Sombrero Chino And Santiago Islands
The National Geographic Islander navigated this morning by the Bainbridge Islets and close to Sombrero Chino Island, our destination. This is a parasitic cone that formed in a later time from Santiago Island magmatic chamber. Santiago is facing this island, and they’re less than a mile apart. Hiking here offered us the opportunity of enjoying a remarkable lava flow that’s a little more than a hundred years old.
We started our morning with a hike along the coastline and against the framework of a blunt landscape born of fire. Others preferred a Zodiac ride, in search of the famous Galápagos penguins and some other shore birds. Then we devoted the rest of the morning to deep-water snorkeling and swimming.
The channel that separates Sombrero Chino from Santiago, with thinner and turquoise waters is considered one of the best spots to see marine iguanas feeding underwater, along with hundreds of fish such as yellow tailed razor fish, black stripped salema, rainbow wrasse, and parrotfish, and more.
After lunch, our naturalist Giancarlo took us to explore the interesting underwater life of islands, where we discovered the strange characters who play the submarine history of Galápagos: the sea lions. As we repositioned our ship towards the east coast of Santiago, we anchored at Sullivan Bay.
The idea was to walk over a new lava field that contained smooth “Pahoe-hoe” or ropy lava, broken up “aa” lava, cinder cones, spatter cones, hornitos, and Pelé’s hair. A photo group was organized to take advantage of this extraordinary location. Our Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic guests had a great afternoon in the Galapagos’ most scenic setting.
That was another day in paradise…
