Bartolomé & Santiago Islands
A gorgeous day in the enchanted Islands! After an excellent yesterday’s introductory visit, our expectations started to grow more and more. Today’s visit did not disappoint us at all! Early in the morning, by 06:30, we were already climbing to the summit of Bartolomé Island. The view from this point is fantastic. We had the company of numerous lava lizards along the trail and everybody, especially children, liked them very much. By mid morning we were ready to go out for a beach excursion and our first snorkeling session. We were just about to disembark to a gorgeous golden beach when we spotted some activity near the landing beach; it was a feeding frenzy of Pelicans, boobies and Galápagos penguins. This sighting told us that we would have great snorkeling and we had it! We saw a lot of fish, including rays and sharks; it was a very fulfilling morning.
After lunch we sailed to Santiago Island, while navigating along its dramatic volcanic coastline, a pod of bottlenosed dolphins was seen in the horizon. The dolphins came to play with us. It was fascinating to observe them leaping out of the water and bow riding. Upon landing, we found several sea lions taking care of their youngsters, marine iguanas sun bathing, Sally Lightfoot crabs grazing on algae and shore birds all over the tidal zone. To top it all off, we gathered on the beautiful sky deck of the ship to celebrate another full successful day in the “Encantadas”.
A gorgeous day in the enchanted Islands! After an excellent yesterday’s introductory visit, our expectations started to grow more and more. Today’s visit did not disappoint us at all! Early in the morning, by 06:30, we were already climbing to the summit of Bartolomé Island. The view from this point is fantastic. We had the company of numerous lava lizards along the trail and everybody, especially children, liked them very much. By mid morning we were ready to go out for a beach excursion and our first snorkeling session. We were just about to disembark to a gorgeous golden beach when we spotted some activity near the landing beach; it was a feeding frenzy of Pelicans, boobies and Galápagos penguins. This sighting told us that we would have great snorkeling and we had it! We saw a lot of fish, including rays and sharks; it was a very fulfilling morning.
After lunch we sailed to Santiago Island, while navigating along its dramatic volcanic coastline, a pod of bottlenosed dolphins was seen in the horizon. The dolphins came to play with us. It was fascinating to observe them leaping out of the water and bow riding. Upon landing, we found several sea lions taking care of their youngsters, marine iguanas sun bathing, Sally Lightfoot crabs grazing on algae and shore birds all over the tidal zone. To top it all off, we gathered on the beautiful sky deck of the ship to celebrate another full successful day in the “Encantadas”.
