Santa Cruz and North Seymour
We did indeed rock and roll along last night, so when I gave the early wake-up call, our guests were reluctant to leave their warm beds. After some breakfast snacks and coffee/tea in the lounge, we disembarked, carefully and safely, into the wildly bouncing Zodiacs and motored to the main dock of the bustling port town of Puerto Ayora. We boarded buses and drove through the rain and then garua (wet mist) into the lush highlands of Santa Cruz Island. Stopping briefly at the restaurant of El Chato farm, we switched out of our shoes and into black rubber boots and were soon hiking through grassy pastures, searching for and counting giant tortoises. We were free to roam and many of us found a tortoise of our own to study and photograph. There were a couple dozen tortoises, and some were huge in size, hidden among the grasses and shrubs. Several were still in their beds, others were munching on vegetation or lumbering slowly along, and one was wading and drinking in a muddy pool. A mother white-cheeked pintail duck kept watch as her six tiny ducklings paddled furiously around this pond, nibbling and snapping at tidbits of food invisible to us.
Our buses took us to the dark entrance of a lava tunnel. Most of us descended a slippery set of wooden stairs and hiked a quarter of a mile along under ground through the tunnel.
We conveniently climbed out alongside the restaurant where a bountiful breakfast buffet was laid out. Boarding the buses again, we returned to the port and spent the next hour and a half shopping and/or visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station. By noon we were all safely on the Islander while we had lunch and then a siesta, the ship moved north to our afternoon visitor site at North Seymour.
Wind, waves and salt spray combined to make for an exciting disembarkation from ship to Zodiac and from Zodiac to lava rocks, but we all made it unscathed to shore. The afternoon’s walk, among the lava boulders and along the sandy shoreline of this small island, was amazing. We were delighted to find male frigate birds courting close to our trail. Red balloon gular pouches inflated, they throw back their heads, spread out their wings, and coo and quiver at females passing overhead. We found land iguanas and the charming and ubiquitous sea lions of which we never tire. Watching them playing, nursing and surfing as the golden sun set behind the tuff cone crater of Daphne Major Island, was an enchanting finale to a fabulous day.
We did indeed rock and roll along last night, so when I gave the early wake-up call, our guests were reluctant to leave their warm beds. After some breakfast snacks and coffee/tea in the lounge, we disembarked, carefully and safely, into the wildly bouncing Zodiacs and motored to the main dock of the bustling port town of Puerto Ayora. We boarded buses and drove through the rain and then garua (wet mist) into the lush highlands of Santa Cruz Island. Stopping briefly at the restaurant of El Chato farm, we switched out of our shoes and into black rubber boots and were soon hiking through grassy pastures, searching for and counting giant tortoises. We were free to roam and many of us found a tortoise of our own to study and photograph. There were a couple dozen tortoises, and some were huge in size, hidden among the grasses and shrubs. Several were still in their beds, others were munching on vegetation or lumbering slowly along, and one was wading and drinking in a muddy pool. A mother white-cheeked pintail duck kept watch as her six tiny ducklings paddled furiously around this pond, nibbling and snapping at tidbits of food invisible to us.
Our buses took us to the dark entrance of a lava tunnel. Most of us descended a slippery set of wooden stairs and hiked a quarter of a mile along under ground through the tunnel.
We conveniently climbed out alongside the restaurant where a bountiful breakfast buffet was laid out. Boarding the buses again, we returned to the port and spent the next hour and a half shopping and/or visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station. By noon we were all safely on the Islander while we had lunch and then a siesta, the ship moved north to our afternoon visitor site at North Seymour.
Wind, waves and salt spray combined to make for an exciting disembarkation from ship to Zodiac and from Zodiac to lava rocks, but we all made it unscathed to shore. The afternoon’s walk, among the lava boulders and along the sandy shoreline of this small island, was amazing. We were delighted to find male frigate birds courting close to our trail. Red balloon gular pouches inflated, they throw back their heads, spread out their wings, and coo and quiver at females passing overhead. We found land iguanas and the charming and ubiquitous sea lions of which we never tire. Watching them playing, nursing and surfing as the golden sun set behind the tuff cone crater of Daphne Major Island, was an enchanting finale to a fabulous day.
