And now for the journey of a lifetime! All four of us had been looking forward to our eight-day cruise around the Galapagos Islands for ages, so it was with great excitement that we boarded the plane to Baltra island early on Monday morning 4 December.
After a stop-over in Guayaquil, Ecuador´s largest city, we landed on Baltra at about 11.30am local time (Galapagos is one hour behind the rest of the country). Along with two other passengers, we were met at the airport by our guide, Fatima, after buying an ultra-pricey DV casette for our camcorder from a stall at the airport: daylight robbery at $18! We reluctantly coughed up, ´cos running out of film in the Galapagos was just not an option...
We were taken by bus down to the harbour, where our motor yacht Spondylus, a refurbished fishing boat, was waiting. At the quayside we had our first glimpse of the archipelago´s ubiquitous residents - two sealions dozing on a wooden bench in the shade, while marine iguanas, pelicans and blue-footed boobies sunning themselves on the black lava rocks.
We were shown our spacious (for a boat) en-suite accommodation, and by 1pm, while the other passengers had lunch, Rich and I were preparing for our first dive! We had booked four dives with the resident dive master aboard Spondylus. Unfortunately, they did not have a wetsuit my size on board, so I ended up not diving, but Rich went for his first plunge at Daphne Rock... talk about being thrown into the deep end, literally! While the divers were down, the rest of us watched soaring frigatebirds, tropicbirds and playful sealions around Daphne Rock. Rich was exhausted and freezing when he returned - due to cold currents, the seas around Galapagos are hardly tropical, in fact the temperatures we encountered on our dives were between 16 and 18C.
In the mid-afternoon, Spondylus sailed on to the northern shore of Santa Cruz, the second biggest island in the archipelago. Here we made our first landing ashore, at Bachas Beach; a stroll along its white sand brought us within arm´s reach of marine iguanas, pelicans, blue-footed boobies and bright red and blue Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttling on the rocks. By a small lagoon we watched two flamingoes wading gracefully... ah, on our first day in paradise we simply couldn´t believe our eyes! In the evening, our boat sailed on to Rabida island.
On Tuesday 5 December, we made an early morning landing on one of Rabida´s beaches - this small cove had pinkish volcanic sand and a thriving sealion colony. We strolled among the smelly beasts, fascinated by how close we could get to them... literally centimetres away from mums and their dewy-eyed pups (without a doubt the cutest critters in the world!). A tiny pup took a particular liking to one of our fellow passengers, Vanessa - he waddled up to her and nuzzled her knee! A fascinating feature of sealion society is the display of the alpha males or ´beach-masters´- the big boys with bumps on their heads - who obsessively patrol their patch of beach from the shallow water, barking all the time.
At mid-morning, as the others went for a snorkel, Vanessa and I prepared for a dive at Rabida. However, I had to sit it out again... this time I had a leaky BCD, so went for a snorkel instead. I spotted two white-tipped reef sharks, while Rich was treated to the sight of a manta ray! Yes, the marine life of the Galapagos is truly amazing, and no trip would be complete without a few snorkels or dives.
In the late morning, before lunch, the boat sailed on for two hours or so to Bartholomé. On the way there, we saw several manta rays leap clear out of the water, white bellies upwards: a very unusual sight. These sightings turned out to be a promise of things to come... at noon, while the others were having lunch, the divemaster Jorge and I went diving (third time lucky for me) and saw, among other things, a graceful manta up close... what a treat!
In the afternoon, all eight of us passengers hit the water for a pleasant snorkel in Bartholomé´s sheltered bay with white-sand beach, where young sealions were frolicking in the shallow water... here we had our first experience of swimming with them. They´re incredibly playful and really seem to want to engage with snorkelers! It was wonderful to watch them move through the water so gracefully, especially as they are rather clumsy on land. We also got up close to a small Galapagos penguin sunning itself on a rock.
In the late afternoon, we walked up to the highest point on Bartholomé for magnificent views of the lava-hewn moonscape of this relatively young island. It is pock-marked by volcanic craters and supports no plant life other than hardy pioneer cacti. This visit was an interesting insight into the geological processes that created, and continue to shape, the archipelago. At dusk, we enjoyed a dinghy ride to observe penguins and pelicans preparing to roost. In the late evening, we sailed back to the north coast of Santa Cruz where we anchored for the night.
On Wednesday 6 December we awoke to a sunny, clear day and calm waters. After breakfast it was all aboard the dinghy for a tour of Black Turtle Cove, a sheltered and shallow bay surrounded by mangrove forest. Here, rays and marine turtles come to mate, and young sharks are often seen. After a slow start of not spotting much, we spent a magical two hours watching turtles gracefully ´fly´ through the shallow water, and pairs hooking up to mate. We scanned the water expectantly for small round heads as they surfaced for air, and watched in fascination as a pair of turtles (pursued by two other male hopefuls) courted and coupled right beside our boat. What an awesome sight... the slow, deliberate movements of these lumbering creatures are the start of their precarious reproductive cycle; the previous day on Bachas beach we´d seen the vulnerable mounds of white sand that are turtle nests.
At mid-morning, Spondylus cruised through the narrow channel between Baltra and Santa Cruz to Gordon Rocks. Vanessa, Rich, Jorge an I kitted up for a pre-lunch dive at this well-known site. And what a place to dive! The half-moon formation of jagged rocks harbours a wonderful array of marine life. Despite warnings of strong currents, we had no trouble, and enjoyed sightings of hammerhead shark, eagle rays, a playful sealion and beautiful underwater scenery. Definitely our best dive in the Galapagos.
After lunch, we all went ashore to Plaza Sur, a small, flat island off the east coast of Santa Cruz. Here we saw our first land iguanas - big fellows with beautiful yellow to orange colouration. On this fairly desolate island, dominated by giant prickly pear trees and red succulent plants called Sesuvium (creating a marvellous colour contrast), the land iguanas survive by sitting quietly beneath the cactus trees, waiting for a leaf or fruit to drop off. We saw a couple for whom the wait had been too long: thin and weakened, they lay listlessly on the path, at death´s door. We realised that, despite the abundance of life on the sea shores, this is a harsh and inhospitable environment for land animals.
A trail along the clifftops of Plaza Sur took us to a bachelor sealion colony where would-be beach-masters wait their turn and the old boys go to retire. The bachelors all bear scars of vicious territorial battles, some have open wounds. We also observed a small breeding colony of pretty swallow-tail gulls, with bright red beaks, legs and circles around the eye.
In the late afternoon, after returning from Plaza Sur, we sailed on for two hours or so to Puerto Ayora. Along the way, a small pod of pilot whales briefly accompanied the boat. Puerto Ayora, at the southern shore of Santa Cruz, is the largest settlement in the archipelago, with about 10,000 inhabitants. It is a pretty port town in a mangrove-fringed bay. After sunset, we sat on deck and watched the lights of the town and the many other cruise boats anchored in the bay. In the evening after dinner, Peter, Rich, Vanessa, Gerhard and I went ahore for a drink. Vanessa was up for partying, but the rest of us returned to the boat quite early, at about 10pm... our days were so full of new experiences that we needed plenty of sleep!
Thursday was departure day for our four fellow passengers, so in the morning we all went ashore at Puerto Ayora and visited the Darwin Station, just outside town, the base for research and conservation initiatives. Here, we saw representatives from the 14 or so races of gigantic tortoises, the islands´ iconic land animals. By the mid-1900s, when the Galapagos became a national park, several races (often unique to one island) had been hunted to or close to extinction by pirates and traders who stowed them in the holds of their ships for fresh meat on long journeys, or slaughtered them for their fat, processed for lamp-oil.
At the Darwin Station, the egss of near-extinct races are hatched and the young raised to give them a better start in life. They are then returned to their island of origin. The station is also home to the famous Lonesome George, a giant saddleback tortoise and the last of his kind from the island of Pinta. These days, however, he´s not so lonesome - he´s kept company by two female saddlebacks from other islands. They are his closest genetic relatives but, despite encouragement from scientists, George refuses to breed with them.
After the visit to the Station, the others left for the airport and the four of us took a walk along the seashore in an attempt to find a cove of mangroves where, according to a family friend, it is possible to paddle with baby sharks. We didn´t manage to find the cove, but literally stumbled upon a massive ´herd´ of black marine iguanas blocking the path... and they were slow to budge!
By lunchtime, when we returned to the boat, a new intake of passengers had joined - now there were 14 of us. In the afternoon, we boarded a bus for a drive up into the highlands of Santa Cruz, supposedly to see land tortoises in the wild. As it turned out, this meant visiting a farm and strolling through grazing paddocks where the large shapes of tortoises loomed, instead of cattle. The land-owner had given up livestock farming and welcomed wild tortoises to his pastures instead, obviously charging the tourist buses a pretty penny. So not a very wild landscape at all, and unfortunately the visit gave us no flavour of the native plantlife of the highlands. In the evening, we made the long and rather rough passage to Floreana island, about 50 miles to the south.
At 6am on Friday morning, Rich and I were woken up by the divemaster Jorge, who told to kit up for a dive! We hadn´t expected to dive this early - it was our fifth wedding anniversary after all, and our understanding was that we would be doing a dive later that day - but nevertheless we prepared and by 6.15am we were in the water at Champion, a small island just off the coast of Floreana. The dive was nothing remarkable - the interesting things we saw were creolefish waking up from their sleep on the sandy bottom, and a nice big school of barracuda.
Later in the morning we went ashore to Post Office Bay, where an old sailors´ custom of leaving mail in a barrel for collectiion by passing ships is continued to this day... purely for the benefit of tourists, of course. Everyone duly sifted through the hundreds of postcards in the barrel and took what they could deliver in their home towns (needless to say Rich and I did not take any post) and left behind our own mail. A bit naff but fun. The snorkeling around the rocks at Post Office Bay turned out to be brilliant... another session of swimming with playful sealions, and quite a few turtles.
In the afternoon, the boat moved west along the coast of Floreana to Devil´s Crown, a circular rock formation just off the coast. Here we enjoyed more excellent snorkelling, through the water was very cold and the currents quite strong. Unfortunately I was plagued by a stalker in the water... a guy from another boat who insisted on swimming practically on top of me, despite the dirty looks Rich shot at him!
Later in the afternoon, we went ashore again for a walk to a large lagoon, where a number of flamingoes were wading and nesting. At sunset, Jen and Pete brought out a bottle of sparkling wine and the four of us toasted our fifth wedding anniversary, and absent family. After dinner, the boat moved on again, this time in an easterly direction to Española.
Early on Saturday morning we landed at Punta Suarez on Española for a walk on this amazing peninsula. It is the favoured breeding ground of masked booby and wavy albatross - we strolled on a clifftop path, with booby nests at our feet and fearless birds calmly incubating eggs and nurturing fluffy white hatchlings. It really is true that none of the Galapagos animals display any fear of humans... it seems almost unnatural to be able to wander so close to nesting birds. Most of the albatross breeding pairs had departed already, but we did spot a couple of large chicks and their enormous parents.
At mid-morning the boat moved east to Gardner Bay, where Rich and I made our final dive. This was a really disappointing one... Jorge took us down in the middle of a channel between to islands - nothing down there besides a sandy bottom with some turtles. Well, admittedly there were about 15 turtles, but nothing else. In the last minutes of the dive we came to a rocky ridge... we suspect that this is where he´d planned to bring us at the start, but that he´d missed the point of entry. Oh well, it didn´t help that we battled to communicate... he had about three words of English and we were struggling along with an equal amount of Spanish!
The afternoon´s snorkelling in the bay, however, proved to be much more fruitful. The highlight was a large ´flock´ of golden cow rays, about 15 of them, gracefully flying through the water (see photo). We managed to follow and watch them for about 20 minutes... what a special sight.
That evening, our crossing to San Cristobal was delayed by engine trouble, but the ship´s mechanic managed to fix the problem and we were underway at about 9pm. The next day, Sunday, was to be our final day in the Galapagos, so we were all secretly hoping the problem would not be fixed so that we could stay a day or two longer!
On Sunday, we went ashore at Puerto Moreno on San Cristobal for a visit to the national park interpretation centre, which provided an interesting insight especially into the history of human exploitation of the Galapagos. The town itself is pretty dull, nowhere near as attractive as Puerto Ayora, so we were pleased to get back on board and continue on our way to Santa Fé, to the west.
Here, in the afternoon, we did probably the most fascinating snorkelling of all. In a bay sheltered by a natural breakwater of black lava rock, our whole group took to the water together and were delighted to find the place teeming with white-tipped reef sharks! We found them resting on the bottom, in ones, two and threes, and languidly swimming off once the stares of human admirers or the roar of a dinghy engine started to unnerve them.
In the mid-afternoon we went ashore, to a white beach populated by (guess who...) sealions, and walked along a path in search of the pale-coloured land iguanas of Santa Fé. The dinghy-ride back to the boat at dusk was simply magical, as we were surrounded by sharks in the water, pelicans and boobies perching on the rocks.
That afternoon, as on every other day, we were simply in awe of the sheer numbers of animals inhabiting the shores of these arid islands. All around, no matter where one looks, life is played out in close-up detail and colour... it´s like stepping right into the pages of National Geographic. The experience is almost too vivid for the human miund to comprehend. In a way, it makes one feel alien on this planet... we realised that, as humans, our understanding of the richness of life is so narrow.
Monday, our final morning, dawned too soon, and we made a very early start for a visit to North Seymour, where giant black frigate-birds nest. Here, we saw several males displaying their characteristic balloon - the bright red membrane beneath the beak which they inflate to impress the ladies during mating season. It's huge and certainly eye-catching!
We returned reluctantly to the boat at about 8am and packed our stuff. By 9.30 we were on our way to the airport, and reflected on the fact that it felt like we'd been in the Galapagos for way more than seven days! A week filled with so many new and dazzling sights can feel like a month. This had certainly been one of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences, and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have gone. Here's hoping that the protection of the islands' natural richness will remain a top priority of the Ecuadorian government...
More thumbnails ...
11 votes 
This is a top pick!
