Bartolomew & James Island
This morning we had an early outing to one of the most representative islands of the Galápagos, Bartholomew. At 6:00 am we started our disembarkation from the National Geographic Endeavour and, as we traveled on the Zodiacs towards the island, the sun was rising on the horizon, promising a beautiful sunny day with perfect light for our pictures.
We landed on a small jetty and the first part of the walk was an easy walk on volcanic ash. As we walked inland we could see some of the endemic pioneer plants of the Galápagos, like the Tiquilia or gray mat. Pretty soon we were walking on a board walk and climbing up the 300 and 70 some steps to reach the summit of Bartholomew where we could see an amazing view of the lunar landscape formed by spatter cones, the golden beach with beautiful green vegetation in the middle of the two beaches and, of course, the famous pinnacle rock that rises from the water like a huge obelisk. On the background of the island we could see James Island with its imposing lava fields and to the left were Bainbridge rocks and Chinese hat.
After breakfast we landed on the beach to go for a short walk on a sand dune that led us to a golden beach, nesting site of the Green back sea turtles, and to our surprise we found 10 or 12 White tip sharks very close to shore. After this short but beautiful walk we went snorkeling to find ourselves with Galápagos penguins that were swimming all over the bay.
The walk in the afternoon in James island, Puerto Egas , was also full of surprises and great memories. As we walked inland we could see Darwin’s finches, Galápagos mocking birds and doves, and tall Palo santo trees that still had some leaves on them. And then once we got to the coastline we found some Galápagos fur seals sleeping in the grottos, Yellow crown night herons, huge Sally light foot crabs and our good friends the Marine iguanas basking under the sun.
This morning we had an early outing to one of the most representative islands of the Galápagos, Bartholomew. At 6:00 am we started our disembarkation from the National Geographic Endeavour and, as we traveled on the Zodiacs towards the island, the sun was rising on the horizon, promising a beautiful sunny day with perfect light for our pictures.
We landed on a small jetty and the first part of the walk was an easy walk on volcanic ash. As we walked inland we could see some of the endemic pioneer plants of the Galápagos, like the Tiquilia or gray mat. Pretty soon we were walking on a board walk and climbing up the 300 and 70 some steps to reach the summit of Bartholomew where we could see an amazing view of the lunar landscape formed by spatter cones, the golden beach with beautiful green vegetation in the middle of the two beaches and, of course, the famous pinnacle rock that rises from the water like a huge obelisk. On the background of the island we could see James Island with its imposing lava fields and to the left were Bainbridge rocks and Chinese hat.
After breakfast we landed on the beach to go for a short walk on a sand dune that led us to a golden beach, nesting site of the Green back sea turtles, and to our surprise we found 10 or 12 White tip sharks very close to shore. After this short but beautiful walk we went snorkeling to find ourselves with Galápagos penguins that were swimming all over the bay.
The walk in the afternoon in James island, Puerto Egas , was also full of surprises and great memories. As we walked inland we could see Darwin’s finches, Galápagos mocking birds and doves, and tall Palo santo trees that still had some leaves on them. And then once we got to the coastline we found some Galápagos fur seals sleeping in the grottos, Yellow crown night herons, huge Sally light foot crabs and our good friends the Marine iguanas basking under the sun.
