Bartolome & Santiago Islands
At 6:00am I gave the optional early wake up call on channel 1, “Time to rise and shine! We have coffee, tea and snacks in the lounge; come join us in a half hour for our hike to the summit of Bartolome.” Many of our guests did just that, and we had a lovely, cool climb up the wooden stairs – 376 of them! – to the top of this barren volcanic islet. Garua clouds obscured the islands at first, but then the fog lifted and we had a spectacular view. The naturalists explained the volcanic origin of all the islands in Galápagos, and showed us lava tunnels and spatter cones and several species of pioneer plants that are among the first species to colonize lava flows.
After breakfast and our snorkel safety briefing, we fitted and distributed snorkeling gear. We boarded the Zodiacs, motored to shore and disembarked on a narrow, golden crescent-shaped beach. Most of us hiked over a dune to a second beach where we found several nesting pelicans (one had a tiny naked chick!), three white-tipped sharks cruising in the shallows close to shore and many ghosts crabs that had been sifting through the sand, searching for tidbits to eat, and discarding neat oval sand balls as they went along.
Back on the landing beach, before we could even all get into our snorkeling gear and swim out, a fast moving penguin darted among us in two feet of water. Fish - in a panic - leapt before him, trying to escape, as he zipped back and forth and sped along, literally flying underwater. This was only the beginning of a fabulous hour of snorkeling in clear calm water below the famous pinnacle rock. We found an octopus, sleeping sea turtles, a huge marbled sting ray, several sharks on the sandy bottom, big schools of razor fish and at least six different species of wrasse.
After a delicious lunch and a welcome siesta, I tried - in a half and hour - to explain the wonders of Galápagos with the help of a series of slides. Then we headed out to see again, those wonders for ourselves and with our own eyes. We spent the afternoon snorkeling, off the black sand beach at Puerto Egas, among sea lions, sea turtles and schools of colorful fish. The naturalists led a walk along the carved and eroded coast where flooded grottos and lava tunnels were home for several Galapagos fur seals. These handsome marine mammals were hunted close to extinct in the 1800’s but are now protected and happily their population has recovered. Hundreds of marine iguanas were sprawled and basking on lava shelves along the shore. As the evening cools they will pile up to stay warm during the night.
I stayed on the black beach with a woman and her daughter and two sleeping sea lions and we greatly enjoyed a quiet hour. As we returned to the ship I noticed a feeding frenzy of blue-footed boobies, sea lions and penguins so we approached with the Zodiac. Boobies rained from the sky, pelicans grabbed mouth fulls of finger long fish and sea lions surged around us. Wow! What a fantastic day we all had in these “islas encantadas.”
At 6:00am I gave the optional early wake up call on channel 1, “Time to rise and shine! We have coffee, tea and snacks in the lounge; come join us in a half hour for our hike to the summit of Bartolome.” Many of our guests did just that, and we had a lovely, cool climb up the wooden stairs – 376 of them! – to the top of this barren volcanic islet. Garua clouds obscured the islands at first, but then the fog lifted and we had a spectacular view. The naturalists explained the volcanic origin of all the islands in Galápagos, and showed us lava tunnels and spatter cones and several species of pioneer plants that are among the first species to colonize lava flows.
After breakfast and our snorkel safety briefing, we fitted and distributed snorkeling gear. We boarded the Zodiacs, motored to shore and disembarked on a narrow, golden crescent-shaped beach. Most of us hiked over a dune to a second beach where we found several nesting pelicans (one had a tiny naked chick!), three white-tipped sharks cruising in the shallows close to shore and many ghosts crabs that had been sifting through the sand, searching for tidbits to eat, and discarding neat oval sand balls as they went along.
Back on the landing beach, before we could even all get into our snorkeling gear and swim out, a fast moving penguin darted among us in two feet of water. Fish - in a panic - leapt before him, trying to escape, as he zipped back and forth and sped along, literally flying underwater. This was only the beginning of a fabulous hour of snorkeling in clear calm water below the famous pinnacle rock. We found an octopus, sleeping sea turtles, a huge marbled sting ray, several sharks on the sandy bottom, big schools of razor fish and at least six different species of wrasse.
After a delicious lunch and a welcome siesta, I tried - in a half and hour - to explain the wonders of Galápagos with the help of a series of slides. Then we headed out to see again, those wonders for ourselves and with our own eyes. We spent the afternoon snorkeling, off the black sand beach at Puerto Egas, among sea lions, sea turtles and schools of colorful fish. The naturalists led a walk along the carved and eroded coast where flooded grottos and lava tunnels were home for several Galapagos fur seals. These handsome marine mammals were hunted close to extinct in the 1800’s but are now protected and happily their population has recovered. Hundreds of marine iguanas were sprawled and basking on lava shelves along the shore. As the evening cools they will pile up to stay warm during the night.
I stayed on the black beach with a woman and her daughter and two sleeping sea lions and we greatly enjoyed a quiet hour. As we returned to the ship I noticed a feeding frenzy of blue-footed boobies, sea lions and penguins so we approached with the Zodiac. Boobies rained from the sky, pelicans grabbed mouth fulls of finger long fish and sea lions surged around us. Wow! What a fantastic day we all had in these “islas encantadas.”
