Today we visited the northwestern coast of Santa Cruz Island and landed on a site known as Dragon’s Hill, where we enjoyed a hike from the coastal zone area to the dry forest. On our hike, we spotted several Galapagos land iguanas, marine iguanas, pelicans, great blue heron, Darwin finches, and Galapagos mockingbirds. Afterwards, we returned to National Geographic Endeavour II to prepare for snorkeling along the walls of Guy Fawkes Islet, where we found several species of fish, sea stars, sea urchins, and sponges. On this perfect sunny morning, some guests prefer to spend time in a nearby beach, enjoying the bright turquoise water.
Back onboard, we had an Ecuadorian typical lunch with food from the highlands and the coastal regions of our country. We also spent some time cruising in our Zodiacs, where we spotted blue-footed boobies, pelicans, Pacific green sea turtles, and a mangrove nursery area for baby black-tipped reef sharks. We ended our day with a colorful sunset by Daphne Major, where we spotted many birds and learned about the incredible scientific work carried out by scientists Peter and Rosemary Grant on Darwin finches. This was another wonderful day in paradise onboard National Geographic Endeavour II.
