Before breakfast we started our day with a Zodiac ride along the Coast of Santiago Island. The coastline has a large black lava flow that occurred 117 years ago. During our Zodiac adventure we spotted striated herons, sea lions and Galapagos penguins fishing and basking on the lava fields. One of the striated herons was very friendly and landed on our Zodiac allowing us to take great photos. After a while the same heron took a tour and landed on the second and third Zodiacs, too! It provided an amazing morning show for our guests.
The Galapagos penguin is the only penguin found in the northern hemisphere, over the equator line and it’s also the third smallest penguin in the world. This morning we found a few penguins on the lava rocks and others were fishing.
After the ride we decided to jump in the blue water and go snorkeling to explore the magic of the Galapagos Ocean and its wonders. During our snorkeling outing we spotted a large variety of fish, colorful marine invertebrates and were lucky enough to spot a couple of Galapagos penguins in the water swimming right next to us. A couple of white tip reef sharks were also spotted.
After lunch, we had a dry landing on Sullivan bay, a barren and pristine visitor site on Santiago Island. The hike in the afternoon allowed us to feel like we traveled back in time, to explore Galapagos how the islands were before they had a several varieties of mega fauna and a complex ecosystem well established on them. It was a good taste of what primary succession looks like within island ecosystems and very young volcanic landscapes.
We finished our day with a beautiful sunset and barbeque on the top deck of the National Geographic Islander with all of us looking forward to the rest of our Galapagos adventures.
