Our day began with a pre-breakfast walk onto Espumilla Beach on San Salvador Island. As we landed we encountered a female green sea turtle returning to the sea after laying eggs last night. We walked through an amazing button mangrove forest on our way to climb up to the top of the ledge of a volcanic cone. At the top of this hill we saw several juvenile Galapagos hawks scattered around the trees as well as several other species of land birds such as Galapagos mockingbirds, and small and medium ground finches.
As we finished our invigorating walk, we returned aboard to have breakfast while we navigated to a different region of San Salvador. We got to a very scenic area known as Buccaneer’s Cove; there we went kayaking, snorkeling, and also had several glass-bottom boat rides. The great variety of species of fish and marine invertebrates make this a one of a kind place.
At the end of our morning we repositioned again to Puerto Egas. This was a small village of miners who extracted salt from a nearby crater. Here the water filters through lava rocks, then evaporates and sea salt forms on the surface. This salt was collected and sent to mainland Ecuador. After a few years, until 1968, the mine closed up and nowadays only a few ruins can be found.
This afternoon we walked along the coast where we found Galapagos fur seals, great blue herons, striated herons, American oyster catchers, and Galapagos marine iguanas.
Another amazing day in the enchanted islands.
