We are in the middle of a fantastic expedition in the Galapàgos Islands, and today it was time to explore Santiago Island.
Early in the morning, before breakfast, the National Geographic Islander dropped anchor at Espumilla Beach. Here, we took our Zodiacs to go ashore and explore this site. The place where we landed is an important sea turtle nesting beach and we found one track from the night before. In the inner part of the trail we walked by a mangrove forest, which made everyone feel like they were inside of a fairytale. We found some Galapàgos hawks guarding a nest with their chicks. Later we came back to the ship and moved to a place called Buccaneer’s Cove. For the very last time on the trip we took the kayaks out and paddled along the coast of this cove which was once used by pirates and whalers. We also had our last opportunity of the trip for deep water snorkelling. The highlight of today’s outing was the baby sea lions that came to play with us under the water.
For a third time the ship moved to another location on Santiago, Puerto Egas. Before the area become protected, it used to have a settlement that worked in a slat mine company. We landed on a black and hot beach where sea lions and iguanas hang out. The trail we took in the interior of the island was full of vegetation that remains dormant during the Galàpagos’ garua (or dry) season. Eventually we reached some lava tunnels that have collapsed over time, and were used by the Galàpagos fur seals when the sealers used to hunt them. Also we found some coastal birds feeding in the tidal pools. But the best surprise of the hike was a recently born baby sea lion that was accompanied by its mother.
