Santa Cruz Island
Today we visited one of the most beautiful islands in this archipelago: Santa Cruz. The guests that we have on board Polaris this week have been tremendously lucky. We have seen an amazing variety of creatures! From the start, when on the very first day we saw humpback whales close to our Zodiacs, we have had the kind of a voyage that has even delighted and excited the guides. Today, before we even got a chance to disembark, we had another opportunity to see humpback whales. There was a mother and calf pair in the bay off of the port town and this was incredibly unique. It is the first time that I have ever seen a humpback here. And I grew up in Puerto Ayora! We determined that this was not the same cow and calf pair we saw on Saturday, since this calf was a very young one. It seemed to be practically a newborn.
Our first stop (once we made it on shore!) was the Charles Darwin Research Station to see giant tortoises. All of our guests were excited to see these wonderful, giant creatures that have given their name to the Galapagos Islands. In the afternoon we found these reptiles in the wild. They wandered freely through the vegetation and even the excellent weather today helped us get great pictures of both the tortoises and the beautiful landscape of the highlands.
Today we visited one of the most beautiful islands in this archipelago: Santa Cruz. The guests that we have on board Polaris this week have been tremendously lucky. We have seen an amazing variety of creatures! From the start, when on the very first day we saw humpback whales close to our Zodiacs, we have had the kind of a voyage that has even delighted and excited the guides. Today, before we even got a chance to disembark, we had another opportunity to see humpback whales. There was a mother and calf pair in the bay off of the port town and this was incredibly unique. It is the first time that I have ever seen a humpback here. And I grew up in Puerto Ayora! We determined that this was not the same cow and calf pair we saw on Saturday, since this calf was a very young one. It seemed to be practically a newborn.
Our first stop (once we made it on shore!) was the Charles Darwin Research Station to see giant tortoises. All of our guests were excited to see these wonderful, giant creatures that have given their name to the Galapagos Islands. In the afternoon we found these reptiles in the wild. They wandered freely through the vegetation and even the excellent weather today helped us get great pictures of both the tortoises and the beautiful landscape of the highlands.
