Santa Cruz & Chinese Hat Islands
After we visited the town of Puerto Ayora and had an excellent time with the musicians and the Galápagos dancers, we sailed to the other northwestern side of Santa Cruz Island, where we anchored early in the morning in a picturesque bay called Dragon Hill.
Dragon Hill is a very well known site, for the amount of land iguanas and their nests which we find in this place; in the past, when sailors arrived to this bay they saw some of these creatures walking by the cacti forest and perceived them as baby dragons. Today we had the opportunity to see these “dragons” walking along the trail looking for some cactus fruits. One of them walked so close to us, trying to intimidate us with his prehistoric appearance; however, they are very inoffensive creatures. This and iguana gives us a nice perspective of it’s size walking in front of one of our young guest for scale.
In the afternoon we sailed to a different island called Chinese Hat. This island is a very young volcano with hard lava fields surrounded by white sand and with turquoise waters; it is really quite impressive to see these contrasting colors.
For me personally it is the most beautiful island of this archipelago, not only for the incredible landscape, but also because there we could find penguins to snorkel with. Our guests had a memorable time playing on the beach, and many jumped at the opportunity to go snorkeling. After snorkeling, we offered kayak outings; many of our guests took advantage of this activity as well, having fun oaring on these turquoise waters.
Late in the afternoon we all came back onboard, surrounded by the glow of the reddish Galápagos sunset.
After we visited the town of Puerto Ayora and had an excellent time with the musicians and the Galápagos dancers, we sailed to the other northwestern side of Santa Cruz Island, where we anchored early in the morning in a picturesque bay called Dragon Hill.
Dragon Hill is a very well known site, for the amount of land iguanas and their nests which we find in this place; in the past, when sailors arrived to this bay they saw some of these creatures walking by the cacti forest and perceived them as baby dragons. Today we had the opportunity to see these “dragons” walking along the trail looking for some cactus fruits. One of them walked so close to us, trying to intimidate us with his prehistoric appearance; however, they are very inoffensive creatures. This and iguana gives us a nice perspective of it’s size walking in front of one of our young guest for scale.
In the afternoon we sailed to a different island called Chinese Hat. This island is a very young volcano with hard lava fields surrounded by white sand and with turquoise waters; it is really quite impressive to see these contrasting colors.
For me personally it is the most beautiful island of this archipelago, not only for the incredible landscape, but also because there we could find penguins to snorkel with. Our guests had a memorable time playing on the beach, and many jumped at the opportunity to go snorkeling. After snorkeling, we offered kayak outings; many of our guests took advantage of this activity as well, having fun oaring on these turquoise waters.
Late in the afternoon we all came back onboard, surrounded by the glow of the reddish Galápagos sunset.
