Today, the National Geographic Endeavour dropped anchor at Cerro Dragon, a place located on the north-western coast of Santa Cruz Island. On this visitor site had a closer encounter with the endemic land iguanas. Considering that the population of land iguanas was strongly affected by humans in the last century, this was a great opportunity to witness the effects of a long-term conservation program leaded by the Galapagos National Park in coordination with the Charles Darwin Research Station, this place has changed so much since the 1970s, back on those days we would have witnessed a large numbers of feral cats, cattle, goats and donkeys. Today, most of these introduced species have been eradicated, which allowed the Galapagos National Park Service to reintroduce a group of endemic land iguanas who have successful repopulate the area. However, we learnt about the constant challenges of controlling invasive species, and how local and international experts are constantly improving their techniques for such a monumental task.  To finish this exciting morning, for lunch, our experienced local chefs prepared an Ecuadorian feast with a wide variety of local delicacies. I have to admit, this is my favorite menu of the week, a combination of coastal and highlands dishes. Quite fascinating!

Later on, we moved south to a scenic area of the east coast of Santa Cruz. Here, in El Eden, some of our younger explorers had the opportunity to take Zodiac-driving lessons, learning how to drive a zodiac becomes exciting, especially with the assistance of experience zodiac driver and a naturalist.  Some of us chose instead to go on a zodiac ride outing along the coast of Santa Cruz Island. We spotted a few blue footed boobies fishing, brown pelicans, striated herons, magnificent frigate birds, small black-tipped sharks within the mangrove protected areas,  as well as an amazing scenic view mixed of all colors and contrast.

After our outings, we had a wine tasting sunset time aboard our mother vessel while navigating right along Daphne Major and Daphne Minor islets.