Today after a beautiful sunrise we found ourselves anchored next to the southern coast of Santiago Island close to Sombrero Chino Islet. After a delightful breakfast our morning adventure started with a panga (Zodiac) ride to observe the geology and wildlife of this area. Our guests were impressed by the interesting small volcanic cones that covered the landscape. At this point our guest had the chance to learn about the interesting geological formation of the Galapagos Islands. During the ride we encountered a fair amount of Galapagos sea lion pups that were playing next to the shore, Lava herons and a graceful Great blue heron that was fishing next to the coast. After our costal exploration everybody got back to the National Geographic Islander and immediately got ready to snorkel. The snorkeling adventure was very fun since we encountered a great diversity of fish including Blue chin parrotfish, Pacific creole fish, Scissor tailed damselfish, Black striped salemas and a couple of White tip reef sharks. After snorkeling and before lunch we had time to enjoy a tiny, but very pretty white sand beach. Then it was time for lunch so we headed back onboard.
Right after lunch the guests of the National Geographic Islander had the chance to ask questions about photography, as they had a session with one of our photo instructors, and to attend a talk given by one of the members of the exploration team on Charles Darwin and his visit to the Galapagos Islands.
The action began again at 16:00 with three groups of nature hikers that went ashore to explore a remarkable lava flow which is a little more than a hundred years old. This extensive area on Santiago Island is known as Sullivan Bay. At this site everybody had the chance to hike over patches of smooth “pahoehoe” or ropy lava and we avoided the sharp and cracked patches of “aa” lava. At the end of the hike our guests got really close to cinder and spatter cones and of course learned about their interesting formation process. It was already 18:00, so we returned to the National Geographic Islander to get ready for dinner.
