For our early morning pre breakfast outing, we landed on dark reddish colored sand at Espumilla Beach, on Santiago or James Island. As we walked up to the dunes we could see a forest of bottom mangroves that protect the area and give shelter to the nests of the pacific green sea turtles.
As we walked among this forest, the early morning light gave the path a striking touch. We could smell the vegetation as we started walking among the oldest forest of Palo Santo trees found in the Galapagos. Being old, they are also the tallest trees that we have seen so far in our expedition. Mockingbirds and finches were busy looking for food and kept us looking around in all directions. It was beautiful to be able to walk along the woods in the Galapagos and hear the sound of birds singing along the trail.
After breakfast the National Geographic Endeavour repositioned. Some went kayaking along the cliff of Buccaneers cove, the magnificence of this cliff is the home of the brown noddies and the swallow tail gulls. Snorkeling was great too, schools of yellow tail surgeon fish, king angels and some white tip sharks enlightened the morning and made us very happy.
Puerto Egas in the afternoon was an interesting place, we walked along the tidal pools where sea lions could be found playing or just waiting for their mamas to come back and feed them. The marine iguanas basking along the coast share their habitat with migratory birds. The fur sea lions that like the rocky areas were magical to see, we could not believe how close one can get to these creatures and how still some of them remain as we photograph them.
As we walked back to the ship at sunset we could not feel any happier, we have had the privilege to share these islands with their inhabitants that always made us feel as part of their own world… what an experience!
