As we woke up this morning, thin white streaks of cloud seemed to emanate from the east over the highlands of Santiago Island.
Not long after sunrise we found ourselves on our way to the shore at Espumilla Beach on the west coast of the island. After a somewhat adventurous wet landing we followed the beach looking for new Pacific green sea turtle nests. The beautiful mangrove forest that extends inland from the shoreline gave us plenty of opportunities to see Ghost crabs as they dug themselves out and started their beach cleanup operation.
During breakfast the National Geographic Islander re-positioned less than a mile to the north to an area known as Buccaneers’ Cove. Once at anchor we set out on our Zodiacs to explore the shoreline from the water. As we moved toward a nearby rock it became clear that this area was currently even more exposed to a northern oceanic swell than the beach that we had visited earlier this morning. From our Zodiacs we watched in awe as massive waves crashed onto the rocky shores while Nazca and Blue footed boobies stood idly by on the ledges, seemingly unimpressed by the amazing force of the ocean.
Once back on board I had the chance to give our guests a clearer idea of the inner workings of our underwater world during a Geology and Oceanography talk before lunch.
Very fitting to our location, this afternoon at the anchorage just to the North of Puerto Egas, a long abandoned human settlement, Naturalist Enrique gave a presentation on the “History of Human Exploration and Settlement of the Galapagos Archipelago”.
In the afternoon we set out one last time for another wet landing to take a sunset stroll along the shoreline of Puerto Egas. This would turn out to be an excellent opportunity to see Galapagos sea lion pups resting on shore and frolicking in the shallows, as well as Galapagos fur seals. The beating sea had pushed the local Marine iguanas high above the water line closer to the new grown brush. Darwin Finches and Yellow warblers called for mates and Galapagos mockingbirds collected nesting material.
As the sun dropped over the large volcanoes of Isabela to the west, we made our way back to our floating home for one more recap session and briefing followed by a delicious barbecue dinner on the Sky deck.
