Punta Pitt and Leon Dormido
With the first lights of the morning we arrived at Punta Pitt on San Cristobal Island. We headed ashore for a fast walk at the base of an ancient cinder cone. As we climbed up along a dry creek, we found some endemic San Cristobal lava lizards, a San Cristobal mockingbird imitating the call of smooth billed Ani, and also some Darwin finches.
As some of the first rains are just beginning, the vegetation is still dry but will become green and lush in just a couple weeks or less. As we reached the middle of our trail we saw some red-footed boobies flying and a couple of active nests. The adults are very colorful with blue beaks and have two morphotypes: one is brown and the other white. Both types were observed flying together with some frigates and Nazca boobies along the cliffs. Some of our guests opted for a Zodiac ride around this same region and they encountered several sea lions basking under the sun as well as tropicbirds, frigates, boobies, and brown noddy terns.
After a refreshing swim we returned aboard for lunch and while we were sailing towards Leon Dormido we observed some Nazca boobies fishing as well as several green sea turtles resting on the surface of the sea. As we arrived to Leon Dormido we went snorkeling around this islet and it was a great final snorkeling outing. We were able to swim with Galápagos sharks, green sea turtles, and many different species of fish.
After snorkeling we returned to our ship and navigated around Leon Dormido and had a better view of this rock during sunset. Leon Dormido is well known for its unique beauty and because several kinds of seabirds nest here.
