Dragon Hill and Daphne Islet
The day is sunny; the vegetation along the coast is very green, but behind it is gray. We feel like it is the end of the cold dry season in Galapagos. Today we are on Dragon Hill, a place located at the north of Santa Cruz Island; this visitor site is well known for land iguanas called “small dragons”, and therefore the island’s name.
Our anxious travelers were ready at 8 o‘clock to disembark for a walk. It is halfway through the week and we are having an amazing trip. Our guests know every day is an adventure looking for new creatures and having more fun than the day before. Our dry landing took place on black lava. A few steps ahead a white coral sandy beach was covered by ghost crabs and Sally Lightfoot crabs; two of the most famous crustaceous living on the islands. Along the coast, pelicans and blue-footed boobies were busy catching fish, they needed a good breakfast like the one we had on board.
The opuntia cacti here are incredible, they have developed a great adaption, having very long-stiff needles to avoid predation by land iguanas. It is not a coincidence that on the islands where there are no tortoises or land iguanas that the cacti have very small-soft spines; so soft that you can pet them without a problem.
Behind the forest of cacti there is a brackish water lagoon, we found flamingos feeding on shrimps. They were so close that we got great pictures. Also in the lagoon, we observed black neck common stilts, pintails and lava gulls. Once in land, the land iguanas were warming up to start the day. They feed on the prickly pear cacti, eat flowers and sometimes insects, when there is a lack of vegetation. Uphill, the view is beautiful, far in the distance the National Geographic Endeavour looks glorious. On our way back after a two hour walk we found finches and mockingbirds. These birds reminded us that this is the land of Darwin, the land that inspired him to write the famous book On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection in 1836, one year after he visited the Islands.
Later we went snorkeling to enjoy the biodiversity of Galapagos marine life. It was a deep water snorkel and moved along a wall that had many kinds of corals, sea fans, fishes, marine turtles and some playful sea lions. It was a great end for a great morning!
In the afternoon we circumnavigated Daphne Islet, a very old tuff cone standing in the middle of the ocean. We got together on the bow of our ship and had champagne on the house, to celebrate a very enjoyable day. As always, the sunset came very fast, five minutes later the full moon covered the orange-blue sky.
