Bartolomé & Sombrero Chino Islands

What a wonderful time we had today!

Early in the morning we disembarked at Bartolomé Island for a 372-stair walk to the top; the first group had went “non-stop-to-the-top” and the subsequent groups took an easier pace. We call this place “the open book for geology,” as we can see different pyroclastic material from young volcanoes to volcanic ash. Once we reached the highest point, we saw the impressive view: the world-famous Pinnacle Rock was in front of us, surrounded by several parasitic cones. What a great sight!

After a well-deserved breakfast on board, we approached a superb shoreline for our water activities: glass-bottom boating and deep water snorkeling, or swimming and relaxing on the beach. Today the warm equatorial sun kept us happier for it shone displays of colors all around us. Some of us were lucky to see Galápagos penguins and white tipped reef sharks. As soon as we were all back on board we started navigating to our next destination, Sombrero Chino.

Meanwhile, Naturalist Aura Banda gave us an impressive talk about the human history of the Galápagos, dancing donkey and all.

Our first activity in the afternoon was snorkeling in a small channel between Chinese Hat and Santiago’s coast. This snorkeling site was very different from the one this morning, yet it also had great underwater wildlife: golden grouper, white-tipped reef shark, parrot fishes, king angels, black-striped salemas, sergeant majors and many others; overall, I think, the highlight were the penguins, who were very difficult to find, but finally at the end just when the sun was setting they appeared swimming, headed to their favorite rock, and one by one until their were finally six, they showed up posing for all of us as a “grand finale” for the day. We were simply taken by this event, a moment in life we will never forget.

We headed back on board as the sun set, and shared our photos and talked about the highlights of our expedition over an outdoor barbeque dinner.

We are all ready for bedtime as the ocean rocked us to sleep while the ship sailed to our next and last destination in the northern hemisphere.