In the early hours of the day, we arrived to the west coast of Santiago Island. We started our day with a pre-breakfast walk on Espumilla Beach. This area is one of the most important nesting sites for the Pacific green sea turtle, and we even encountered one female trying to return to the water after laying eggs in her nest. As the frequent rains this year have brought a good amount of water to a lagoon, we were surrounded by green, dense vegetation during our short walk, and we were joined by lots of finches, flycatchers and mockingbirds singing all along the trail.
After this walk, we returned aboard to go to Buccaneer’s Cove, where we went on snorkeling and kayaking excursions, and also had also the opportunity to use our glass-bottom boat. This morning we were very lucky, as a small pod of orcas showed up in the bay for a few minutes! We saw a couple of females and two juveniles which were swimming towards the area our ship was anchored. We were amazed to see this mighty predator in such a playful mood.
Later in the day, we left Buccaneer’s Cove and went to Puerto Egas. This afternoon we went ashore to the beach, for snorkeling and swimming. We also had a great walk on a black lava flow that contrasted with the white color sand and the big blue waves breaking all along the coast. We encountered Galapagos sea lions, fur seals and several marine iguanas resting on the warm lava rocks. It was a great way to end our day on Santiago Island, after observing the many endemic species of plants and animals of the Galapagos Islands.
