Dragon Hill & Sombrero Chino
On the northwestern coast of Santa Cruz Island, the visitor site is Dragon Hill. This name was given to this place due to the abundance of land iguanas. The arid zone here, as we have seen during this trip, is the ecosystem in which the reptiles like to live. Iguanas today were somehow elusive, but we managed to find a few of them, males and females hiding themselves under the vegetation. At this time of the year, when the hot rainy season has already started, heat can reach up high making iguanas seek shade.
After the walk we headed out for snorkeling at Guy Fawkes Islet, where we were greeted by a school of surgeon fish, and a few golden and big diamond-shaped sting rays. As we got close to the wall to spend some time looking at the micro-organisms, we had a different kind of snorkeling experience. The great big wall had school of black striped salemas. Sea lions wanted to free dive with us and kept us busy. We did not feel the temperature of the water until they abandoned us and went fishing on their own.
In the afternoon, kayaks sounded like a great idea for some people. Others wanted to snorkel again and were wonderfully surprised by penguins and white tip sharks, while the beach in Sombrero Chino gave us a more intimate experience… sea lions playing in the water and Sally light foot crabs eating made a very relaxing outing.
At five o’clock we started our end of year competitions. Teams that represented the entire population of the ship had a lot of fun in the turbulent waters of Sombrero Chino. Lots of fun and cheering on the contestants from the sundeck of the National Geographic Endeavour was a very entertaining way to say goodbye to 2009!
