Santiago and Bartolome Islands
The visits of Bartolome and Santiago Islands were a great way to end a great week. Our busy day started with an optional wake up call to climb up to the top of a volcanic cone, Bartolome Islet, for one of the most beautiful views in Galápagos. After this walk and our breakfast, we were ready to disembark once more, this time to snorkel from a lovely beach of orange sand, where we had the spectacular company of Galápagos penguins, swimming very close to us.
The afternoon was very relaxing, some of us decided to snorkel from a black sand beach, formed by the erosion of black lava and deposits of volcanic ash. The water was very clear and some of our guests had an encounter with marine turtles, right there in the shallow water – truly a wonderful snorkeling experience.
After the snorkel, whilst some of us decided to rest on the beach amongst the sea lions, others decided to go for a walk to a place called the fur seal grottoes. These are beautiful formations of lava, actually lava tunnels that reached the ocean long ago during past eruptions and that collapsed in some parts due to wave action, thus forming nice natural swimming pools. The highlight of this particular walk is seeing, right inside these natural formations of lava, one of the endemic species of sea lion that were driven very close to extinction during the eighteen hundreds: the Galápagos fur sea lions.
On returning to the ship, the sky started turning red to the west of the island, while the moon started rising to the east. The image created against a backdrop of black lava was unforgettable. This week we had four planets lined up in the sky and if you look carefully you may find Jupiter close to the moon.
The visits of Bartolome and Santiago Islands were a great way to end a great week. Our busy day started with an optional wake up call to climb up to the top of a volcanic cone, Bartolome Islet, for one of the most beautiful views in Galápagos. After this walk and our breakfast, we were ready to disembark once more, this time to snorkel from a lovely beach of orange sand, where we had the spectacular company of Galápagos penguins, swimming very close to us.
The afternoon was very relaxing, some of us decided to snorkel from a black sand beach, formed by the erosion of black lava and deposits of volcanic ash. The water was very clear and some of our guests had an encounter with marine turtles, right there in the shallow water – truly a wonderful snorkeling experience.
After the snorkel, whilst some of us decided to rest on the beach amongst the sea lions, others decided to go for a walk to a place called the fur seal grottoes. These are beautiful formations of lava, actually lava tunnels that reached the ocean long ago during past eruptions and that collapsed in some parts due to wave action, thus forming nice natural swimming pools. The highlight of this particular walk is seeing, right inside these natural formations of lava, one of the endemic species of sea lion that were driven very close to extinction during the eighteen hundreds: the Galápagos fur sea lions.
On returning to the ship, the sky started turning red to the west of the island, while the moon started rising to the east. The image created against a backdrop of black lava was unforgettable. This week we had four planets lined up in the sky and if you look carefully you may find Jupiter close to the moon.
