Santiago Island
Our day started very early today with a hike on Espumilla Beach. After navigating the whole night our ship anchored in front of this paradisiacal location that has many attractions: a magnificent sea turtle white nesting beach, a thick mangrove forest, a shallow lagoon and an extraordinary view from the top of a small hill that crowns the trail. All over the trail we observed huge mature “Palo santo” trees (Bursera sp.) that are home for many land birds like the world renowned Darwin finches that were seen everywhere.
During breakfast, National Geographic Islander was repositioned to Buccaneer Cove. This location was once upon a time a favorite site for pirates and privateers therefore, the peculiar name has its origin in the many buccaneers that roamed around this cove. These early visitors found not only calm anchorages but plenty provisions in the form of fresh water, firewood, and unfortunately plenty of giant tortoises’ meat as well. Luckily all these years of merciless exploitation are long gone; nowadays Santiago Island is under the protection and management of the Galápagos National Park Service in order to preserve the islands’ ecosystems. Santiago Island is for our company, Lindblad Expeditions; a very special one for it was adopted in the recent past in order to provide vital funds that helped with the successful complete eradication of feral pigs and goats from the island.
After breakfast we had a couple of options to explore the rocky coast, kayaking or Zodiac rides. We all had a great time covered by the impressive sighting of the high tuff cliffs and the caves of the area. After these activities and, once equipped, many of us went to snorkel in the Cove. Today it was excellent, many colorful tropical fish species and several Galápagos sea lions were seen. This morning, with the help of the low tide we even had the time to explore some small caves that were exposed. We were all back by noon after spending a busy but outstanding morning!
After lunch I had the pleasure to talk to our guests about one of my favorite subjects — Charles Darwin. In the presentation I made a retrospective of his extraordinary life, the voyage of the Beagle and the prolific connotations of his thinking. Just after I finished we disembarked once again, this time we went to Puerto Egas. We had a long but rewarding walk along the coastline after landing at a black beach.
The walk follows a tuff path adjacent to the shore that is full of lava indentations. Many shore birds and Galápagos fur seals were the highlights among the extraordinary geological setting characteristic of this location. Vibrant colored Sally lightfoot crabs against the black lava, Lava herons chasing them, invertebrates in the tidal pools, elegant-looking Yellow crowned Night herons, American oystercatchers with chicks, Brown pelicans and Galápagos sea lions and Galápagos fur seals here and there. The afternoon’s light was extraordinary for photography as well. This magical warm light intensely enhanced textures and colors. As the day was finally coming to an end we returned to the ship with the company of the last sunrays of the day.
