Urvina Bay & Punta Moreno
Today we arrived at the "belly" of Isabela Island’s sea horse shape. It was an incredible landscape for geological exploration. We landed at Urbina Bay, where we started our walk along the coast in the company of flightless cormorants and Sally Lightfoot crabs, heading along an uplifted section of the coast, over 3 miles long. While we dried our feet and put on our shoes, an inquisitive juvenile Galápagos hawk perched on top of the Galápagos National Park marker stared, unimpressed by our presence.
There were thousands of marine invertebrate remains along the shore, proof of the cataclysmic event that took place here, in 1954. After visiting old coral heads, admiring large, colorful land iguanas and surviving the heat of the inland trail, we returned to the beach. Most of us then chose to swim or simply enjoyed the sand and the refreshing breeze of this beautiful place.
As we were having lunch, we sailed southwards, to Punta Moreno. This is the most amazing place to explore young expanses of lava. Many animals and plants have adapted to this lava rock desert, and in several brackish water pools that are fed from cracks to the sea, we saw lush vegetation and pink flamingos. From the Zodiacs we saw spotted eagle rays, penguins, sea turtles and flightless cormorants as well.
This evening’s lovely sunset was a gift!
