Bartolomé & Sombrero Chino
Early in the morning we disembarked at Bartolomé Island for a 372-stair walk to the top; the first group 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. Today we had a gentle warm breeze as the sun was rising between the puffy cumulus nimbus clouds. 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. Some of us were lucky to see Galápagos penguins, diamond sting rays, sea lions and white-tipped reef sharks. As soon as we were all back on board we started navigating to our next destination, Sombrero Chino.
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: white-tipped reef shark, parrot fish, king angels, black-striped salemas, sergeant majors and many others. 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.
This week we have enjoyed with our guests many beautiful days, and every day we had a different experience – this was truly a “journey of discovery”. We began our voyage by observing blue-footed boobies, iguanas and frigatebirds. But our guests didn’t know that over the course of the next several days, our experience in Galápagos was going to change; it was just hard to imagine how this day could be topped.
I remember when we explored San Cristobal in the afternoon with dramatic landscapes; eroded volcanic ash foundations which once were impressive “tuff cones” are now theatrical formations; then a relaxing walk over a mile-long white sandy beach surrounded by turquoise water, all of us watching as the sun set with an array of red and orange colors.
Next we visited Española Island, an island full of birds and reptiles; everyone enjoyed every minute on this island, watching the passivity of these creatures with no fear.
Then we went to Floreana, where we went swimming with the sea lions and walking to see flamingos. Our days then changed by visiting Santa Cruz Island where we saw the world-famous giant tortoises and the land iguanas.
Bartolomé Island is very well known for the most beautiful landscapes of this archipelago.
We leave the southern hemisphere islands as untouched as we encountered them on our first day. We take with us only photos and great memories of this part of the archipelago.
We are all ready for bedtime as the ocean rocks us to sleep while the ship sails to our next and last destination in the northern hemisphere, Genovesa Island; this one is for the birds, and I mean more than a million seabirds call this place home.
Stay tuned, my dear reader; more to come tomorrow and I already know this expedition will remain in our hearts for a lifetime.
