Royal Palms Santa Cruz

... and all the latest gadgets to drive and navigate. Inside the cabin were large windows through which you could look and minimize the seasickness. It had a huge bow which sliced through the waves rather than the bouncing effect we had experienced with other recent trips. We sped along at close to 30knots and arrived at Floreana about 2 hours later. <br><br>Floreana had a small community, there were about two dozen houses, a hotel which was by ...

... 5 metres. She was so fast. There was a school of fish in amongst us and she looked like she was rounding them up like a sheepdog, occasionally hovering on the surface and then diving in, and swimming around and amongst us. I again snapped photographs, trying to line up taking a photograph with the Penguin swimming close to one of the others. The Penguin stayed with us for the entire time we were at the bay. Christie and I decided to swim along the rock face to deeper waters and ...

... would have been a seriously challenging journey by bike for the kids. <br><br>Back in town the sun was shining. We headed for a café called the Bamboo Café which offered Vegetarian lunch options and filled our hungry bellies. We decided to make use of the bikes and cycle back to the Darwin Research Station, we knew that there was a beach somewhere there as we had seen guys with surfboards heading there.<br><br>We got to the research station and found a pathway leading around ...

... salt lake where the pathway became more challenging. Lava rocks were not level here and it was necessary to negotiate your footing. Christie, Jody and Niamh were in thongs, so our progress was slow. It took about another 10minutes before we arrived at Las Grietas.<br><br>Las Grietas was a small gorge of about 10metres wide, 100 metres long and about 15metres deep from the surface of the water to the bottom. The sides of the gorge were almost vertical ...

... to where the runners were going to do a loop. We were able to ascertain that the start of the run came down the hill towards the town, out of sight to most spectators, and once in town the runners would enter a section where they would loop around three times and then would sprint the final 100 metres to the finish. We were now witness to a bizarre sequence of events.<br><br>A young lady probably in her early twenties, an official of the race, stood at the turning point. We ...

... fact about the islands are how the animals came to be. Because the islands came from volcanoes they are not at all connected to another land mass and therefore animals who live there now either had to raft over on bits and pieces of wood, fly, or swim over. The flightless coromorat originally flew over, but over time lost its ability to fly. <br><br>We also saw the yellow land iguana and watched as the ...

So today we got up and walked to a local place to have breakfast. I got this meat with an egg and a plantain ball with cheese. It was pretty nice, little did i know what was going to happen. We went to the charles darwin centre, this is where i first noticed a problem, i had the runs. Over the course of the day it got worse antill it was just the water coming straight back out. Interesting ...

So today we got up early and went out scuba diving. The dive site was about an hour away, at some rocks about a km out from shore. on the way there there was this israelly boy who had cut the neck out of a shirt so it looked like a girl cut and looked incredibly gay. He was also wearing short shorts and his nut would flop out quite often. I got pictures ill put up sometime :D. The first dive we did wasnt incredibly ...

... for or how we were to get on the ship. So it worked out very nicely. Our group walked, luggage and all, for 20 minutes to get to the Charles Darwin Research Station. This is where we all stayed that night. We went for a late lunch in town and then dispersed to do different things for the remainder of the day. I did some shopping and some exploring. I saw a sea lion which was really cool! It was ...

... incredible eagle rays....but I'm glad to make our final re-embarkation to Adventure V. I'm irritated to be rushed off the boat when we were told we would have lots of time in the morning to pack. I am packed but was hoping to enjoy a last bit of time on board in the sun. Instead we are whisked off to the airport where we will sit in the heat for 3 hours before our flight. At this point I don't ...