We woke up around 6 am and saw beautiful weather outside. We were ready for our first outing of the day, which consisted of visiting the coast of Chinese Hat and Santiago by Zodiac and kayak to explore the shores of these two island in search of wildlife. The landscape was outstanding here, too.
The most amazing part of the expedition were birds on a feeding frenzy as the fish were abundant. Among all those birds were the unique Galapagos penguins that, while we were there, never stopped eating fish.
After this we returned to the ship for breakfast and then changed and got ready for snorkeling at around the same area where we took the Zodiac ride, so we were already familiar with this location. As soon as we entered the water we marveled at the exquisite creatures at this site. There was an endless number of species from almost all of the groups of underwater life. Just to mention a few, there were sharks, rays, parrot fish, sea stars, and many others.
This was just an unbelievable outing that concluded with the visit to a small, white sand beach on Chinese Hat just to chill out. Sea lions came to say hello.
A little before lunch we navigated close to a nearby island with a brackish water lagoon where flamingoes can be seen very often. We were lucky enough to see quite a few of them.
We navigated to our next destination called Sullivan bay which is mostly fresh pahoehoe lava formed about the year 1897. The lava allows us to witness the process of the colonization of plants and animals of a newly formed place. This lava has incredible shapes and it is so amazing to walk on a place like this. Animals like lava lizards and plants like the lave cactus are among the very few that can sustain life in this barren environment.
