the uplifted island of Plaza, we returned back onboard and went swimming right off our ship. A talk about the human history of the islands was presented afterwards.
After lunch, we navigated towards Santa Fe Island, where we went snorkeling with green Pacific sea turtles, small schools of eagle rays, we even spotted a few white tip reef sharks resting in the bottom of the ocean. Snorkeling here was definitely one of the highlights of our day. Some of us chose to go kayaking along the coast of Santa Fe, instead of snorkeling. After snorkeling and kayaking, we went on a hike on the inner and coastal land in search of the Santa Fe Land Iguana, species which are found only on this island, nowhere else in the world. We found several iguanas and had an incredible expedition on this island.
