This morning the National Geographic Endeavour dropped anchor at Cerro Dragon, or “Dragon Hill”, which lies on the northwest coast of Santa Cruz Island. It looked so different from yesterday’s site, although we were still on the same island. The main difference between the two sites is that there are no humans living on the northern part of Santa Cruz Island, as there is no water!

It was so dry and the contrast of the leafless palo santo trees with the green prickly pear opuntia cactus stood out as we headed inland. No rain has fallen for many months! The vegetation and the animals have gone through these cycles of drought and heavy rain through thousands of years! The adaptation of plants and Darwin finches is amazing, however many of the young birds will not survive the drought, and here is when evolution happens, the struggle for life, the survival of the fittest!  The Galapagos land iguana is an excellent example of this brilliant adaptation to long periods of time without water, we found several males along the trail till we got to see two male land iguanas fighting right in the middle of the trail! We were there observing these male wrestling, biting each other at their legs and at their necks, blood came out of their bodies, we could hear the crunch of their teeth as the bite went through the scales and no one wanted to give up. We got incredible pictures and videos!

We returned back on board and had time to change for deep water snorkeling in the area known as “Guy Fawkes” Islets, a volcanic tuff remnant, a great place to snorkel, and although the water was 70 F we were busy observing hundreds of sardines, feeding close to the surface, large schools of razor surgeonfish, all species of parrotfish were spotted, two yellow fin tunas passed by, aggregations of king angelfish and a fine spotted moray coming out of its resting place. Another option was snorkeling off the white sandy beach, where the conditions today were very good, diamond sting rays, sea turtles and fish was around as well as brown pelicans fishing together with blue footed boobies!

The ship was repositioned in the afternoon towards “El Eden” Islet, where our guests enjoyed several options as kayaking along the coastal area, as well as Zodiac rides and for our young explorers a unique opportunity: Zodiac driving lessons. Everyone on board enjoyed the afternoon in different ways. Our expedition leader Emma Ridley gave a great lecture about biogeography and as we were heading towards Daphne Major Islet bottle nosed dolphins made a short appearance for the joy of everyone! Wine tasting finished a wonderful day at the world natural laboratory of the world, the Galapagos Archipelago!