Tuesday 10th February Heading North

We were starting the second part of our cruise, taking in the northern islands of Santiago, Rabida, Bartolome, and Genovesa.

Our first stop was off Buccaneer Cove on Santiago. We donned our wet suits for a panga tour of the cliff base, followed by a scheduled snorkeling session.

The cliffs, especially a rock formation known as The Bishop, and a sea cave were worth seeing.

The snorkelling around here was the best so far. The water was clear, with visibility for at least twenty metres. Unfortunately, my video clips are mainly of my fins.

So you will have to make do with pictures of Blue-Footed Boobies instead.

After lunch we moved on round Santiago to Puerto Agas, where we had a beach landing before going for a walk to see the wildlife. Sea lions and their pups were everywhere. Marine Iguanas and Sally Lightfoot Crabs were there in abundance. There were also Land Iguanas. The scenery, like most places on the Galapagos, was quite barren. It was mainly volcanic rocks and most of the vegetation was cacti of one kind or another.

Some of the wildlife we saw on our walk.

By the time we had finished our walk it was heading for 18:00, which is the time that The Galapagos National Park closes. It was also beginning to get dark. So we headed back to the ship.

Evenings on board were fairly quiet. There is no entertainment as such. We would normally have a pre-dinner drink, at which time there would be a briefing about the next day’s activities. Then we would go down for dinner, which was never worse than very good. I would usually have a whisky as a nightcap and be tucked into bed by ten. The days were fairly full-on, generally with reasonably early starts, so by ten I was ready for bed.