Santiago and Sombrero Chino Islands
Following our expedition along the central part of the archipelago, today we visited two of the most spectaculars places in the Galápagos Islands. Our day began with a Zodiac ride exploring the volcanic shoreline of Sombrero Chino. Its beautiful colorful landscape contrasting the black and orange lava flows with the blue sky and turquoise ocean offered an incredible representation of the works of nature. We observed several animal species including Sally Lightfoot crabs, Galápagos penguins, herons and marine iguanas.
This sunny morning was perfect, and our guests began the second outing snorkeling along the coastline of Santiago Island. The ocean was transparent and our guests could enjoy observing tropical fish, corallines algae, white-tipped reef sharks and penguins. But the most incredible attraction was when we observed marine iguanas feeding underwater, holding their breath for more than ten minutes.
After snorkeling we lifted anchor heading to one the Bainbridge Islets. Incredibly, in the middle of the ocean, this conical formation is home to many American flamingos. From the sundeck, our guests could observe more than forty flamingos feeding on a tidal lagoon, which is separated from the ocean by a very thin wall of solidified volcanic ash.
In the afternoon we dropped anchor in front of Santiago Island at Sullivan Bay. From a distance the landscape looked barren with huge black lava fields surrounding brownish formations of tuff cones; probably they were once small islets separated from Santiago, but nowadays they are part of it. We landed on that lava flow and immediately were able to imagine what the Galápagos was like millions of years ago. We observed the lava flows created during the last eruption in 1897. On that barren and dry terrain a group of pioneer plants had began to grow, preparing the soil for future inhabitants of the island. When we saw the old lava flow, it looked brown, with destroyed rocks giving us spectacular formations that looked like the surface of Mars.
Just before the sunset we returned to National Geographic Islander, observing as the sky changed from light to dark, putting on an incredible display of stars — perfect to identify constellations. It was a great day.
