We started our day of exploration with an early Zodiac ride along the coast of Chinese Hat Islet and Santiago Island. The morning was very calm and as we looked at the different volcanic formations we got to see a lonely Yellow-crowned night heron looking for food along the cliffs. The Galapagos sea lions were also seen resting on the rocks and under some bushes. An exciting moment was to find a Stripe belly puffer fish being taken by a couple of playful juvenile Galapagos sea lions as a toy to play with. By the looks of it the sea lions had more fun than the puffer fish, which by then was tossed around like a balloon. These sea lions gave a very entertaining show.
After this ride we returned aboard to have breakfast and later on we went snorkeling from the Zodiacs. This area has several species of fish and we saw a great variety while snorkeling. Along the coast of Santiago there were stingrays, parrot fish, king angel fish, razor tailed surgeon fish, white tipped reef sharks, and some of our guests even encountered Galapagos penguins in the water and briefly swam with them.
In the afternoon and after a short navigation we arrived at Santiago Island. The area we explored this afternoon was the eastern shore. We landed in Sullivan Bay and hiked on a lava flow from 1897. The volcanic formations here are astonishing and everything looks arid with only two species of plants found around the area: the lava cactus and mollugo. The young age of the flow and the little erosion has preserved the shapes of ropes in the black lava quite well. In another area we got to see where the newer lava was layered over the old rusty lava and the landscape was impressive and magnificent.
