Santa Cruz Island, 12/14/2021, National Geographic Endeavour II
Aboard the
National Geographic Endeavour II
Galápagos
Santa Cruz Island, the second largest in this archipelago, is a great place to
observe different vegetation zones. This morning, we traveled from the arid
zone to the scalesia zone, which features giant trees endemic to this area.
Walter was born in a very small town on the mainland of Ecuador. His first trip to the Galápagos was when he was 12 years old, visiting friends and aunt, who had moved to the islands. From the first moment he saw the Islands, he fell in love with the...
It was our first full day in the Galapagos, and we started our exploration with Española Island, on the southeastern side of the archipelago. The first visitor site, Gardner Bay, has a mile-long sandy beach with turquoise waters, which provided a perfect opportunity for snorkeling. Here, we also enjoyed observing a variety of wildlife, like mockingbirds and the Galapagos sea lion. Soon after we were all back onboard, we had lunch and repositioned to Punta Suarez for a walk to search for the famous waved albatross. Today they were incubating their eggs, and soon we’ll have little chicks all over the island. We also had an opportunity to take a shorter walk, enjoying baby sea lions, turtles, and much more. We were welcomed by wildlife with no fear…and our expedition story has just begun.
Today we had the wonderful opportunity to explore two islands in the central region of Galapagos. During the morning, we explored Rabida Island and, in the afternoon, Santiago Island. Rabida Island is the red island, and we had our kayaks deployed to look for wildlife and we marveled at the landscape. This morning, some of our guests had the chance to walk along the coast, and they encountered a flamboyant of flamingoes feeding on brine shrimp by the lagoon. After breakfast we went snorkeling from the red sand beach of Rabida where we encountered sharks, fish of several species, and some Galapagos marine iguanas warming up under the sun. This afternoon, we walked along the trail of Puerto Egas and enjoyed the nice breeze and the color of the sky at the end of the day.
Today we explored one of the oldest islands in the archipelago, Hood Island. We began before breakfast with a wet landing at Gardner Bay and spent time observing Galapagos sea lions, and the light was great for photography. After breakfast, we returned to Gardner Bay to swim and snorkel from the shore and along the coast of Gardner Islet. We had a great final snorkeling outing and found several juvenile Galapagos sea lions, fish of many different species, as well as sea stars, sea urchins, and coral. This afternoon, we hiked along the trail of Punta Suarez and had an incredible time observing one of the largest birds in the archipelago, the beautiful Galapagos waved albatross. There were also blue-footed boobies, and Nazca boobies all along the path.
