Santa Cruz Island
Our ship anchored today at Academy Bay in Santa Cruz Island. After breakfast all our guests left the ship, well geared up to spend the whole day in this populated Island.
In the morning we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station, which is the institution that has been helping the Ecuadorian government by providing scientific information for the Galápagos National Park. At this site we could walk through the rearing center of giant tortoises, visiting the different pens full of baby tortoises and adults.
As always, an Española tortoise named Diego was the star. We found him in action behind the bushes helping to preserve the highly threatened endemic population of tortoises from Española; together with another fourteen tortoises they are now the parents of nearly two thousand!
In the afternoon after stopping at el Trapiche (a sugar cane mill), we went for our lunch at a local restaurant situated in the highlands of Santa Cruz. Immediately after we continued exploring the highlands and went on the search of the chelonoides porteri, the endemic species of giant tortoise from Santa Cruz which is considered to be the second largest after the ones we have on Isabela Island.
Our tortoise hunt was very successful; we found many very actively roaming around and eating vegetation. Some of the biggest tortoises we encountered must have been nearly five hundred pounds! It was like walking with dinosaurs in big armor.
After all our activities we returned back to the town. During this day our guests were given two opportunities to walk along the main street of the bay, and many went shopping and enjoyed mingling with the local people!
