Cerro Dragon & Sombrero Chino Island
After a full day in the southeastern corner of Santa Cruz Island with giant tortoises in captivity and in the wild, this morning we were still on the same island but in the northwestern corner. This is the second largest island in the archipelago and it has many extraordinary things to see; this time we had a pre-breakfast activity to see land iguanas in the wild and an example of the hard work undertook by the Galápagos National Park and the scientific advisors provided by the Charles Darwin Research Station.
The breeding program of land iguanas has been very successful and now these creatures are roaming in the wild like they did for millions of years before the arrival of human beings. The latter introduced domestic animals that later escaped to become wild, to the detriment of the native animals and plants. We all hope that someday all the flora and fauna from Galápagos will be restored and the introduced species eradicated.
After this amazing morning activity and on our way back aboard we saw lots of blue footed boobies and brown pelicans plunge-diving next to the National Geographic Endeavour looking for food, and some of our guests had the opportunity to snorkel around the ship confirming that there were a huge school of sardines that were persecuted from the air by boobies and pelicans and below by sierra mackerels. To finish our morning activities we offered deep water snorkeling at Guy Fawkes, the best for nudibranchs, tunicates, sponges, corals and echinoderms; other guests chose to go to a tiny white coralline beach, while still others preferred to explore the same snorkeling area but by Zodiac.
Sombrero Chino Island is a very small island but with lots of things to do. Snorkelers saw penguins feeding and flying by, many, many schools of the large reef fish, white-tipped reef sharks, and playful sea lions. The channel between Sombrero Chino and Santiago Island also has one of the best Zodiac rides for sightings of Galápagos penguins and a beautiful last escape for our adventurous kayakers.
This is just another example of how amazing a day in Paradise can be….
